SHORT STORY CONTEST
A grandmother and grandson share their secrets, even when everything has been said
A lifetime of intimacies faces one final test.
“Walkwithme,”my grandmother said. Her jacket and shoes were already on so I eagerly scrambled to get ready and followed her out the door. The cool fall air smelled of fresh cut hay and burning leaves.
I had to walk quickly to match her confident, uncompromising strides. We walked downhill — the dirt road that cut a line down one side of the valley and up the other.
“I’m almost done that book you gave me for my birthday,” I said.
One hand tucked in her slacks pocket, the other swinging back and forth, she walked on. “I like long division.” Her strides were long and uncompromising.
“Look at the rows of clouds and the sun coming through to create shadows over there.”
She took a tissue from her sleeve to wipe her nose.
“A red maple leaf! Can I collect some and decorate the table for dinner tonight?”
After 20 minutes, we turned onto a gravel driveway bordered by orchards. Amongst the neat rows of trees, apples littered the ground. The trees were old, trunks brown, gnarled and twisted, like my grandmother’s fingers.
I ran ahead of my grandmother and into the barn. A plank of afternoon sun highlighted the dancing dust. There was Susan Brown, dressed in overalls, hair pulled back by a handkerchief. Upon my skipping approach, she looked up and smiled, her tanned, lined face reminding me of apple dolls. In front of her was a crate of apples that she was separating, placing some in round wicker baskets, tossing others into a large metal bin. “For market or for cider.” Thunk, another thrown decisively into the cider bin.
Wiping her hands on her overalls, she moved towards the farmhouse. Susan Brown said she welcomed the break, Inside, she and my grandmother sat down at the large wooden table in the kitchen. I sat too, but the table was too high and my elbows rested beside my ears. After my grandmother took a slim brown cigarette from the package on the table, Susan’s tanned fingers, almost the same colour as the cigarette itself, slid one out too. Susan struck a match and held the flame first for my grandmother, then for herself. I watched as their eyes narrowed and their lips pursed as they inhaled. They rested their hands, cigarettes between raised fingers, on the table.
They exhaled together. Acrid smoke filled my nose as I bit down on the tart apple I stooped to pick up from the ground before I ran into the farmhouse. I wasn’t listening to what they were saying — adult stuff — but I watched the rhythm and elegance of their smoking.
“Don’t tell grandpa,” my grandmother said as we started our walk up the road. I turned back to see Susan Brown disappear into the barn after a final wave. My grandmother was already ahead of me, striding towards home.
All the way home I was quiet, walking carefully, holding onto our secret as if carrying a grasshopper cradled in my hands.
Even though it is a warm September, I tuck a blanket around my grandmother’s knees.
“Indian summer,” she says as I sit down in my late grandfather’s armchair. From her matching but smaller armchair, where she spends most of her days now, my grandmother can watch the television and look out the big picture window of her 14th-floor condo situated on the edge of the town’s lake. The dark water reflects the giant clouds that hover in the crisp sky and the tall trees that line the shore. The leaves are set to ignite into a blaze of fall colours.
“They don’t call it that anymore,” I tell her. “Just say late fall or something.” “That’s not as poetic.” “It’s not as offensive.” “Things are always changing,” she says. “That’s good isn’t it? Are you ready?” I ask. “Sure, if we go slowly, to start.” My grandmother watches my hands as I take a pre-rolled joint from my throat lozenge case. I flick my lighter, hold the flame to the twist of paper, take the first breath in. I hold it in deep, and turn to look at my grandmother. My eyes meet hers. I exhale.
She nods. I lean forward and hold her left hand as I place the lit joint between her fingers. She holds it tentatively, like a cigarette, not like I do between my thumb and pointer finger. She brings the joint up to her lips and sucks in, the lines around her mouth radiating outwards, spreading like a sunburst.
“Is it OK?” I ask. Her eyes are squeezed a little tighter, brows a little closer together as she holds in the smoke. She looks at me and gives me a little nod. She exhales slowly and I take the joint back, drawing in its familiar sharp fragrance. We each sit back, rest our heads on the back of the armchairs. “I used to smoke. Way back when.” “I remember.” She waves towards herself. I sit forward a bit, hand the joint back to her. She inhales, holds it in.
My turn again. Already I feel the early stages hitting my brain, a slow spread of calm. My lips must be pursed because my grandmother is looking at them. She pushes hers together in the same way but I can’t tell if she’s trying to mimic or mock me.
“Progress,” she says. She releases a plume of smoke and waves it away with a quick brush of her dappled hand. “One should always try new things, avoid getting stale.”
“I should open the window a bit. Will you get cold?”
“I’ll let you know. Smoking was fashionable back in the day. Everyone smoked then.”
She had quit when I was young, but I still remember those long brown cigarettes, the kind with a gold band around the filter end.
“Am I supposed to feel anything yet?” she asks. I turn to her, my grandmother older now, frailer, nestled cozily in her comfortable wedgewood-blue chair. She is slowly, playfully, swiveling back and forth.
“Perhaps,” I say. I definitely feel a little slower, my head full of cotton batten. “I’m glad you were open to this.”
“Just because I have white hair doesn’t mean I’m old-fashioned,” she says. “But let’s not mention this to anyone, all right?” “It’s almost legal.” “Almost.” “Our secret,” I say, and use my finger to draw an X over my heart.
She raises her fingers to her pursed lips and locks them.
It’s so serious, too serious. I smile at the mock intensity. “Do you remember when we drank from the Fountain of Youth?” I ask. “Down in St. Augustine, when I visited you that winter?”
“I knew it was hokum,” she says. “Fat lot it’s done me, eh?” “But worth a try.” “Everything is worth a try. At least once. Twice if you enjoy it. We can do this again?” “Sure, if you think it’ll help.” “It’s not hurting.” She smoothes out the wool blanket in her lap. “Be a dear and fetch me a glass of water, would you? I’m feeling a bit thirsty.”
I stand up slowly and head for the kitchen.
“Maybe you can search through the cupboards for a snack too? I’m also feeling a little peckish.”
Yes, she’s feeling it. I can’t help but burst out laughing. Saturday afternoons become our thing. No VON nurse that day. My aunt checks in early in the morning, bringing groceries and the newspaper. I bring the pain relief. “Are you comfortable?” “As much as I can be.” I light up, and we fall into our rhythm. “Thank you for coming each week.” “Of course.” “I look forward to the company.” I would do anything for her. But it feels too awkward to say it out loud. “Never go to a nursing home,” she says. “I know,” I say. “It’s full of old people.” I laugh at the thought of this wrinkly, white-haired woman thinking of other people as old. “Never go to the hospital.” “Why? It’s full of sick people?” I ask. “Exactly. It’s not fun. We couldn’t do this.” “Next month, it’ll be legal.” “Things keep changing,” she says. “Yes, they tend to.” “That’s good, isn’t it?” “Most of the time,” I say. “You’re more comfortable at home?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Yes dear. They kept prodding me at the hospital, then telling to me to rest. Then waking me to prod me some more.”
She said enough, I heard my aunt tell my mother on the phone. My grandmother wants to live out the rest of the time allotted to her naturally and comfortably. At home.
“Read to me,” she says, pointing at her well-loved copy of the collected stories of Dorothy Parker. It looks like she has had the book since she was a teenager. “A woman of wit, liked her martinis too. She liked them both very dry.”
“I can see what you have in common,” I say. I open the page at the bookmark, take a second to focus my eyes on the words, and start to read aloud.
Sometimes we read, sometimes we doze off. The low afternoon sun peers into the windows and makes us sleepy in its warmth. Our eyelids become heavy and slide shut. I wake up in the dark and make us some dinner.
One week I discover her at the dining room table, a half-eaten egg salad sandwich in front of her. She turns to look at me and says hoarsely, “I can’t …,” frailly waving her hand in the direction of her unfinished lunch. “Egg salad? I wouldn’t either.” She coughs. It sounds wet and deep. “Do you want to …?” I start to ask. “I fear it’s become too harsh for me, dear.”
The next visit I bring some special brownies with me. She tries one, out of curiosity but thinks they taste “queer.”
“The doctor gave me some painkillers. Wouldn’t you know it — I’m allergic to codeine! Took a few days to figure that out. I haven’t thrown up that much since university!” “Too many martinis?” “Too much beer that time. I visited my friend Jane at her university and we drank before a football game. We never made it to the stadium, though, because we couldn’t even walk straight.” She chuckles to herself. “Oh, that was a long time ago.”
I see that she’s still in her housecoat, the first time I haven’t seen her dressed. Her hair is unpermed, but clean. She looks tired and closes her eyes often but I can see that she’s trying to make an effort for me.
“Help me to my chair, would you?” she says.
“Would you like me to leave so you can rest?” I ask.
“No, no. I’ll watch the game,” she says, indicating the muted football on TV. I sit with her. Almost immediately she drifts off to sleep. After her little snooze, she says, “You don’t have to stay if you have other things you need to do.”
“I’ll stay. It’s my afternoon with you. You know, I could maybe get a capsule with some CBD oil for you.” “It might be worth a try, yes?” Two weeks later I find her in her chair, her blanket wrapped around her, her head back on a pillow. Her face is more hollow, her skin somewhat jaundiced. She can’t handle solid food anymore, declines the capsule I’ve brought.
“The doctor … has started me … on morphine …” “A slippery slope to the hard stuff, eh?” “For the pain.” “Are you in pain?” I ask. “Not anymore.” Her eyes are closed, but I detect a faint trace of a smile.
Soon she is confined to her bed, sleeping virtually around the clock. I stand in the small solarium, waiting while the VON administers another shot of morphine. The lake is completely frozen and I imagine the resident fish huddling together at the bottom. Straining upwards, bare trees reveal their skinny skeletons, stark against the snow-covered shores. The expanse of sky shines cold and crisp, threaded with strings of angel hair stretching to the horizon.
Once the VON leaves, I slip into my grandmother’s bedroom. The lights are off, the curtains are drawn. The bedside table is cluttered with tissues, water glasses, straws, remote controls, vials, needles in packages, bottles of pills, antibacterial gel, wetnaps, lip gel, moisturizer. Near the bed, an IV machine beeps a quiet rhythm, its own digital heartbeat.
My grandmother lies in the rented hospital bed, her head raised slightly. Her hair lies flat and dull. She looks thin, more wrinkled. Her body has turned on itself.
I put my hand gently on her withered arm. Her eyes, a little glassy, slowly drift over until I’m in her sight. “Still shooting up, are you?” “Go. Ahead,” she whispers, her voice like dry leaves crackling. “I can’t,” I say. “I don’t like needles.” The corners of her lips turn up ever so slightly, and the outside corners of her eyes bunch and crinkle a little, as much of a smile as she can accomplish.
“It won’t bother you?” She moves her head, a little to the left, then a little to the right.
“Down. Please,” she says, closing her eyes.
“All the way? Until you’re flat?” Her chin rises a little, dips a little. I take the controls for the bed and lower the head until she’s lying down fully. “Thank. You.” I sit in the chair near the window, which I open a little. Resting my head on the wall, I take my time smoking, exhaling upwards. There are swirls in the plaster of the ceiling, a dance of curlicues beginning in the centre and spiralling outwards. With the late afternoon winter light, the smoke looks blue as it slips into the grooves of the plaster, then extends and dissipates.
My thoughts slow, my mind settles. I use a New Yorker to fan away the last of the smoke.
One of the shortest days of the year, the sun is already around the other side of the condo, almost completing today’s journey past our part of the world. The light gradually gathers itself up and takes its leave. I turn on the stereo and play the CD already inside. I let down the railings of the bed and I pull my chair closer.
I slip my hand into my grandmother’s. She accepts it without moving, then gives a little squeeze that slowly relaxes. Her face seems smoother, more serene. The flower duet from Lakmé, my grandmother’s favourite opera, plays quietly.
“My exams for the fall semester are done.”
“I walked through the birch forest yesterday.”
“I finished the Dorothy Parker last night.”
“I still love to catch a snowflake on my mitten and examine its crystals.”
Listening to the music, holding her hand, I talk softly and watch the late afternoon pass into dusk, then into darkness.