He paused at the bottom of the stairway and glanced up before turning back to me.
"I have never met anyone who confronts illness the way she does. She treats it as if it were an insult, an affront to her good name and character. She practically defies disease, infection and malfunctions to show up in her body, and when they do, she declares them personae non gratae," he said with a laugh. "I'm sorry," he followed. "I shouldn't be lighthearted about this. It's just that every time I come here, I leave frustrated. Mrs. Hudson needs a pacemaker," he told me, "but no one in her family has ever had one so..?' He reached into his inside pocket and produced a card. "Although she won't approve of this, I would like you to have my telephone number. Should she get weaker, please call. As I understand it, Mrs. Randolph wanted someone besides the maid to be in the house. I think that was a good idea. Well," he concluded, gazing up the stairway once more, "I'll be back in a week if I don't hear anything otherwise."
He started for the door, paused to smile at me, and then left.
I gazed at the card, noting the telephone number. How was I to know when she was sick or weaker? What an awesome responsibility, I thought. Why wasn't Victoria or my mother looking after her more?
I hurried up the stairs. When I reached the landing, I heard my grandmother call my name and went to her bedroom doorway. This was the first time I had actually seen her room. I had thought mine was big, but hers was at least three times the size with a part of it serving as a living room, containing two matching sofas, a reclining chair, a television set, tables and lamps. Her bed was a high post, dark maple wood with branches and leaves carved into the headboard. The room was thickly carpeted in light blue and the walls were painted a powder blue.
At first I didn't see Grandmother Hudson. I had anticipated her being in bed, but then I saw her sitting in a chair. She was in her velvet robe.
"So?" she said. "How was your rehearsal? Did you quit?" she asked with the corners of her mouth turned down.
"No, I didn't quit. The rehearsal went well after a few bumps," I said.
"Bumps?"
I told her what concerned some of the students. She listened with interest and then nodded.
"I was waiting for something like that to happen," she said. "Megan spends most of her time with her head in the sand. For someone who wanted to change the world, she has a remarkable ability to avoid reality?'
"Maybe it's inherited," I suggested. Her eyebrows went up as if they were hinged to the folds in her forehead. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Aren't you avoiding facing reality? You have a medical problem that needs attention," I said.
"You are a very forward young lady. Who do you think you are, speaking to me like that?" she demanded. I stood my ground.
"Your granddaughter," I said calmly. "Where I come from family members care about each other and don't need special permission to look after each other," I told her. Her face softened, her eyebrows returning to their place.
"My doctor has a big mouth," she said rather than continue to challenge me.
"He's just worried and trying to do his job. He has a responsibility," I said. "You're lucky to have a doctor like that. In my neighborhood you had a better chance of being visited by a man from Mars than a real doctor and when you were sick and had to go to an emergency room. They treated you like numbers and not people. If you didn't listen to what they said, they couldn't care less."
"I don't need to hear a lecture from a teenager about how fortunate I am," she snapped.
"From what the doctor tells me, you do," I fired back. She took a deep breath.
"I'm not coming down to dinner tonight. Send that excuse for a maid up here to see me," she commanded.
"Did you call my mother and tell her about the doctor's visit? Or Victoria?"
She started to laugh and then stopped and straightened herself up, tightening her hands on the arms of the chair.
"I have never, nor do I ever intend to, throw myself on the charity of my children. Or," she pronounced sharply, "my grandchildren. Now do as I say."
"Yes, ma'am," I said and did as she wished.
Was pride ever a good thing? I wondered. It was important to have self-confidence, but more often than not, it seemed, being proud got in the way of better things, especially love. Maybe Grandmother Hudson wasn't capable of loving her own daughters and grandchildren. Maybe it was wrong to simply assume they were the ones who failed. If I stood still, closed my eyes and thought about all this, I would sink into a whirlpool of mixed emotions. It was better to just move ahead, keep as narrow a view of my future as I could, and wait for a chance to escape.
What I didn't know then, but what I would know soon, was there was no escape. There was never a real escape because you would have to deny who you were and that was something I was discovering I could never do.
As if she had heard my thoughts, my mother called that night. She wanted to know how my first few days at Dogwood had gone. I told her about the play and my part and she sounded very happy and impressed. Then I told her about Grandmother Hudson and what the doctor had told me.
"I've tried the best I can, but Mother is a very stubborn woman. How is she?" she asked after a moment of silence.
"She was too tired to come down to dinner tonight," I said.
I had sat alone and felt silly being served my dinner. However, whether I was afraid she would find out if I didn't or whether I'd already gotten used to the custom, I dressed for dinner. Merilyn had little to say except that Grandmother Hudson complained her food was cool by the time she had brought it up to her.