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.