Unforgotten and Unchanged

Unforgotten and Unchanged. 

The glass door screeched familiarly when I opened it. It had never closed correctly. It was just the sound of Nana’s door. 

I walked in without knocking and was alarmed to find an old woman standing in the middle of the living room. I made no effort to be friendly. The woman did not introduce herself and began muttering about how they’d gone out for a drive.

The house smelled clean. Not Nana clean. Someone else’s clean. A new to me cheap laminate floor had replaced the comfortable beige carpet. I had never seen the carpet when it demanded to be replaced. So, I bemoaned the change and snarled at the cheap floor. 

In a house that once felt like home, I tiptoed. I perched carefully on the edge of the sofa. I stared at the photos and the faux greenery on the wall. They were unchanged. The curtains familiar relics. 

Timidly, I opened the cheap door to Nana’s room. At the sight of her furniture, I felt everything in the nameless discomfort of the familiar forgotten.  The furniture was the same. The corner floor was peeling and rotting away. Nana would not have stood for that. “You’d think they’d have some class,” she’d say if she saw it. 

But Nana was not there. 

She was in a nursing home three hours away. 

Her bathroom was clean and still old. The foam rubbery mauve cushion was gone from the toilet. The sweaty effect it had on the user’s thighs encouraged promptness. The counters were still beige and laminate, a 1980s attempt to mimicked marble. But on the back of the door, Nana’s pajamas were gone. 

Her blue silk gown with lace trimmings at the neck and the baby pink robe with embroidered white swirls had vanished. 

Rachel swirled into the bathroom wearing Nana’s pink robe. Sarah pranced behind her. I was in the blue pajamas. My sisters, Ruth and Hope, stood at the dresser carefully selecting jewelry to match their borrowed silks. 

Nana was in the living room talking to our mothers while the girls ruled her bedroom. We were playing house. In this house all the women wore silk pajamas and borrowed jewelry. They piled their hair up on their heads. Everyone copied Nana’s process of curling and picking out her thinning hair. The girls were allowed to use the hairspray and all the hair pins they wanted. No one could plug in the curling iron. 

“So, the kids are well?” said Sarah in a high-pitched dainty voice that supposedly mimicked the sound of adults. Rachel pretended to curl her hair and replied with the affected casual air of a worn woman, “Oh yes. Christopher is with his grandmother. But my husband, Jeremy, has come down with a cold.” 

The cousins always used the names of their big boy cousins when playing pretend. They did not know any other boys. 

Pretend consisted primarily of getting dressed and I was often left behind in understanding what to do. So, in flat awkward voice, I said, “Has Jeremy gone to work today?” Rachel answered with her shrill adult voice, “Yes, but he will be over for supper later.”  

The girls nodded their heads together, proud of their adult conversation, and stared as Sarah carefully applied bright blue eyeshadow on her wrinkle free eyelids. 

My sisters burst in with jewelry. They were loud and decisive. With dramatic waves and bows, they held up their carefully selected pieces. “For you,” Ruth said in the voice of a belligerently gracious British royal. She dramatically bowed to Rachel while handing her garnet necklace made of glass. “Oh yes, perfect, my dear. Thank you,” Rachel responded in her British voice and bowed back. Everyone began bowing to each other and waving their arms with dramatic graceful and slow movements. “Why thank you, my dear. Oh, how lovely.” They were all suddenly brutalizing the British accent with their natural Arkansas southern voices. 

The cousins exercise in formality continued until we decided we were to be presented to their mothers. We were arranged themselves according to age and sashayed down the hallway. 

The fanfare we made for ourselves summoned the attention of their mothers. 

“Oh my, aren’t we pretty,” laughed Nana.

Our mothers and Nana laughed. The girls twirled and pranced around the living room while we were admired. We were mostly laughed at but we could not tell the difference. 

I pranced and spun around until I perched on the edge of the couch. 

I stood up quickly from my perch on the couch when the screen door made its screeching sound.

“Why So-ph-ie! So-pho-ie!” 

Grandpa hollered. I loved how he said my name. Always the exact same. Surprised and delighted. 

At the sound of the familiar greeting, I immediately felt relieved. It was going to be easier than I thought. With two years passed and only a few phone calls between us, I was glad to see his sameness. He was still tall and thin. The pack of cigarettes was missing from his front shirt pocket but the reading glasses were still there. His Levi jeans and front pocketed polo shirts and bomber styled windbreaker jacket was unchanged. If 84-year-old men can be cool, I thought Grandpa was. 

I settled comfortably into the couch and Grandpa took his familiar space with his left ankle crossed over his right knee. 

“So, how ya been! I!” 

I began answering. Grandpa still couldn’t hear, so I shouted. But I had never known Grandpa any other way 

I did not know how much to say and kept my answers short. Silence began to fall. That new discomfort crept into my bones again. 

Nana was the driver of conversation. When she wanted Grandpa involved she would shout his name and it would be repeated. He usually listened for parts of the conversation and turned down his hearing aid for the other parts. 

Grandpa and I did things together. I followed him to the garage to watch him tinker. He was always tinkering. He had hundreds of tools for tinkering. He made wooden cars for me to race in the church’s Grand Prix. His cars won first place every time. Sometimes he was fixing a little thing. Or cleaning his golf clubs. He made little wooden games like tix-tac-toe with a wood burner and golf tees. 

He was always showing me things until he stood and stretched to go on the front porch. He could smoke in his garage and on the front porch. Never inside. Tapping his cigarettes on the side of his long legs was the signal to not follow. 

Grandpa and I went fishing. He showed me how to bait the hook, to reel in the fish, to watch the fish monitor, and we sat in silence otherwise. The silence felt easy. I never even noticed it. 

Grandpa let me reel in his fish and told Nana that I caught them all. Nana made us sandwiches that he packed in a cooler with cokes. With fishy hands, we would take a break on the lake to eat the cold bologna and cheese on white bread. 

Sometimes he vaguely referred to “when I was in the army” and I thought about the framed photo Nana had of him in uniform. He was married to someone who was not Nana while he was in the army. It made me wonder, without direction or knowledge, of what it meant to have a first wife. 

Once he suddenly and intentionally revealed his prejudices. He wanted to warn me against the dangers of marrying outside my race. He said, “I’ve always considered you to be white,” which I most definitely was not, but his chosen identity for me is what allowed Grandpa to reconcile his love and his prejudice. I let him say what he wanted. My identity and my opinions were too newly born to defeat my respect for him. 

I too often told that story to others. It helped me explain the brown girl with a southern past and confused sympathies. But it did not explain Grandpa. I wish I’d told more stories about the tinkering, the fishing, the tic-tac-toes games, the gentleness, the quietness, the laughter. 

Grandpa and I never spoke of it again. And we carried on in easy comfortable silence.

The silence had grown uncomfortable. The woman, Wanda, turned out to be someone paid to come clean and help keep an eye on him. She was probably 75 and I thought she needed her own caretaker. Wanda sucked up all the space in the room. 

I did not want to hear about Wanda’s sister who married her distant cousin on promise that they would never have children. I didn’t want to hear about Wanda’s brother whose leg fell off in the lake and had to be found by her sister diving into the lake. 

Grandpa asked about Mom and Dad. “Oh, they’re doing fine.” I wondered if I should tell him that Dad now did yoga and had tattoos. That might frighten Grandpa, so I didn’t. Plus, I didn’t want to yell the words, “Dad got tattoos.” It seemed indiscrete with Wanda there eavesdropping. 

The silence crept in again. I watched the clock and was delighted to discover that I had to use the toilet again. This entire trip to Arkansas had been one of revealing in the necessity of bodily functions. There was some normalcy in the routine of a bathroom visit. The walk to the bathroom was something to do. It released us both from conversation and shook up the room. Maybe in my return the weird silence would be gone and it would all feel normal again. 

Wanda was talking about a man who went outside in a snow storm to use the bathroom and fell down. The neighbor found him the next morning. 

We too quickly passed through our shared relatives. 

“Have you seen Aunt Laurie and Uncle West?” 

“Rachel has a new baby. I hear Sarah has eight kids.”

“Oh boy ain’t that something.”

Grandpa didn’t know about these people any more than I did. Neither one of us saw them much or talked to them. But it gave us something to say. 

I thought about mentioning that it was an election year but it seemed clear he didn’t know who the current president was. 

Oh, how about my boyfriend? But Grandpa probably thinks I am still married, so then I’d have to tell him about the divorce. 

Now I know what it means to be a first wife. 

“Have you seen our old house lately?” He couldn’t remember where we used to live. 

“You still happily married?” 

I considered saying yes because it would be easier. It wouldn’t hurt him for me. But I hated untruths. I answered honestly and made it seem laughably casual. Oh, divorced a couple years ago, no big deal. Grandpa was embarrassed that he either didn’t know or had forgotten. Neither of us knew which it was. I made it seem like a very forgettable bit of knowledge. 

Well, here’s that. So, here we are, Grandpa knows I’m divorced. And there is damned Wanda becoming privy to my relational failures.

Nana’s empty chair made the room quiet. She’d have said something now. She’d have asked a question about the divorce that I could answer. She’d have been entirely on my side and eventually said something like, “We never did care for him anyways.” But Nana was silent. 

And she had never really known that I married. Her Alzheimer’s had started something around ten years ago. When I married, Nana did not come and did not know. She forgot each time she was told. So, when I divorced it didn’t seem worth telling. In Nana’s mind, all of her grandchildren remained in school then they became parents. That was the order of life. 

As Grandpa hummed, “Well, ain’t that something.” Nana’s missing words became even louder. 

So, I talked about Nana. Talking about Nana was something everyone did. It gave people who had nothing to say to each other something familiar to discuss. “How was she today?” The question seemed stupid. Well, she’s terrible still, obviously. She’s lost her mind and putters around the nursing home talking about having been at work all day and her neck cream not coming in the mail yet. But I answered the question kindly and made it seem like she was doing well. You know, as well as a mindless woman under house arrest can be doing. 

Grandpa missed her but he didn’t say so. He spoke of her gently and with finality, like an old loved dog who had to be put down. 

I stared at the clock again and began to think about an exit plan. Something that made it easy and comfortable. A plan that felt like a duty and not the escape that it was. 

“So, how’s your brother,” Grandpa asked me.  

Oh, he’s an asshole. He’s angry and mean and arrogant. He scares me and is miserable to be around. I’d rather never see him. 

This is probably why he hates me. 

But I miss him so much. I miss picking out war movies with him in the limited aisle of Rick’s Pizza and Movie. I miss rolling our eyes together over the antics of our sisters. I miss my friend. We were partners. 

He hates me now. He can hold a grudge masterfully and it will justify his victimhood perpetually. 

But that’s not James. James is funny. He has clever jokes. He has good ideas and bold dreams. He wants to help people. He wants to be recognized and known and loved. At his best, he’s generous, friendly, humble, and loving. 

This angry, brooding, revengeful, isolating man is not someone I know. I wish he would come back to us. I wish it was easier. I wish my brother laughed. I wish we were friends. 

I wish he was alright. 

“Oh, he’s alright. He teaches high school. His son is super cute.”

“Well, no kidding. How about that. James’s got a boy. How old is his son?” 

“Five.”

Grandpa is embarrassed again. We both know he’s been told James had a son. Five is too old to have not heard this before. It means he forgot. 

I didn’t know Grandpa was forgetting until the moment proved it. 

He started saying something about oh that’s right and pretending like he’d not asked. 

“He loves taking his son fishing. Just like you took us. We live on the river and there’s lots of rainbow trout in it. You’d love it if you came to visit.” 

Grandpa isn’t coming to visit. James doesn’t visit either. 

Grandpa doesn’t fish anymore. Now he drives to the lake just to look at it. 

“Well how about that.”

The conversation kept repeating.  I realized Grandpa was old too. He wasn’t fine. He tapped on his new pacemaker. 

“They flew me to Hot Springs! In a helicopter. Lordy, Lordy, I hate to fly.” 

With a sigh and standing like an old person, I said she had to get on over to Aunt Laurie’s for dinner. As if Aunt Laurie was going thrown away all the chicken spaghetti and lock the door if I didn’t arrive promptly at 5:00. 

I felt proud of my hour’s visit with Grandpa and ashamed of its brevity. I was desperate to leave. I despaired at wanting to leave. 

Grandpa hugged me and said, “love you. Be careful wherever you’re going.” 

We stood and looked at each other. 

I smiled and said, “love you.” With excessive cheerfulness I waved good-bye and pushed the glass door open. It screeched. 

The tall oaks in the cul-de-sac cut had been cut down a decade ago. 

I felt shaky as I put the key into the ignition. I wanted to run away. And run back inside. 

The door screeched open and slammed behind me. 

Nana! I yelled as loudly as I could, just barely above a low toned whisper. 

“Why hello hun!” 

“Mama wants to borrow a cup of sugar.” 

“Come on then, let’s see what we have.” 

I wiped my bare feet on the scratchy plastic door rug outside. Nana always had the staples. She was one of the people who believed in Y2K and she had stocked up in the laundry room pantry that smelled of her detergent. The motor oil and cold concrete smell of Grandpa’s garage seeped through the door mixing with the detergent. Cans of corn and green beans lined the shelves. Betty Crocker cake mixes and cans of icing joined them. Y2K would have sweets at Nana’s house. 

“We’re making cookies to bring over.”

It was Sunday so everyone was coming to Nana’s after church. 

“Oh my, won’t that be good.” 

Nana was making hamburgers. Everyone loved her hamburgers. The trick was to put the cover back over the large electric skittle to warm the buns and melt the cheese on the patties. The grease oozed slowly through the drain.  

Nana opened an orange Tupperware with a stamped flower on the lid and scooped sugar into a small bowl. The tall skinny green Tupperware always had vanilla cookies in it. 

Walking carefully with my sugar through the garage I stopped to see what Grandpa was doing. The cement floor was cold on my bare feet. 

“Why Mel-o-dy!” He hollered. 

I told him about the sugar and the cookies. 

“Sounds like we’re going to have a crowd over soon.” 

Grandpa didn’t like crowds. He liked us. But all of us was too much. He’d hang around for the beginning, eat a burger, and soon surrender his Lazy-boy to someone else. He and Nana had separate rooms. So, he’d go sit in his room while everyone ran around. No one knew what exactly he did in there. And the aunts made jokes about the separate bedrooms. I didn’t know what conjugal meant but that word was always part of the joke.  

He had a tiny television where he watched golf and fishing. Old army hats hung on the wall with a couple photos of his kids and grandkids. But no one ever went beyond the doorway. He’d be really friendly to everyone as he passed from his room to his garage. 

“Why hello there! How we doing!” 

He’d ask a few questions but he stayed in motion. He kept his hearing aid out of his ears so he could justify not responding to the answers. 

Then he’d sit in the garage. 

He told me to be careful of my bare feet. Fishing hooks could be on the ground. I peered over his work bench as he sat on the metal stool. He was using a wood burner to write his name on the bottom of a toolbox. It seemed like an important thing to do. 

When I returned, the house was full. All the big cousins were there. Jack had a girlfriend with him and that seemed weird. I watched her carefully. Why would someone be Jack’s girlfriend? Does he kiss her? Why would Jack want a girlfriend? Jack was the funny and oldest cousin. He talked to the aunts and uncles. They liked hearing his stories and his deep serious voice that was paradoxical to the humor. 

I slid into the room barely noticed. I found a spot on the floor with my back to the television cabinet. That’s where the secondary cousins sat. The ones who spent most of their time in Nana’s room. My job was to sit quietly on the floor because there were never enough seats. The aunts, older cousins, uncles, and dozen other passing relatives were responsible for talking. Sometimes I answered, if asked. We would sit there quietly until rooted out by our mothers who wanted to talk about Jake’s new girlfriend and Aunt Birdie’s ex-husband. 

The aunts and Nana spoke in Pig Latin in front of the cousins.  Pig-Latin was a secret language used among Southern women to keep their gossip a secret from listening ears. It only worked to keep children from understanding. When the aunts discovered that Sarah had learned Pig Latin and was translating it for the younger cousins, they stopped using it and sent the girls outside. 

But until sent outside, with the little boys and youngest girls, I stayed on the floor, digging my toes in the carpet, drawing lines with my fingers, and listening. 

The cloth of the couch refused to take the lines my fingers drew. Aunt Laurie handed me a plate of chicken spaghetti.

“So, how was Nana?” 

I repeated the sweet funny stories from her visit and ignored the obvious, Nana was basically a caged and wounded animal. Her humanity destroyed by the absence of body and mind. 

“Did you find us Okay? You still know how to find your way around here?”

After fleeing Grandpa’s house and the tormented memories, I found only more. When I left this town, driving was a vague dream of future adulthood. My power behind the wheel and its collision with my child identity made for an unsuccessful fight against forced self-reflection. 

I drove to my childhood home from Grandpa’s. It was walking distance. A crisp white house with blue trim. It had 32 windows and 4 doors. Mint grew outside of the laundry door. Once I saw a snake in the mint. The house had two small trees that Dad planted and a pecan tree in the backyard. Toy soldiers on paper lined the walls of my brother’s bedroom. I shared the small converted attic room with my sisters. The entire property was clean, bright, big, and intentionally loved. 

Is this the wrong house? 

I thought the driveway was bigger. The whiteness wasn’t crisp and the blue trim chipped. The front yard had cars parked on it. The yard was littered. The porch overran with bicycles. The pecan tree had been cut down. The porch far too small.

It was not the wrong house. It was my white house with blue trim and 32 windows. 

Memory had faded Smith Street and its image caught my mind like a knot.

Hope stumbled out the door as she untied the knot in her blue bonnet. The kind that pioneer women wore. It had a tiny pattern of pink roses and green vines on it. 

Behind the detached carport we had established a small home. With painstaking work, the sisters gathered leaves and grasses to make small beds covered with the few blankets allowed outside. Water in a metal tin created a kitchen where mud pies were being carefully tended. 

Endless hours were spent setting up their home, then packing it up, and journeying through the yard to the next homestead. 

Mom was sitting on the porch with the corded phone talking. She talked to her sister, Aunt Birdie, in Texas, almost every day. Sometimes Mom and Dad fought about the expense of long-distance phone calls. Mom would tell Aunt Birdie about that fight on their next expensive call. 

I spent my nights sharing the bed with my sisters. Once the lights were off and everyone was asleep, I would sneak out of bed, put a blanket over my head and the lamp, and spend the entire night reading. I burned a hole in more than one blanket with the lamp’s light and ruined my eyes into adulthood. 

Dad told stories before bed. He once read the entire unabridged version of Dr. Doolittle.

He also sang. 

There were three in the bed

Then the little one said 

Roll Over! Roll Over!

So one they all rolled over 

And one fell out. 

The who fell out would sneak back in the bed to be rolled out again. Dad pretended to be confused and the song would grow back to three in the bed. 

Three in the bed, Dad started singing again. 

“Sometimes I go on YouTube and listen to your dad sing,” Uncle West was saying, “It just brings me comfort.” 

“Do you want a drink, Soph?” he followed.

I looked blankly at him. My eyebrows wrinkled excessively. 

“You drink, Uncle West?”

“Soph.”

He looked at me sternly and seriously. Leaning on one knee, he moved his torso in my direction. 

“Soph, I drink like a fish.” 

I was sitting in the back of the blue van listening to Mom and Aunt Mae. They wanted to make vanilla. Vanilla is made from vodka. I wasn’t sure exactly what vodka was but I knew it was in the same family as the occasional beer Grandpa had in the back of the refrigerator. I felt embarrassed when I saw it and pretended I did not see it. 

Mom and Aunt Mae sat in the blue van outside of a store. Neither wanted to be seen purchasing vodka. They discussed the issue at length. They left the parking lot without the vodka and never made vanilla. 

No one ever told me that drinking was bad, but it was not done. It was among the things I understood vaguely and decidedly knew were bad. Kissing, alcohol, smoking, anything Aunt Bertie’s ex-husband did, being unkind, cousin Lottie laying her head on her boyfriend’s lap, cursing, and getting a divorce were the bad things. 

So why did Uncle West just offer me a drink? 

Aside from it being a bad thing. I am still twelve and can’t have a coke without permission.  

Uncle West poured me a whiskey neat before settling into interrogate me. 

“So, tell me Soph, your mom tells me you are in with the liberals. You’ve fallen in the same way as my children. Tell me why the liberals…..”

He began to ask a series of loaded questions with little pause for response. 

“You’re not giving me answers, Soph, you’re just asking me questions back.” 

“Because I have a premonition that these questions are a set-up and you don’t want answers, you want to make a point.” 

Uncle West bellowed with laughter. I couldn’t believe I sassed him. 

I was uncomfortable. Talking was never easy. But this was impossible. In their presence, I did not know who I was anymore. My childhood and my adulthood collided so terrifically. They accepted me as an adult and their acceptance was disquieting. I’d have preferred they seat me on the floor and talk to each other while I listened. I knew how to listen to them talk. I did not know how to be listened to. 

I kept my foot crossed over a knee and sipped on the whiskey while Uncle West continued. 

“So, you’ve given up your dreams of being Condoleezza Rice?”

         Thanks for putting it so delicately. West. 

“Um, I suppose.” 

“Whatever happened to that? Just didn’t like it? You were going to be the secretary of state. Remember? Just like Condi. Do you still have those ambitions?” 

His proud remembrance of my childhood goals slapped me in the face. I wanted to be great. I was a dreamer. And here I am. A realtor. At best an unheard nighttime writer. 

If I really looked at my life, and my dreams, I could decidedly say I failed. I was a failure. I sat in judgement of those who tried and hid feelings of failure. 

I’d actually gotten on the right track. Time abroad at the US Embassy, presentations to the State Department, and reports to Senators. 

Then emptiness and uncertainty entered, and I said yes. I married him. I married him to fill the unknown days with known. 

I wished someone had said, emptiness is okay. Take quiet empty unknown days and know yourself. 

Someone probably did say that, I probably didn’t listen. 

It wasn’t entirely his fault. He took a woman afraid of her own ambitions and put her in the cage of his limited idea of womanhood. His limits prevented me from failing. I excelled at wife-ness. I cooked, cleaned, taught other people's children, and lead a quiet lonely life. Within his cage, I was not a failure, I was a model wife. I embraced the cage. It was an excuse, an answer, a reason, a purpose. I was absolved of failure, mistake, and choice because I was obeying. 

By the time the rasp of a dying soul shook me awake, I was in my early thirties. 

My ambition became today. Go to yoga. Talk to friends. Take a walk. Leave the house. Buy the house. Divorce. Dance again. Laugh today. Wake up. Stop crying. Breathe. 

When the fog cleared, I was happy again. Somehow in the ambition of today I had become happy. Deeply content in a way I had never known. My every day was filled with people I loved, laughter, dancing, music, and dreams. 

That felt like success. Like I achieved little Sophie’s wildest goals. I was happy and free again. 

I was not the Secretary of State. And Uncle West had brutally reminded me that once upon a time, my ambitions had flown so much higher than surviving today. 

“Do you have any ambitions?” 

“No, I guess I don’t. Not really. I’m happy though.” 

He seemed disappointed. 

No plans to becoming Secretary of State. Not even plans to remarry. And a devoted Democrat at that. 

“I sort of got close. Once I presented at the State Department. Not sure it does any good.” 

Hmph. Was all he said. 

But I get itchy teeth all the time. I had been thinking about uprooting my happy little life and moving away. I got an itch to take the Foreign Service exam yesterday. I started dreaming about being posted to Kabul then Paris then maybe Singapore. I browsed for jobs in New York City without knowing what I looked for or why. My family, my boyfriend, my friends, my known-ness.  It would be agonizing to leave. But I still tortured myself with dreams of leaving.

The more distant the cage of marriage became the itchier my teeth and the more I dreamt of running away again. It might not be too late. I was not yet 33. I didn’t have children. I could still be great. If I chose it, I could start over, and be something even my child self would admire. 

Would you, Uncle West, feel less disappointed if you knew these thoughts tortured me? 

Would it be less disappointing if you knew that each night I stopped myself from destroying the happy little life I have? 

“Yeah, just doesn’t seem important. Sorta got derailed I guess.” 

I started to stutter more excuses but he had moved on. 

“So, tell me Sophl, do you go to church?” 

         When will it end? I am a child still. 

But I wasn’t a child and he expected adult answers of me. I desperately did not want to disappoint my childhood.

“Um…no. Not really.” 

Actually. Not even not really. I did not go to church at all. In safe places, I say I am not a Christian.  

“Just like my children. Why? What is it? Is it because we forced you? I was hard on my boy. He hates the church now. I was too hard on him. I had to make him a man, you know. That wasn’t the right way. But you girls too. It must be because you felt forced to go to church? We made him go and be the children’s leader. That’s why he doesn’t like church.” 

“Yeah, maybe we children could tell he was being forced.” 

Uncle West laughed at my joking truth. He was on his third whiskey and my first was still healthy. 

Despite the interrogation, I did not desire to leave. I was uncomfortable and content at my aunt’s house. 

Because in this house, the only change was me. I could deal with the change I felt within. It was the change in others that disquieted. 

With hugs and friendly goodbyes, I left the house of the known. 

The world was shrinking. The visit forced reflection. It forced me to contend with who I was, where I came from, and what I became. 

On the long empty roads, surrounded by rural poverty and nothingness, I despaired at my past. 

The empty roads made I want to call him. The emptiness and the unknown called his name. Everytime I was lonely, sad, or empty, I called him. He wasn't my boyfriend. He was my drug and I didn't recognize addiction. 

The yellow lines moved on. 

I passed the sign for Fort Smith. 

Fort Smith is the place Uncle Harold went to live with his new girlfriend. Uncle Harold left Aunt Mae for a married woman in our church. 

No one really told me directly. Aunt Mae and Mom took me to the bookstore with them. Of the aunts, Aunt Mae scared me the most but I loved her a little extra because she always bought me books. But these books were not for me. Aunt Mae read the titles out loud to Mom when they drove home. 

“Healing Marriage after Trauma” 

“God’s Plan for Struggling Marriages”

“Learning how to Love Your Spouse” 

“The Godly Principles to Make Marriage Work” 

I was old enough to understand. These were books to help when there was a problem. Aunt Mae had a problem with her marriage. Her marriage was Uncle Harold. She had an Uncle Harold problem. 

Uncle Harold was as famous as one can be in a town of 5,000. This tiny insignificant town was all I knew and I was proud of my Uncle Harold. I was proud that this man everyone knew was my family. I did not have a single memory of him speaking to me. But I was proud to be his family and never expected him to notice me. 

Uncle Harold taught me something important. He taught me what it meant to cheat. He defined unfaithfulness. He taught me about divorce. 

These were not words I knew. I did not know what happened between husbands and wives or what their rules were. But I knew that Uncle Harold was with Aunt Mae. They lived together, they had children together, they were family together. And then they were not. 

He moved and went to live with Dave’s wife in Fort Smith. The church fired him. And Dave’s wife. 

No one told me. I just deducted it from Aunt Mae’s books, my mother’s side of the phone conversation with Aunt Birdie, and sometimes my wise older cousin Rachel who said incorrect adult things with a matter of fact tone. 

I thought about sad Dave living in his yellow house with his sad son, Kevin. I didn’t want him to lose his mother. I wondered, if Uncle Harold goes to live with Dave’s wife…will Dave and Kevin go to live with Aunt Mae? 

I remembered Uncle Harold forever. He was my first understanding, however vague, of betrayal, of cheating, of unfaithfulness, of intimate pain. 

I used to practice what I would say to him. 

After much study, I resolved to say;

Hello. Harold. 

Then I would turn my back and walk away. 

Hello. With a period. Not a comma. There would be nothing to follow this. And hello was very formal. There would be no friendly “Hi” and no welcoming “hey!” Hello. Period. 

Harold. No uncle. The absence of uncle meant I was disowning him and he would know it. Not even Mr. Harold. Complete deserved disrespect. 

I daydreamed about the vengeance I would gain for Aunt Mae. Hello Harold. And he would be sorry. 

Sorry like his children who ended up divorced. And sorry like my brother who ended up divorced. And sorry like me who ended up divorced. And sorry like all the times I wanted to leave him and thought, will I be like Harold? 

Hello. Harold. 

Hello? The phone was ringing. It was him. His voice felt good. Like dessert before dinner. The yellow lines moved on. 

You have arrived! The GPS screamed. 

With nauseating nervousness and a sense of superiority because of my goodness for visiting, I approached the clinic that held Nana. The smell was just like the books said. Old. The smell of oldness was profound. The smell immediately introduced itself to the visitor. Hello, here is the end of life and this is its smell. The nurses did not notice my entrance and their loudness amongst the dying was disquieting. Where was the tone of respect and discomfort? 

I saw her. In a blue chair with red stripes and yellow stains, sleeping in the hallway, surrounded by old women, there sat my Nana. Her grey sweater had a stain on it. She was unaware of the smell and the noise around her. 

I knelt beside her. The friendly view of the nurse made me nervous. 

Nana? I whispered. 

Silent snoring. 

Nana? I rubbed her arm a little. 

         What if she doesn’t know me? What if I scare her? What if I accidentally hurt her? 

I smiled awkwardly at the nurse with the incessant smiling stare. 

A little louder and another rub on the arm, awoke Nana. 

She was confused but to my great relief cried out, “Why hello hun!”

Oh thank god. It will be okay. 

As Nana collected her thoughts, it was clear my face took her to another time and another place. 

Nana could not hear me, so I yelled, trying to ignore the agony it caused me for eavesdropping nurses and strange old people to overhear my thoughts and discomfort. 

I had heard tales of Nana’s forgetfulness, her confusion, her sudden breakdowns, her erratic anger. 

But Nana sounded the same. She started asking questions. 

“Well, hun, how’s life?”

I answered with trepidation. Again, truth or pretend? The simple or the real? 

“It’s good. I flew here today.”

“No kidding, hun. From where?”

“North Carolina.” 

“Oh that’s right. How’s your mother?”

“She’s doing good.”  

We went in quick circles. 

Everyone was good. Everything was fine. 

I decided to get interesting. 

“You keep up with the news a lot?” 

“Oh, yes, well the State news.”

“What’s going on with the State?”

“Well, it is Polk County verses the United States.”

Nana paused. Shook her head. 

“That was just a lie. A flat old lie. Let’s just strike that.” 

I became less afraid of the sound of my own loud voice. 

A woman sitting near us kept laughing to herself. She was sitting alone and laughing without recognizing the fallen piece of cake in her lap. She cackled and talked to herself. 

Nana and I stared at the laughing lady together until Nana rolled her eyes, “I wish they’d be quiet around here and let us have a conversation.” 

I was relieved to know Nana recognized crazy. That meant Nana wasn’t. 

“What did you do today, Nana?” 

“Oh hun, I worked.”

Damn. She's crazy too. 

“At the electric company?” 

Nana paused. Her mind felt the glitch but she couldn’t identify it. 

“No…I…ah…no, seems I don’t work there anymore. I work on the computer. But I sure am grateful to have work I like.” 

Another stranger began encroaching on our space. 

“Do you know Sophie?,” Nana asked of her. 

“Oh yes, of course,” the stranger smiled. 

Everyone was pretending. It was like playing house with dolls. Bodies that just moved when directed and pretended to understand the world around them.

         “Move her around here!” Hope was yelling. 

I obeyed and moved my Barbie. My Barbie today had long blond hair and a delicate beige dress. 

All the dolls had gathered in the kitchen. Ruth’s brunette was wearing GI Joe’s clothes. Hope had a porcelain doll dressed like a pioneer woman. My blonde wore a glittery ball gown. The dolls were talking about the children and the house and the messes. They talked and pattered around the kitchen with stiff arms, knocking down plates and bumping tables. 

“Pause pretending!” Ruth yelled. 

She had an idea. They discussed the relocation of the kitchen to the bookshelf and suggested the entrance of another doll into the scene. The sisters discussed these options and voted for a new kitchen and against a visiting doll. 

The sisters carefully packed up their kitchen and relocated it to the empty bookshelf in our room. I gave the order, “OK. Pretend. Go.” 

The trials and tribulations of these dolls were mundane. We did not know what trials were. We did not know how to fight. We did not know sadness. We just knew pretend and we knew our life. 

Life was easy. We looked forward to Lucky Charms on our birthday. We thought cracking pecans was cool. We liked Bible stories with pictures. We thought Mom was tall. We thought $5 was a lot of money. 

We fought sometimes. We fought because Ruth took my shirt and Hope covered for her. We fought because I got frustrated with the game and pushed Hope. We fought because Hope gave Ruth a 10/10 in the pretend ice-skating competition and I didn’t. 

But mostly we played pretend. We copied the conversations of adults. We re-enacted scenes from movies. 

We were best friends without knowing what it meant to have a friend.  

“Have you made any friends here, Nana?” 

“No, no. These are all old people.” 

Nana did not laugh. She was serious. 

It seemed that Nana remembered herself unlike she was. 

I remembered Nana as forever somewhere in her sixties. An avid walker.  She made hamburgers and boxed cake. She laughed a lot. She had wrinkles and greyed hair she dyed brown. She led Bible studies and rode motorcycles. She never visited but was always visited by others. She was a great conversationalist. 

Nana started talking about a time she lived with friends and her sister. 

I tried to imagine Nana at 18, newly independent, working, growing, sneaking cigarettes, and laughing about boys. 

“Your fiancé was Grandpa?” 

“No, this was Roger.” 

         Rogggger????

“But I broke that off. He was good but had old ideas about women. He thought we should go the way men said for us to go. I wasn’t going to stand for that.” 

Now Nana was 18, smoking, and a feminist. 

Maybe I could tell her. Maybe she would understand. Maybe I could tell her of the husband who said no and don’t. Of the husband who belittled and laughed. Of the husband I left. Nana would understand. 

Nana hummed a little. 

“So, hun, how’s school?” 

“Oh I finished school.” 

         

         15 years ago. 

“No kidding! Oh, yes, I remember. So, what are you going to do now?” 

         I wasn’t going to tell her about the husband. 

“I’m working in real estate.” 

“Oh that’s right. Now…where are you?” 

“North Carolina.” 

“Oh my. You’ve come a long way. How’s your mother?”

The circle started over again. 

“She’s good.” 

I was running out of ideas, so I dove into pretend. 

“I’m going to Mom’s for dinner tonight.” 

“Oh well, isn’t that nice. If I won’t make a crowd, I think I’ll just come along with you. What time are you going?”

Nana knew she was not home and she wanted to leave. There just was not enough left in her to understand where she was and why she could not leave. 

“Hun, have you got some nail clippers?” 

“Sure!” 

I began digging around. Excited for purpose. 

Nana lifted her ankle. 

“I’ve got this thing that bothers me.” 

I looked closer. It was an ankle monitor. Nana was never going home. 

Another stranger interrupted with stares and inappropriate proximity.  

“Did she find it?” The woman yelled. 

Nana stammered a bit then came up with, “yes.” 

The woman looked at her, puzzled, “What did she find?”

 “My heating pad,” Nana yelled back. 

“Where did she find it?” 

“Whiplash. I got whiplash.” 

“From what?” 

“Last week.” 

“Oh. So, it wasn’t from the bookshelf?” 

“No…”

Nana stared at her. She knew she was asked a question. She knew she had to respond. She just had no idea what his old lady was yelling about. 

Nana was used to pretending. She had been pretending for ten years that she did not forget. She had faked her way through many conversations. She and the woman were pretending they were adults. It was just a reflection of what they observed in their fragmented memories. 

“No, no, I drove the car.” 

I interrupted, tired of this watching this tennis match. They knew the rules. Question and answer. They knew to sit and talk with each other. They knew to be courteous. They mimicked the scenes that played in their minds. 

They knew how to pretend being friends. Every question received an answer from the past. 

My sisters and I did not know how to pretend being friends. We never learned. We played pretend until we didn’t know how to play pretend anymore.

We went to school together. We picked each other up from work. We commiserated at the pain of swimsuits. We laughed at Mom together. 

But we did not talk together. We talked only of the things we were allowed to do. Friends are made in talking about the un-allowed. 

Ruth repeated her greatest jokes of the day and Hope quietly smirked on hearing it again. 

We began growing up and growing apart. We did not know how to talk. We did not know how to be truthful with each other. We did not know how to share feelings that contradicted the rules. We did not know how to listen to the new people we became. 

Everything was held up against the mistakes and the identity of our youth. Ruth was eternally aggressive. Hope was perpetually pretentious. I was forever isolating. 

We had frozen in place.  

Our memories were fixed. By not allowing our memory to develop with our present, we grew silent and contentious. Our relationship was tense. It was filled with silence and hurt. Meanness and judgement. Hidden feelings and non-verbal expressions. 

Everything that happened in the present received an answer from the past. 

“How are your sisters?” 

“Good.” 

“Do you talk to them often?”

“Oh yes.” 

“How’s your mother?”

“Good. I’m going over for dinner.” 

“Well, isn’t that nice. Why don’t we go for a walk then I’ll just go on with you?” 

“Okay, Nana.” 

I now knew I could say anything to Nana. It didn’t matter. She would forget. 

Silence fell. The strange other ladies began circling again.

“Hun, my neck sure does hurt. I got whiplash in the car today. Can you rub my neck?” 

She was always trading her grandchildren for a neck massage. Sometimes she would pay a dollar. Or a scoop of Blue Bell. 

“Well, hun, where are you going now?” 

“Home.” 

“Oh yes. Home. Why don’t we do that? Why don’t we just go on home together? When you’re ready, I think I’ll just go on home with you.” 

“Okay, Nana.” 

“Well hun, I sure love you. I sure am proud you’re mine. Ain’t you a sweet thing.” 

Nana patted her arm and held my hand.  

I kept back the tears and the discomfort. 

“Should we walk, Nana?” 

“Why don’t that sound nice?” 

Upon standing, Nana forgot what we were doing, turned a circle with her walker, and sat down. 

The remnants were there but the glitches were louder. 

“Hun, why don’t we go for a walk? Wouldn’t that be nice.” 

“Yes, Nana.” 

We stood again and turned another circle in front of the chair. 

Nana looked at me as if I had just appeared. 

“Why hun!” 

Now the remnant was stronger than the glitch. 

“Why hun, it’s so nice of you to visit. I sure appreciate you. Ain’t you a sweet thing. Did you drive here?” 

“Yes, Nana.” 

“Now remind me, where do you live?” 

“North Carolina.” 

“That’s right. That’s right.” 

“How’s your mother?”

“She’s good.”

“Isn’t that nice. How’s school?”

I was bursting. I wanted to tell Nana all the real things. I wanted to be forgiven and understood for the mistake. I wanted share in the joy of better choices. 

But I was 20 and in college. I was going to be there forever.

“I’m bringing my boyfriend to dinner with Mom.” 

I decided to try with half-truthed fiction. It was fun, for a few moments, to be twenty and innocent. To be at the beginning of my dreams. To be before the mistakes. To celebrate newness. Nana played along without hesitation. I would never be old to Nana. 

“Well, ain’t that nice. I think I’ll just come along too and meet this young man.”

That would be wonderful, Nana. I wish you could know him. I wish you had known my husband. I wish you could say it was okay. I wish you could shake your head and say you never liked him. I wish you could tell me about the time you divorced. I wish you could tell me how old you were and how you knew. I wish you could tell me how much better the second time was. I wish you knew about my sisters and why we don’t talk well anymore. I wish you’d tell me how to talk to them again. I wish I could just sit on the floor and listen to you talk to Mom. 

“That’d be nice, Nana.” 

“Tell you what, hun, if I like him, I’ll say so when he’s there. If I don’t, I’ll wait until he leaves. We will save him his dignity.” 

“That sounds like a great plan. I need to know if he’s good.” 

“Well, we will just find out. The Lord will show us. He always does.” 

“Nana, do you still read your Bible?

“Hun, no, I’m ashamed to say. I don’t read much. Do you?” 

“No, not much.” 

         

I didn’t read at all. I hadn’t in a decade. I didn’t want to and refused if asked.

The remnant grew. Her eyes grew bright. 

“Well, hun, I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we make a commitment? We can be accountability partners. Let’s pick a book of the Bible and read together.”

“Oh, Nana, that’s a great idea.” 

We suddenly stumbled into our first linear conversation. The circles went away. Nana brightened. The glitches were mastered by habit. 

“Now what book should we read.” 

“How about Psalms?” 

“The Psalms are good. Now how many chapters a day should we read?”

“How about 1?”

“Oh, that won’t do. That won’t do atttt-allll. Maybe five. Five Psalms a day ought to do. We ought to learn something from that.” 

“Okay, that sounds good.” 

“Well, now then. And we will come together again to discuss what we have taken into our lives from these Psalms. Well, hun, I am so excited about this. We ought to pray too. Let’s pray for one person. Now, not forsaking all others, but let’s just pick one person to pray just a little more for. Again, not forsaking others, but just a little extra prayer. Who do you want to choose?” 

I didn’t pray either. It made me uncomfortable. Even irritable. But sometimes I prayed accidentally. Like a habit out of my control. When the plane took off, I muttered, “Dear God, keep us safe.” When feelings were beyond my comprehension, I muttered, “Jesus, help me.” 

I would not tell anyone I did this. Praying was a knee jerk reaction to things beyond me. To things that happen suddenly. To the unknown. 

I did not believe in prayer. But sometimes I prayed accidentally. 

I was in search of a rational reason for my irrational involuntary prayer. 

“James. I’ll pray for my brother.” 

“Ok. I chose Weston. Let’s not tell them we pray for them. Let’s just pray and observe any changes our prayer makes. Oh, hun, I am so excited about this. We’ve made a pact.” 

“Okay, Nana. I’m excited too.” 

The hour ended. I watched the clock. Mom had warned that the longer the visit the more complicated the departure would be. 

I was grateful for the limit. I felt less guilty at my departure by knowing it was forced. Choice made me came. Rules made me leave. It was easier than dealing with the guilt of leaving and worse the guilt of wanting to leave. 

“Well, Nana, I’m going to head out. Going over to Mom’s.” 

We were interrupted by dinner delivery. Nana was frustrated by the slowness of the arrival of her plate. She was like a child, who measured time in meals. 

Crumbs fell on the floor and remained. Nana pointed to them, “If they had some class around here, they’d take care of that.” 

“You know what, hun, why don’t I just head on out with you? We will go home together. Won’t that be nice.” 

“Well, Nana, I’m going to North Carolina.” 

Nana was standing and pacing and talking. She was growing unsettled. This information confused her. 

Each time I tried to leave Nana asked to go with me or for help to the room. When we reached the room, Nana paced again, “No, no. This isn’t my room." Then she froze. In a polite but panicked whisper she said, "Why Sophie, there’s a man in sleeping in here.” 

“No, Nana, that’s your roommate. That’s your friend. She’s a lady.” 

“My friend?” 

I grew uncomfortable at Nana’s disquiet. I was afraid to walk with her, afraid to touch her, afraid I would say something wrong. I wanted to get away and my heart cried. Smothered by silence and fears and guilt. I did not understand what was happening to me or to Nana. 

I could not make Nana at peace. Nana neared hysterics. I handed the walker to the nurse and walked away without a goodbye. 

At my back, I heard Nana say to the nurse, “Is she one of mine? 

No, Nana, I am not one of yours. 

The Sophie you had is gone. The Nana I know has disappeared. Grandpa is no more. The town has changed. The people are gone and unknown. 

But in my heart, you are laughing and gossiping and making burgers. 

In your heart, I am twelve, sweet, and quietly listening. 

Let us hold each other there. 

Let us forget these moments. Let’s forget I became an adult. Let’s forget that you got older. Let’s forget that we changed. Let’s forget you stopped walking and I stopped praying. Let’s forget you are locked in this hospital and let’s forget I never visit. 

Let me race you up the big hill. Let me watch you curl your hair. Let me go fishing with Grandpa. Let me visit and only listen. Let me see you at church and feel comfort there. Let me play with my cousins and let you laugh at our pretend. 

Because it is not your forgiveness I want. It is the forgiveness of the child I was who remembers you laughing. 

I and Nana were not all that different. 

We remembered each other as we wanted and as we could. 

There is no excuse but time. 

We bear its weight and we pretend we do not bend.