At the time I was young enough to believe that was literally true. I wondered how she kept it from melting.
There was so much tension and often so much static in our house, or I should say my grandmother's house that sometimes. I'd look down the hallway toward the circular stairs and think of the inside of the mansion as having its own weather. I'd imagine clouds or storms no matter what was happening outside. Shadows in the house could widen or stretch so that I would feel as if I was walking under a great overcast sky. Even in the summer months, it could be chilly and not because of too much air-conditioning either. Fair weather days were happening less and less, not that there were all that many after we were forced to move in with Grandmother Emma, anyway. It was no wonder then that my mother was adamant, even terrified, about Grandmother Emma finding out about me.
I suppose anyone would wonder how someone so small could command such obedience and fear. She
was just five feet tall with small features, especially small hands, but I never thought of her as being tiny or diminutive. Even in front of Daddy, who was six feet one and nearly two hundred pounds, she looked powerful and full of authority. She had ruler-perfect posture and a commanding tone in her voice. When she spoke to her servants, she whipped her words at them. She rarely raised her voice. She didn't have to shout or yell. Her words seemed loud anyway because after she said them in her manner of speaking, they boomed in your head. No one could ignore her, no one except Ian, but he could ignore a tornado if he was thinking or reading about something that interested him at the time.
My grandmother was always well put together, too. She never appeared out of her room without her bluish gray hair being brushed and pinned. She liked to keep it in a tight crown bun, but on rare occasions, she would have it twisted and tied in something called a French knot. That was when she looked the prettiest and youngest. I thought, although she was very careful not to dress in anything she believed was inappropriate for a woman of her age. Everything she wore was always coordinated, as well. She had shoes for every outfit and jewelry that seemed to have been purchased precisely for this dress or that sweater. There were butterfly pins full of emeralds and rubies, diamond brooches, earrings and bracelets that were heirlooms, handed down by her mother and her mother's mother, as well as my grandfather's mother.
I couldn't help but secretly admire her. In my mind she really was as important as a queen. When she criticized me for the way I stooped or ate with the wrong knife and fork. I didn't resent her as much as Ian did when she said similar things to him. I swallowed back my pride and tried to be more like her. I watched how she sat at the table, how she ate, how she walked and turned her head. I think she saw all this because once in a while. I caught her looking at me with the tiniest smile on her lips and I wondered, could it be that she likes me after all?
I was afraid that if she did. Mama would hate me and miaht even think I had betrayed her somehow.
But I was also afraid that if she didn't like me. Daddy would be disappointed.
Did she or didn't she?
In my heart of hearts I 'mew that finding out would be something I would do on the journey toward discovering who I was. And so with trembling feet. I stepped into my future.
2 Our Great Secret
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It was spring. We had just ten days left to school. Grandmother Emma wanted Ian and me to go to summer camp, but Ian hated the idea because of all
the boring things they made him do, and my mother refused to send me off at such a young age. Now, after she saw what was happening to me, she was going to be even more unyielding about refusing to send me to sleepaway camp.
"That's absolutely ridiculous," Grandmother Emma told her when my mother argued against it, using my age as an excuse. "I sent your husband away when he was just five and every summer thereafter."
"Maybe his failings aren't all because of his father's spoiling him then," my mother replied, and Grandmother Emma bristled like a porcupine. It was just as if my mother had reached out and slapped her cheek. Touch her anywhere and you would bleed.
"It was precisely my getting Christopher away from his father that gave him the few ounces of backbone he has,"
Grandmother Emma responded to my mother's sharp response. "At least at the camps he was made to bear some responsibility for his actions and himself. If he called here crying. I would hang up on him. Eventually, he matured. Somewhat," she added. She was always careful not to give Daddy a full
compliment or say something nice about him without a qualification.
She looked at me sitting quietly on the medieval cross frame chair I was somehow permitted to use in the living room. I was quietly cutting out some paper dolls, but listening keenly to their conversation. As long as you didn't look at them when they spoke, adults thought you weren't listening.
"I might not start up the swimming pool this summer," Grandmother Emma threatened as an added reason to send us off to camp. "It's a costly luxury just to please two children who are bored silly."
"Do what you want. I'm not sending Jordan to a sleepaway camp," my mother told her, digging her heels into the ground.
"Ridiculous," Grandmother Emma said, and walked away.
Mama looked at me, her face flushed with a crimson shade of rage and fear. She knew I
understood why she was so determined not to send me off.
Despite the way my mother had reacted to the changes in my body. I was happy she and I shared a secret, a secret no one else in our family knew. It made me feel very special, even a little more grownup. Everything else about Mama, Daddy, Ian, and me was pretty much out in the open, especially, as Mama had said, for Grandmother Emma to set or hear. There was little she didn't know about us, if she wanted to know it. She certainly knew all about our finances and whatever we bought. My mother couldn't do much in the house or even in the community without her finding out about it. She knew what we ate and if we ate. She knew all our clothes and shoes. She usually knew our daily schedules, too, even when we had our dental appointments. All the bills went through her hands at one time or another, it seemed. She especially knew if my father and my mother had an argument. How could they be mad at each other and not show it in front of her?
Lately, there were more and more arguments between them, too. Daddy always seemed to have a reason to go somewhere. He claimed there were endless food shows and conventions. Rarely, if ever, did he ask Mama to go with him. Grandmother Emma thought that was my mother's choice and was always critical of her not being more involved in his business.
"You could at least go down there and watch the cashiers and packers," Grandmother told her. "Didn't you used to work at a supermarket after high school?"
"I only worked there part-time to tarn money for college, Emma. It hardly qualifies me to be a supermarket manager."
"Nevertheless, you know what to look for. I'm sure we're being robbed daily," Grandmother Emma told her. "You could watch for that. You know all the tricks."