Part V: Snakes – (Chapter 81)
Nana watches me, drilling me with sharp, green eyes, never missing things that, from my vantage point, should have been missed.
As I carry the cooler
through the pavilion, my heart does a strange flip ‒ a certain knowledge that
by this time next year, Nana will be gone, out of my life forever, like Pappa,
Mother, and Auntie before her.
I feel an incredible
sadness, not so much for Nana’s impending death ‒ it’s what she prays for every
day now that she’s confined to the wheelchair ‒ but more for my changed status
in the family.
Matriarch-in-waiting
isn’t exactly what I have in mind.
I don’t feel old.
Deep inside, I have not
stopped being the young, wild thing of my early adult years. I can still dance
all night ‒ like a 21-year-old ‒ and I’m not beyond kicking off my shoes ‒ I’ve
been known to drink a few rums and Cokes, though I gave up the drugs back in
1983, after an incredible marijuana high during which I enjoyed an out-of-body
experience.
Too bad I don’t do that
anymore. Maybe that’s what marks me
as a middle-aged woman ‒ perhaps I’d be flirting too closely with the permanent
version of being out of body, so that was that. As for uninhibited sex...well,
let’s just say I’m not ready to give that up yet, either.
Nana beckons.
Has she read my mind?
I feel my face burning
red.
Don’t be silly, Samantha. Grandmothers don’t tap into their
granddaughters’ secret thoughts.
Not even Nana.
Still, I wonder.
I wave to her. “I’ll be
there in a few minutes.”
I need to help Sheldon
get a few more things out of the car and put the cold food into the trunk.
I should spend some time
alone with Nana, talk with her about our lives, my life, but I can’t do it –
she’ll just bring up one of the three dreaded topics:
(1) My fat
(2) My lack of parenting skills
or
(3) My past
I’m not in the mood to
discuss any of them.
The Big Three are either
non-negotiable or moot, so what would be the use getting into a no-win argument
with an 89-year-old woman on the verge of death?
After Shel and I have
loaded the car with our perishables, we take a break and sit down with Nana. He
loves Nana like his own mother, and, sometimes, I feel as though Shel had been
handpicked by Nana to be my husband ‒ except that he was divorced and not a
Catholic.
Still, she seems willing
to overlook those major flaws in exchange for a kindred spirit who has one goal
in mind: to set me on a righteous path.
I realized my life was in
big trouble when I first brought Shel back to Iowa and my family liked
and adopted him right away.
Unfortunately, from a
relationship point of view, I’ve always had better luck ‒ and sex ‒ with men my
family dislikes.
I swear, as those two
have gotten tighter in recent years ‒ together conspiring against me, devising
ways to make my life slightly uncomfortable and off-center ‒ my life with
Sheldon has deteriorated accordingly.
Yet another story.
My rear hasn’t even
warmed the bench yet when Nana jumps right into topic number 3; I suspect she
thinks she’s being diplomatic by sneaking into the subject via the absent
Nicole.
“Well, Sam,” she says,
sighing, “I understand Nicole’s giving you fits lately.” Nana has alluded to
her absence several times throughout the day and seems hurt that Nikki hasn’t
even written or called lately.
I shrug. “Oh, she’s just
being a typical kid.”
I don’t tell her that
Nicole’s living with her 45-year-old biker boyfriend, is five months pregnant,
has been through drug rehab.
Crack cocaine.
And now belongs to that
whacko Circle of Love cult.
I just hope Nana dies
before the news hits the Mallory side of the family with a thud, as it
eventually will.
Nana shakes her head.
“What goes around, comes around,” she says. “Thankless job, raising kids.”
“Yes, Nana.”
“You love ‘em, feed ‘em,
get ‘em through 12 years of Catholic training, and how do they repay you? By
stabbing you in the heart,” she says, clutching her chest and giving me that
accusatory look, a precursor to what comes next: “You’ll never know how broken-hearted
your Pappa was when you came dragging home from California with Doug. Tsk.
Tsk.”
“Yes, Nana.”
“Filthy rotten. That’s
what you were.” She looks me up and down. “The only time I ever remember you
being thin. And all that hanging-down hair! Long and dirty! Whatever were you
thinking back then?”
I want so much to answer
her in the most honest and heartfelt manner that I can, but I know that her
question isn’t really a question or even a need to make some sense of an era
that made absolutely no sense to her generation. To her, the question is an automatic
response to me, a Pavlovian response to my presence. And her words cut
deeply into my psyche, words that make themselves heard, no matter how hard I
try obliterating them ‒ like “Feelings” playing
over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and ‒
But what if Nana’s
question were really a question?
How would I answer it?
I don’t really know ‒
Nana shakes her head as
if she’s somewhere else, perhaps halfway to Pappa, Mother, and Auntie.
In a weak voice, she
says, “Whatever were you thinking....” and, nodding, her eyes close and her
head droops.
“She’s sleeping,” Shel
says, standing up and smoothing back Nana’s shaggy hair. “I’ll see if I can
help set up the dance floor.”
“I want to stay here for
a few minutes.”
Shel nods and pats my
shoulder. “Sure.” He leaves me alone with the snoring Nana.
And I grope for an honest answer to Nana’s question, reaching back in my past for clues.