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Gram by Brianne Keating The first traces of dawn peeked through
the cracks in the blinds of Robbie’s window; smidgens of sunlight, like the
first morning dew, dropped and dripped about the room leaving faint, wet streaks
of pale morning gold streaking behind. She
gave a grossly audible yawn, displaying her tonsils and providing her morning
breath for the world as she stretched, and turned over on her side, ready for
the next hour of dreams her sleepy brain could muster.
After she flopped onto her right side, kicked some of the tangled covers
off, and flopped her left arm over the edge of the bed, her subconscious told
her something was curiously wrong. Her
breath felt echoed, as if ricocheted, and her nose tingled with an uncomfortable
itchiness. Robbie drowsily raised
her droopy eyelids and found herself looking directly into two beady little blue
pupils steadily staring back into hers. After
screaming, and landing, Robbie was no longer scared; she was furious. “What
are you doing?” she shrieked. “What
do you mean, ‘what am I doing?’ It’s
Saturday!” And
so it was. It took Robbie a moment
to register that this was not some crazy nightmare.
It was worse. It was
Saturday. For
the past six and a half months (six months, eighteen days, to be exact), Robbie
had been forced to take care of Grandma B each and every Saturday.
Except of course, for the Saturday when Gram had sneaked onto a Greyhound
and ended up in Kansas City before the authorities had to detach the clinging
woman from the leather seat. “Well?
Are you just going to lay there like a sick cow on a hot day or do I have
to---“ Robbie
sighed. “No, Gram.
I’m getting up.” It
wasn’t that Robbie hated helping out her grandmother.
It was just that, well, she hated helping her grandmother out.
She was always so demanding. And
unappreciative. “Why can’t she
get Alzheimer’s Disease like everyone else’s grandma?” Robbie sometimes
daydreams of walking into her grandmother’s bedroom on Saturday mornings. “Good
morning, grandmother,” she would gently pick up the resting woman’s pale,
be-speckled veiny hand between her two tan, strong, and tender palms. “Aaieee!!
Get away from me you young vagrant!
Who are you? Where am I? Out
and away—and stay away!” And Robbie would do just that. Robbie
would then never have to listen to Grandma B tell how she, after going several
nights with no sleep, would have the floors mopped, kids fed and diapered,
twenty gallons of water hauled in from the well six miles away, and livestock
fed, counted, and cleaned (there were one hundred sixty-four head of cattle,
three horses, seventy-two chickens, six turkeys, nine sheep, and one
ass—“Make that two,” she would always add, “I forgot to count my
husband.”). Gram’s
voice roused Robbie from her daydream, “Seventy-two chickens, six turkeys,
nine….” Robbie wondered how a
woman who couldn’t keep the stoplight colors straight—thus being the reason
Robbie was needed to drive after Grandma B’s fourth accident (in all four Gram
was the cause, and she swore up and down that on that last one, the stoplight
color had turned blue which obviously meant anyone in a blue car could go)—how
this same woman could remember the exact number of chickens on her farm after 27
years.
“…Make that two. I
forgot to count my husband.” *
*
*
*
*
“Would you mind putting your seatbelt on, Gram?”
“Seatbelt?! I don’t need
no seatbelt. Horses never had
seatbelts, and let me tell you, horses are a lot faster than this car’ll go
with you behind the wheel. I
ain’t got much time left; I’m going to die sitting here, if you don’t
shake a leg.”
Robbie sighed.
“Where do you want to go first?”
“Where do we always go first?”
“It’s a different place every week!”
“Oh. Well, then take me
downtown.” *
*
*
While Robbie was carefully parallel parking, Gram hiked up her orange
flowered skirt and opened the passenger door, smashing a busy-looking business
man squarely in the full, and daintily stepped out onto the gray sidewalk
buzzing with many other busy men and women.
“Lady,” snarled the man, “why don’t you go back to your nursing
home?”
Robbie thought the man looked a little remorseful when Gram started using
her cane to emphasize each and every point she had about men today.
“…think you can take advantage of humble and harmless old women!
You think that you can get away with the abuse, do you?
This is for your ungratefulness! And
this is for your poor mother who’s probably shoved away somewhere in some
filthy, flea-infested nursing home! And
this is for my granddaughter who’ll probably end up marrying some jerk like
you! And this is for my poor car
that you ran into! And this is for
me because—“
Robbie stopped her before she hit him a seventh time and the man,
stricken and stricken, hurried away, rubbing his bruises.
“Gram, Dr. Stevenson said
that if you use that cane one more time to hit anyone, he’s going to take it
away and you can just get along fine in a wheelchair.”
“You call that parallel parking? I’ve
seen infants do better than that? How
did you ever pass your driver’s test?”
And so the day started. *
*
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*
*
*
“I will never understand why you like shopping here. You’re not planning on buying anything, are you?” Grandma
B and Robbie were shopping in the most affluent downtown store in Fenner
Heights.
“Do you think green is my color?” Gram bobbed her head from side to
side in front of the mirror trying to opt whether or not she would buy the lime
green hat, complete with a fake hummingbird stuffed in the rim.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but how may I help you to day?” The salesman
sidled up from in between traffic to carefully watch the two girls. Complete with snotty cynicism oozing out of his snobbish
pants, he eyed the two up and down, determining their rank in equation with
making a sale.
“Ah-heh-hem. May I help
you today?”
With a loud voice, the elder woman turned and answered, “Eh?
What’s that, sonny? You
think you’re gay?”
Sputtering and stumbling over words that spilled forth from the
embarrassed man’s lips, he backed away and dodged through the crowd of
now-interested passers-by.
Robbie inwardly groaned and tried to seek refuge by looking devastatingly
interested in a panty hose display. She
glanced over at Gram just in time to catch her heading out the door.
She knew she was already too late as she was rushing toward the woman.
There was no way she could protect her now.
Not protect her grandmother, but the lady pushing the stroller who was
crowding behind Grandma B in hopes of speeding up the old woman, who had braked
to an exceedingly slow pace, ambling down the middle of the aisle, limping
blissfully on her cane.
The baby was crying; Robbie winced.
The three-year old clinging to the woman’s arm was whining.; Robbie
walked faster, but was too late.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but would you mind moving over? You’re taking up the whole aisle.”
“Well, excuse me, missy, but if you would shut those kids up, I’d be
walking a heck of a lot faster. That
screaming is making my pancreas burn, and I can all but walk with all the pain
that those brats are causing me.”
Robbie rushed in, “Gram! Excuse
me,” she quickly apologized, “I think there’s a free Bingo round next
door. Come on, Gram, and this time,
no cheating.”
*
*
*
*
*
*
“Well, it looks like I was wrong about that Bingo tournament.
How about if you just sit still here and relax your pancreas for a couple
of minutes while I go run and get some dinner for us?”
Robbie left without waiting for a reply.
Sometimes she just could not stand being around that woman another second
longer. She had no idea how her own
mother had put up with her for eighteen years. But her mother was gone now.
And as Robbie sped down to the corner deli, the reds and blacks screamed
by in a blur of color as she passed the flower boutique.
And Robbie remembered. Her
smell, of lotion and sweet rosemary, mixed and contrasting with the fresh smell
of her long shiny golden, brown hair as she would bend down, smoothing
Robbie’s forehead with one gentle hand while tucking the covers up tight and
close against her cheek. Choking,
Robbie dumped the change on the deli counter, snatched the sacks and hurried
back to the bench.
*
*
*
*
*
*
Gram’s mind slowly drifted off as she watched Robbie scurry down the
sidewalk. Just for a moment, she
thought she saw her daughter once again. Maybe
it was the way the hair shined brilliantly as she stepped into a patch of golden
sunlight. Maybe it was the way she
smiled eagerly at passers-by, in hopes of pleasing each and everyone she met.
Maybe it was her strength. After
Gram’s husband passed away when she was just 43 years of age, it was her
daughter who comforted her. It was
her daughter who had taken her to this same spot years ago, only seemingly
yesterday, and come back with dinner from the deli and three roses, two red and
one black, “Red for you and me, and one black for Dad.
Even though it’s black, it’s still beautiful.
And even though it looks dead, it’s still living.”
Gram heaved a sigh. Chokingly,
she stood up and walked toward the halting bus.
“Robbie doesn’t need me. She’s
strong. She needs to be able to
live, not be bothered by some old fool wavering between death and life, unable
to make up her mind.”
Gram hiked up her flowered skirt, climbed the steps, grumbled at the
soiled bus driver, and heaved down into her seat.
Staring out the window, a solitary tear rolled from a cold, old blue eye
as Roberta, smiling and racing up the walk, headed for the bench, carrying the
deli lunch and three roses: two red and one black.
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