Human Sister

it would be inappropriate for the State of California to give special privileges to “such godless people, rich and intelligent though they may be.”
    Grandpa hastily made a few appointments with old friends and former students who were on the faculty at Stanford, and Elio was accepted there. When we called to tell him the good news, Elio was elated—until Grandpa said that, as a Stanford freshman, he would have to live in a dormitory where he would have at least one roommate.
    “You’re joking,” Elio said. In the background was his unmade bed that I missed.
    “No, I’m not. If you go to Stanford, then you will respect and honor their rules.”
    “But the whole idea was for Sara and me to live together.”
    “Well, your idea is just going to have to expand a little. You may come home on the weekends, and I suppose it’ll be all right if you visit once during the week, as long as you are back in your dorm by midnight.”
    Elio arrived on an Air France-KLM flight on 3 September, Grandpa’s ninetieth birthday and Michael’s seventh. At Grandma’s suggestion, she and Grandpa waited in the parking lot while I went to the arrival lounge to greet him. “When you see Elio walk out of Customs,” Grandma said, “you’ll be glad we’re not there.”
    I didn’t fully appreciate what Grandma had said until about a half-hour later when the doors on which was printed “No Admittance” parted, and there he was, dressed in a light-gray pullover and charcoal pants, pushing a cart on which lay a suitcase and a carry-on. Had Grandpa or Grandma been there, I probably wouldn’t have jumped up and down with joy, probably wouldn’t have laughed and cried at the same time, probably wouldn’t have melted so completely into him when he finally held me still and kissed me.
    On the way to the car, Elio spotted Grandpa and Grandma leaning against the passenger side of a new gray-blue Mercedes. Elio ran to them and exchanged hugs, kisses, and cheery greetings before he finally noticed the car. “I thought you had an old white Mercedes,” he said. “Did you get a new car?”
    “No,” Grandpa said. “We borrowed it for the day. Here,” he added, reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a white card. “Let me show you the registration.”
    “But… that’s my name!”
    “Of course,” Grandpa said. “It’s your car. How do you like it?”
    With the sweet stunned expression of a child who’d just been given an unexpected gift, Elio ran his fingers along the edge of the car’s roof before ducking into the open door. A frond of jet-black hair fell over his gleeful face.
    We spent most of the morning driving around the Stanford campus, acquainting Elio with the buildings in which his courses would be held. For lunch, we drove up to the Claremont Resort in Oakland, where the first of the day’s three festivities to celebrate Grandpa’s birthday was held. Berkeley’s chancellor gave a moving speech in which she described a bio-implant that had been put into her mother’s brain after her mother had suffered a nearly fatal stroke. She credited Grandpa’s work for the implant’s success and for giving her mother many additional happy and productive years of life. I felt proud of Grandpa and hoped Elio and I would be able to measure up to him in our working lives.
    At 1430 we departed for home, where the banquet hall adjacent to the winery’s tasting room was being prepared for a birthday dinner. One of Sonoma County’s renowned chefs had planned a menu around the many fruits and vegetables then ripe in our garden. In attendance would be neighbors and many of Grandpa’s close personal friends, including Senator Franklin. Fortunately, the senator planned to fly to Los Angeles immediately after dinner, so Michael didn’t have to spend his birthday immured within my bedroom wall on the chance that the senator might ask to see what he’d been told was now my private part of the house.
    As we exited the A101 at River Road, Grandma remarked that we were in wine country, just a few kilometers from home. Elio wrapped his arms around me, and with the back of my head resting on his chest, I gazed out at the vineyards and the roadside fruit and flower stands, wondering what Elio was seeing and feeling on his first journey to his new home.
    Did he notice the flat Russian River basin and the gently rolling hills covered with neatly cultivated vineyards? Did he observe how the rows of sunburst honey locust trees