It’s still dark out when I awaken to a foghorn in my ear. Cracking my eyes open, I turn in the direction of the offending noise and freeze. The owner of the foghorn is inches from my face, sleeping soundly.
The television is still on, the cable box reading 5:30. We must’ve fallen asleep watching it last night. He murmurs something before belting out another horrid sound. And I mean horrid, like braying mule, something’s dying horrid. If I wasn’t still half asleep, I’d be laughing my ass off right about now.
I give myself only a minute to admire him. I’m already on the verge of serious like and it would be downright stupid to encourage that feeling. We’re a million miles apart in every way that counts, not to mention neither of us is looking for anything that even remotely resembles a relationship.
Despite the strange sounds emanating from him, he’s the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. But what’s even better is that he’s generous and kind. A good egg, as Camilla would say. He sucks in a breath and cuts another one loose. I quietly crawl out of bed and into the shower. I shouldn’t be enjoying this. I really shouldn’t be. But I am.
Chapter Twelve
My relationship with my grandmother is complicated, our history not a pretty one. I was angry and upset when my mother moved out to marry Dan. I felt like a refugee, neither belonging with Dan and Eileen nor with my grandparents. So naturally I acted out a lot. Which exasperated my grandmother who was trying to run the funeral home by herself because of my grandfather’s failing health.
It was a recipe for an unhappy home.
Don’t run.
Don’t shout.
Stop screaming.
How in the world did you break that lamp?
How did you get so dirty?
Try to be quiet for ten minutes.
Don’t do that inside, go outside and do that.
Stop talking.
Stop talking!
Stop talking!!
You’re impossible, you know that.
and the worst by far…
I’m calling your mother to come get you.
It wasn’t until I met Camilla and started spending time at her house, with her parents, that I realized I wasn’t the worst kid on the planet.
It took a long time for us to find common ground and it pretty much started after my grandfather died. I spoke less. I played less. I laughed less. Essentially, I became less. I was terrified my grandmother was going to send me away to God knows what unknown relative––in my mind there was always one out there––that I would’ve done anything to please her.
Regardless, once we started to get along, we got along. I helped her with the business, and in returned she never discouraged me from my interest in acting. Also, my grandmother was wise to my mother’s bullshit. We had that in common. Our mutual disapproval of Eileen went a long way to bridging the gap between us. The problem was that my grandmother seemed to try to right all the wrongs she felt she committed with my mother through me. Ergo, she was unbearably strict.
“Margaret?” I say as I walk up to her in the activities room of the assisted living facility. She looks up from her needlepoint with a soft smile.
“Yes,” she says, her eyes lighting up at the sight of me. For a minute the happy look on her face almost brings tears to my eyes. I miss her looking at me like she knows who I am. I never thought that losing the person you love most a little at a time would be worse than all at once but I was wrong. So wrong.
Because who are we without our memories? Without our history. An empty vessel moving through life? Where did your memories go, Grandma. I imagine them floating over her head, in the ether, always out of reach.
Her eyes cloud when she realizes she can’t place me, like a vacancy sign went up––nobody’s home. A look I’ve come to know well. I take a seat next to her and for the next twenty minutes we make small talk. She answers with one word answers mostly, treating me like the stranger I am to her.
“Okay. I’m headed home, but I’ll be back in a few days to see you.” She gives me another polite smile that says she doesn’t give a shit either way. “Margaret?”
“Yes?”
“What would you say to a friend that wanted to move to a different city to pursue her career?”
Her eyes move away, out the window overlooking the bare maple trees. “Is it something that makes her happy?”
I can’t speak, biting the inside of my cheek to stop my bottom lip from trembling. Instead, I nod.
“Then she should go.”
“But…what if it means she has to leave something important behind?” I manage to get out even though my voice cracks.
Looking me squarely in the eyes, gaze steadfast, she says, “She should go after whatever makes her happy.”