The Thought That Counted

By Peggy Noll • Illustrated by Susan Spellman

When my grandma lived with us, everything was not as nice as it seems on TV shows and in books. My grandma didn’t smile much or bake gingersnap cookies. No. My grandma sat in her wheelchair all day long. When my kitten meowed, she yelled at him, “Scat!”

But I didn’t start out to complain about Grandma. I started out to tell the story of the amazing thing that happened at her last birthday party.

Grandma was going to turn eighty-two on Friday. I heard Mom ordering a cake from the bakery over the phone. “Don’t put any icing on it,” she said. “Just a plain angel cake, as light as you can make it.”

When I opened the refrigerator Thursday after school, I spotted a green plastic basket of plump strawberries that my mother must have driven across town to buy at the specialty market. A carton of whipping cream stood next to the strawberries.

Grandma would enjoy her cake, all right. Angel cake with fresh strawberries was her favorite.

So Mom was ready. I should mention that Grandma was my dad’s mother, not my mom’s. Mom tried to be nice to Grandma, but it wasn’t as if they were best friends.

That afternoon when Dad came home, he showed me the phone he had bought for Grandma. “It has speed-dialing,” he said. “She won’t have to push so many buttons when she calls the doctor’s office or her sister.” Dad looked pleased. “Her fingers are so stiff with arthritis that the phone seemed a good idea.”

But what about me? Here I was with only one dollar in my pocket and one night to think of a gift. Even though Mom always insisted that “it’s the thought that counts,” I had a big problem. My mind was even more empty of ideas than my wallet was empty of money.

When I have a problem, it sometimes helps to shoot a few baskets in the driveway. For some reason, hearing the old basketball smack against the blacktop or bounce off the rim gets my mind going when it seems stalled.

So, even though it was February and frosty, I zipped my jacket and stepped outside. “Close that door tight behind you,” I heard Grandma shout. She had a thing about closing doors.

Dribble, shoot, rebound. For a while I just played without even trying to think.

I began to remember back before Granddad died, when we used to visit them in Kentucky. Granddad showed me how to do a jump shot, in fact. I was too short then to have any hopes of making a basket, but he just said, “Don’t worry. You’ll grow. Just like your father. The important thing is to get the skills down so when you do grow, you’ll be ready to play.”

Thinking about Granddad made me sigh. Grandma hadn’t been so crabby when he was alive. I guess her life was a lot happier then.

Swish! I’d made two in a row.

I remembered a green glass dish in the shape of a leaf that Grandma used to keep on a table back in Kentucky. It was always full of those red-and-white-striped peppermint candies with the cellophane twisted on either side. I hadn’t thought of that dish for a long time. Maybe it was lost or broken when Dad rented the truck and brought Grandma and the belongings we had room for up here to Ohio.

Just thinking about that candy dish made me taste the peppermint slowly dissolving on my tongue. I could almost hear Grandma saying, “Help yourself to a piece of peppermint, Burt. Take two if you want.” That voice had a smile behind it. It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a long time.

Aha! I took one last shot, then dribbled to the back door, ran up the steps two at a time, and grabbed my wallet. At the drugstore I found candies just like the ones I’d remembered. They were two for a nickel. I bought a whole dollar’s worth.

When I got home, I had my second inspiration. I pulled a large curled leaf from the rhododendron bush in our side yard. It was almost exactly the size of Grandma’s old candy dish.

The next night, after the cake, came the time for presents.

“You just ate my present,” Mom announced.

Grandma actually smiled. “I surely did enjoy it, too. Thank you, Eleanor.”

Then my dad brought out the telephone. Grandma didn’t do as well with that. Nothing Dad did for her ever seemed quite right. “Another newfangled gadget,” she said. “Really, James. You know I never did like gadgets. I’ll never figure out how to use this.”

She pushed the phone aside. Everyone was quiet.

I took a deep breath. “Grandma,” I began, “I’ve got something for you. I know it isn’t much, but I hope you’ll like it.”

I got up from my chair and placed the leaf with the candies tucked inside right on Grandma’s place mat. Grandma, Mom, and Dad all looked at me a bit strangely. I decided to explain.

“Remember when we used to visit you in Kentucky?” I said. “The first thing I’d do was take a peppermint out of that green-leaf dish in the front hall—after hugging you and Granddad, of course.”

I looked at Grandma. Her eyes were red and watery, but her mouth turned up at the corners as she said quietly, as if from far away, “Why, yes, Burt. I remember that dish well. It didn’t survive the move. . . . I guess a lot of things didn’t survive the move. But thank you for remembering it.”

Silence swamped us again, but a different kind of silence. I saw Dad catch Mom’s eyes, and they both looked down at their plates.

Grandma spoke next. It was the old voice, the one with the smile in it.

“Here,” she said, “would everyone like to take a peppermint? Take two if you want.”

And we all did, starting with my dad.