Sandra Stringer
It’s easy to lie to my dad since he’s practically deaf. He’s a
lip reader and the idea of my words without volume, soundless, make them less important.
It’s like my mother’s actions, how she has affairs and neither of us
feel guilty. He kicked her out last year, swept up me and my brother who swears
he has a third nipple and now we live in Clarks Summit. He’s shown the extra
nipple to my only friend, Amelia, when we went sleigh riding down the Old Ski Slope
hill. You go through neighbors’ yards for everything here. I think it’s
set up this way so every person knows your business. In New York, where we lived
before here, people rarely had a yard and if they did, you knew not to trespass.
When I asked my father how he lost his hearing, he fisted one hand and wrapped the
other on top, held them still for some seconds, then threw his arms wide, spreading
his fingers while his mouth made a sound - poosh. He’s a Korean vet. I know
from the map framed above his desk titled Operation Thunderbolt where boxed X’s
look like small blue envelopes marking a horizontal path as though signaling it
was a mission about secretive letter writing. There’s chopsticks in our utensil
drawer and once when I set the table with them even though they are packaged in
a bamboo container with a gold sticker seal, he lunged at me while making some growling
noise, all sounds from his mouth are garbled like his head’s in water, and
now hangs them from a nail below the clock. They’re like hands of an invisible
clock that never move.
My brother, Evan, loves guns. His aim is mint, gets birds in flight with his bee
bee gun and wears army camouflage. He likes Amelia and shows her by aiming the gun
and pretending to miss. But this neighborhood I don’t like. It’s laid
out in circles with the rich people up in the hills and the working class without
the view at the bottom. It’s our first winter here and the snow is so pristine,
so unlike the city where it gets sullied in seconds and I pretend not to like it,
the way, for example, yesterday I could not even get out of my door without a shovel.
A blizzard came through two nights ago and the howling wind was like a team of ghosts
sweeping through the town. The next morning there were over four feet of snow, higher
than my waist and my brother and I shoveled our way to the road, snow arcing in
the air and landing in piles beside us. Roger, we’ve made communication, he
said when the pavement was visible on Park Drive.
The mail didn’t come yesterday but today the mailman makes it. I sort through
it and in loopy handwriting is my name and old address in Long Island. My mother
must have forwarded it. Never do I get mail and I take a glove off to open the envelope.
The day is oddly warm and Amelia tells me it’s God’s way, to show his
power by throwing a storm at us and following it with spring weather. She’s
in some religious stage when she should be into boys. It is from grandma Brenda
on my paternal side. She’s inviting me over to mend things, so she says, like
I’m some fraying skirt. When my father married my mother, Brenda protested
cause my mom already had me and comes from a working class family and Brenda and
Edward Sr. are middle class, rich only by the standards of purchasing expensive
decor and maxing out their cards. My grandmother would answer the phone by saying,
And you are? She’s a self built snob. But I’m bored and it’s Christmas
break and I tell her I’ll only come if Amelia can come too, so I can have
company on the Greyhound. She sighs, yields, and the following day we’re on
the bus.
I give Amelia the window seat so she can talk to God once in a while and I tell
her all she needs to know about the situation, how my mother wore a corset while
pregnant with me so that I was undetectable until I screamed my way out, how my
birth father had some breakdown from fighting in Nam and she ran away from him and
into Edward Jr.’s arms. My grandmother tried to like us but by the time I
wasn’t cute anymore she lost interest and for years we haven’t talked.
She sends me birthday cards on the wrong month but close to the correct day so I
don’t mind. While I talk to Amelia, I imagine a typewriter in her brain recording
it all, for that’s how she looks at me, hard, like she’s memorizing
everything. She always wants to know about my birth father who my mom left when
I was only two. I give her the same memory, the only one, each time: he was holding
me in front of our black mailbox and taught me to pull the red aluminum hand up
to signal we had mail. She presses with questions like I might be holding back but
how much can I recall at two and one and zero? And it could have been Edward holding
me but I like to believe it’s my birth father, Adam, cause if I didn’t
have that, what would I have?
In the terminal a bum approaches Amelia while we wait. He
asks for money and she preaches about prayer and faith then kisses his hands where
it looks like dirt has
hibernated in the cracks.
“Jesus,” I say.
“Fuck you.”
I like her for this, her lack of complete purity.
“Oh-my-God. Say it.”
She looks at me.
“Come on, just say it.”
“Fine,” she says. “Oh my God.”
“He’s my God too,” I say while striking my chest with my palm and
she tells me I’m dumb but she’s laughing.
The bus is half full so I take a window seat across from Amelia. We drive past farm
lands and rolling hills and I watch the bus’s tires splatter smaller cars
in soiled streaks which signals that we’re getting further from Clark’s
Summit. I fall asleep and dream a harvest moon is following us, shedding yellow
light and you can see the craters are like volcanic ground and the bus is driving
so so fast. Amelia shakes me. My grandmother is at the terminal judging everybody
and constantly checking her red painted nails as though being in such close proximity
to people like us who ride buses will crack the paint. I tell Amelia to follow my
lead and just stand near her, see if she can figure out who I am but I last only
thirty seconds before revealing myself and she says my name, Marisa! looking like
she might cry but snatches our hands and runs with us out of the building to her
leased Cadillac.
Her home is in a ritzy neighborhood. A golf course is just two miles from her development
and all the houses look about the same, brick, two-story homes. Garages are wider
than the road and below the snow are well manicured lawns and flower beds. She tells
me hers is in the design of the American flag with red white and blue carnations.
She seems to want a reaction from this as we stare at the imagined flower bed buried
under all of this snow but I don’t know what to do.
“Is that real fur?” Amelia asks, nodding toward her coat.
“Of course,” she says. “Everything here is real, but these,” and
she opens the top buttons of her coat and summoned to attention are her breasts.
She’s given her new boobies names, the left one is Heather and the right one
is Bonnie. Heather and Bonnie are the result of my grandfather’s affairs. We
stamp our feet, are instructed to take our shoes off at the door and have to leave
them outside and you know they’re going to harden like stale bread.
This house is built for giants. Everything is long and exaggerated. The ceiling
is domed and the black staircase spirals upstairs to three bedrooms and one and
a half baths. But it’s the kitchen I like, wide tiles like the glowing squares
in Michael Jackson’s video Billie Jean and counters as high as yesterday’s
snowfall. The refrigerator is double the size of ours at home and it’s filled
with so much food that she must throw half of it away from rotting.
On the mantle in the living room are a series of Melinda photographs. She is the
prize of the family with the car to prove it. There’s baby Melinda, toddler
Melinda in a yellow sun dress with white embroidered flowers, grade school Melinda
in a plaid sweater vest, and finally two high school Melinda’s, one that must
have a fan blowing her hair and in the other she is leaning against a convertible.
She’s my cousin whose father, Ted, died while playing golf. When I told my
brother this, he thought Ted was struck in the head with a golf ball. We laughed
but then I slapped him and said, no stupid, it was his heart. He was only thirty-six
so now I make Evan eat a carrot everyday with a glass of water.
“I thought we’d order in, with the weather and everything,” Brenda
says.
Amelia and I study the Chinese menu. She points to vegetables,
I want pork. While we wait, we sit at the kitchen table where my grandmother stirs
a pitcher of powdered
iced tea. It has an artificial sweetener and the taste sticks to my tongue.
“So, how’s my Edward?” she asks.
I don’t tell her that he doesn’t even know I’m here. I lied. What
he read from my lips was this: Amelia invited me to visit her grandmother. We’re
going overnight. It was close to the truth. Her grandmother is dead. Supposedly
her grandfather signed her out of the hospital when she was very ill and at a bar
forced her to drink into unconsciousness. We tell our family histories like a competition
and sometimes I exaggerate to get a reaction and I wonder if she does too.
“He’s still doing the training.”
Before the war he was a first year accountant, wore a suit to work and carried a
leather briefcase in his right hand. My mother loves describing this, his prior
sophistication with the hopes that like a bird’s migration, it might return.
But after his discharge from the service, he worked for organizations that aided
the unemployed. When the non-profit he worked for in New York was in transition
he brought strangers into our apartment. It was his idea to give practice interviews
and I’d hear him asking these people questions then critiquing their answers.
One of my lies to Amelia was that a jobless man got so angered because my dad said
his response was vague that he threw the kitchen table on its side and swung open
our cabinets and tossed all of the dish ware onto the floor. I told her my father
sat in the kitchen chair while I collected the broken pieces. I told her it looked
like glass sea shells.
“My dear Edward Jr.,” she says, fidgeting with a fifty dollar bill, dog-earing
all of the corners. Her wallet is on the table and she pulls out all of her cash,
and though she has smaller denominations of money she gives the delivery boy the
fifty and he looks annoyed, hands her back a stack of ones. She gives him a single
dollar for the tip. I open up a few cabinets looking for the plates but she wiggles
her index finger at me and points to a drawer where there’s paper plates and
wooden skewers for barbecues. The white delivery containers release steam as Amelia
pulls the tabs and my grandmother keeps dropping the chopsticks when she attempts
to separate them. She’ll never really need a utensil cause the underside of
her nails is as big as a teaspoon. Amelia, who is maybe too good at telling the truth
and a nail biter, takes them from her hands and pulls them apart easily. She sets
them at our places and after a few minutes, we all give up at trying to pick up rice
from the plate. I get the plastic forks and we use the chopsticks like knives, pushing
the food onto our forks. Beside my grandmother’s feet are broccoli heads splayed
and defeated. As I pull a paper towel from the rack, she yells at me.
“Don’t even think of it,” she says. Then she hollers, “Maria!
Maria!” and a woman with black hair tied up in a bun larger than my fisted
hand runs down the steps. Brenda points at her failures, the rice, the vegetables,
and Maria is on hands and knees.
We are directed into the living room and Brenda sits between
me and Amelia. She turns on the television and the shopping network is on. A woman
is dabbing a cream
that is supposed to make your face look younger.
“A secret, ladies,” Brenda says. “That stuff never works. It’s
all about now. You must take care of your skin.”
“My mom has a perfect complexion,” I say.
“Jane smokes,” she says. She seems to be having a hard time getting air
to the lungs at the mention of Jane and huffs. Amelia asks if we can change the channel.
She suggests the religious station but my grandmother rolls her eyes.
“I’m trying to buy something for my granddaughter,” she says in
defense. But I know it will be small, a statuette, a charm for a bracelet I don’t
own, that it will not be the convertible Melinda drives. And after sitting through
a clothing line titled, Cozy, where country themes are stitched onto sweaters and
blouses, a barn’s A-frame roof pointing to the cleavage I don’t yet have,
a treetop on your chest that could be mistaken for a green cloud, it finally comes,
my grandmother’s idea of what I’d like. It is a miniature robot painted
silver and blue. You could give it basic commands like, fetch my slippers, and it
would. The demonstration of the robot is done in a bedroom set on a square of carpeting.
The robot’s ‘feet’ make linear tracks and this excites Brenda.
You can pretend to vacuum! You can train the robot to just move across the floor!
She dials the eight hundred number and having memorized her credit card numbers speaks
them in a sing-song voice to customer service.
I can sense Amelia’s disgust at the entire day. She’s been biting the
inside of her cheek and crossing herself every twenty minutes so I tell my grandma
that we’re going to hang out downstairs. There’s a pool table and stereo.
Grandma says she’s going to take a nap, another beauty secret is rest! and
we descend the stairs. The basement is the most comfortable room in the house. It’s
all brown and gray and the rug isn’t fluffy. It’s so flat and thin you
can feel the coldness of the concrete from underneath. Turning the radio dial I
find the Bee Gee’s. I don’t know the rules of pool but I set the balls
in the center anyway. Amelia digs through a hope chest that’s filled with
linens and blankets.
“Your grandmother was a nurse?”
I am sticking my butt out, squinting at the lineup of pole
to ball, and as it hits low, the cue ball flies off of the table.
“I don’t know what she was.”
In a book are pages of photos of Brenda in a nurse’s uniform. At first I’m
thinking, Halloween costume, but it’s real. She’s in a hospital and
most times she’s standing beside patients of all ages. She looks caring, like
if it is possible to reveal such things in a picture, I’d say you can see
sympathy. Most of the patients are in hospital gowns in bed, tubes weaving through
space in the background. I should be noticing the patients’ bodies and faces,
their sickliness, but it’s my grandmother I stare at in each photograph, her
white uniform and generic nurse’s shoes, her touch of blush if any.
Upstairs my grandmother has a new face on, different shades of eye shadow in the
family of beige, and she is in the dining room at the bar, dropping an olive into
a glass. I am about to ask her about the photographs, not caring if she will get
mad that we had to snoop to find them, but the front door opens, Maria runs past
us, and then the lock crisply sounds. The olive shakes in the liquor from my grandmother’s
unsteady hand. She walks forward gingerly like Celeste, my cousin who was a maid
of honor at her sister’s wedding. Celeste was so nervous to have everyone
staring at her and walked with collapsing ankles in high heeled shoes, rocking the
way children do after getting off of the Flying Saucer ride at carnivals. My grandfather
steps into the room and splits his gaze between me and Amelia.
“It’s Marisa, Edward. A little surprise.”
Edward Sr. walks over and gets his drink, takes three sips, then asks about Amelia.
I feel embarrassed to talk but say she’s my neighbor and then get mad because
what I wanted to say was friend.
“What brings you young ladies here after the big storm?”
I get one syllable out before my grandmother cuts me off
and says that it was time we caught up and she begins rambling on about my father
and his business, talking
like he owns the non-profit. With a nod of the head he leaves the room and my grandmother
sprints into the kitchen. The table has been set by Maria who left for the night.
My grandmother inspects each setting and holds the plates up to her face and I question
if it is to see better an imperfection in the ceramic or herself.
“Dinner’s in five minutes,” she says. “Oh, come here, come
here,” she directs us. One of her hands holds an oiled spatula and the other
searches in her purse that is as large as a grocery bag.
“Stay still,” she says, then impressively so with one hand she opens
the blush compact, retrieves the brush and strokes our cheeks. I look at Amelia who
I’ve never seen in make-up and somehow it is dramatic, like she’s frozen
in an expression of sheer innocence.
“You stir, you mix the tea.”
My grandfather’s steps sound on the marble. His tie is loosened and his sleeves
are partially rolled. The newspaper waits at his place and he opens it up so that
we can no longer see his face but only the front page announcing another storm and
the prior damage. There is a photograph of homeless people gathered under cardboard
but I stare at my grandfather’s hands, his skin younger looking than his son’s,
and I think my grandmother lied to us and that she orders the anti-wrinkle cream
and they lotion their entire bodies nightly.
“So Marisa, how is your mother?” Edward Sr. asks.
I stir the quarter sized vegetables and without turning answer that she is fine.
I do not mention her dates, her drinking or her lack of visiting. Edward Sr. gets
up to slice the pot roast, tips the platter and pours the fluids into a small glass
that he then seasons with salt and drinks. Amelia refuses the meat, says she won’t
eat or wear animals. My grandfather debates this, calmly says that it is foolish
of her and what good is it to walk around in rubber shoes and plastic coats.
“Vegetables die, everything eventually dies,” Edward Sr. says.
“Okay, okay,” Brenda says, halting the conversation with her hand.
“Let’s just enjoy the meal.” No one speaks. Knives scrape the plates
while my grandmother’s high heels click steadily on the floor. I look to my
grandmother who seems to be revolving her portions of food around. She has barely
eaten anything. It’s like she’s divided her meal into the four food groups,
but lacking the means to build a pyramid, has instead designed a pinwheel. “Let’s
take a deep breath now,” she says, and we all stare at her. She’s pale
and I wonder where her make-up has faded to. My grandfather pauses with his utensils
pointing skyward.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asks.
“I have an announcement,” she says. She takes my hand in hers and squeezes
it.
She looks sick, her skin hanging from her features like it is too exhausted to hold
itself up and now I know what she’s going to announce. She’s dying.
She has a disease and little time to live. She is like the patient and I’m
like the nurse. I pet her hand and she pushes her chair back then runs into the
bathroom. We hear her vomit. I’m thinking - cancer. I try to recall if she
has been wearing a wig all this time. We listen to her. Water is running from the
faucet. My grandfather methodically slices his meat. He chews each piece eleven
times before swallowing. Brenda returns with a damp face. Her mascara is smudged
below her eyes like a painter’s fresh palette. My grandfather wipes his lips.
I place my hand out like bait but she doesn’t touch me.
“I’m with child,” she says.
At first I think she’s insulting me by lowering me to the ranks of child when
I’m a solid twelve. But my grandfather’s face reddens and when I get
what it means, I can’t help but blurt Holy Shit! Amelia kicks me under the
table. Edward Sr. puts his long fingers in front of his dish and stands. He walks
around us, gathering our plates, placing the dirty utensils on top so gently, so
like Edward Jr., how he is too careful, since he doesn’t know how much sound
he’s making, he’s certain not to make any. He turns on the kitchen faucet
and allows the water to run over the dishes and keeps it on as he leaves. I walk
over to turn it off. Food has lodged in the drain and the sink has been filling
up. A few more seconds and it would overflow. Reaching into the water, I work my
hand toward the bottom and it feels like I’ve been bitten but it’s a
cut. A knife’s edge has sliced the outside of my thumb and my blood mixes
with the water. I watch to see if the blood will cloud it but Brenda’s crying
turns my head. She uses her napkin to blow her nose and her pink lipstick stains
the cotton. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never known a fifty something
year old pregnant woman and it seems ridiculous. You’re not supposed to get
pregnant after you’re thirty is what I considered a fact and I am now thoroughly
confused. We watch the television. The storm is coming tonight to southeastern Pennsylvania
and the bus lines are temporarily out of service. The Philadelphia airport is shutting
down this evening and possibly tomorrow. The blizzards are of record breaking numbers
of snow fall and freezing temperatures and the idea is pleasing. That I want to
believe something momentous is here, that our delay will force me to call my father
to let him know I won’t be home on Tuesday and tell him the truth. Tell him
where I really am. Brenda will ask me to deliver the news about his baby sister.
She already had a sonogram or mammogram. Whichever is the one you see into your
own womb with. Amelia turns the channel from the weather station to the shopping
network.
“Oh, look at that. They’re selling a painting,” Amelia says in
the same soothing voice she used with the bum at the bus terminal.
It is a very simple landscape. There is a sun in swirls
of color that starts with a yellow center and deepens into a dark orange toward the
borders. The trees are
just crooked black lines and are so large it is not realistic. Everything seems
out of proportion but my grandma agrees with Amelia.
“It would look good in the nursery,” Brenda says between sobs. Amelia
coaxes the credit card numbers from her and within five days the painting will be
here. And before my grandfather will walk behind our backs through the hallway to
the front door with one leather suitcase under his arm, the three of us are thinking
of this painting by a stranger, how it will hang from the ivory colored wall and
be as good as a storybook, better than a mobile, the way the unborn girl will admire
it, how it will be a comfort.
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