Lila Blue (10 page)

After the classical music, Lila
played "Amazing Grace," singing all the verses I'd heard before and
some new ones I think she made up as she went along. "Was blind but now I
see." It was obvious she was helping me every way she could, so after she
pulled the cover down over her piano keys, I said, "Grandma. Please tell
me about David."

She nodded and led me to the couch.
"Where do you want me to start, Cassandra?"

"I need to know
everything."

She nodded again. "Should I
begin before he was born? Before I was born? Our stories stretch back to the
dawn of time."

"I need to ask you a question
first," I said, "and then I know where to begin."

She waited.

"How many children do you
have?"

"David was our only
child."

I took a deep breath and dove in.
"Start when David's first child was born."

Nodding, she looked into my eyes,
took my hand, and held it in both of hers. "That's a good place to start.

"David married his high school
sweetheart, Terry, right after high school graduation. She was pregnant."

I took a deep breath. It was
already hard for me to listen. My mind filled with accusations and complaints
and judgments. Listen, I told myself. Just listen to the story.

"He worked in a lumber yard in
Moscow where your grandfather and I had our barbershop," Lila said. "Terry
stayed home in their little apartment, and they seemed happy. Their son Mark
was born in January."

She searched my face and I nodded
for her to go on. I couldn't trust myself to speak. I took my hand away from
hers and tucked both my hands under my legs. I stared out at the dark ocean
that stretched half way around the world.

"Terry had always been moody.
I worried about that when they first started dating. David was happy and he
tried to make her happy, but I think she felt trapped by having to take care of
a baby when she was so young. She tried part time jobs while her parents took
care of Mark, but that wasn't enough to satisfy her."

I thought of my mother and how she
wasn't satisfied unless she had a new man every six months. I tried to see
David, a kid right out of high school, carting lumber around all day, coming
home to a baby and his unhappy wife. Talk about trapped.

"When Mark was two, Terry left
David, and she took Mark to Texas to live with her grandmother who ran a day
care business. David followed them, trying to win Terry back or get a job down
there so he could be near Mark. Terry refused to speak to David, she wouldn't
let him see Mark, and she began filing for a divorce.

"David stayed in Texas a while
longer, until Terry started seeing someone new, and then he gave up." She
shook her head.

"Something in him was broken
when he got back to Moscow. He wouldn't work, he started drinking and I don't
know what all. It was 1971 and young people were trying everything they could
get their hands on. Ray and I were desperate to help him, and Terry's parents
did everything they could, because they loved David too, but nothing we tried
helped.

"The turning point was when he
wrecked his pickup truck on a mountain road outside of town. It was a miracle
he survived, but apart from a few bad bruises and one cut on his leg from the
gear shift post, he was okay." She sighed. "Physically, anyway. His
body was much stronger than his spirit."

I was beginning to get a sense of
him, David, Lila's son, Mark's father, my father. I was hungry for more of the
story, but I could tell Lila was tired. We'd both been through enough for one
day.

"Grandma, we can talk more
tomorrow," I said. "It's okay. Really."

I tried to smile, but my smile got
all crooked and turned into something else. Then we were both crying and
hugging each other and laughing and crying some more. It felt so good to
finally talk about him.

"What a day we've had,
Cassandra," Lila said. "What a wild, wooly, full of life day."

We took turns washing our faces,
and we drank tall glasses of cold water. We didn't go to bed, so the story
continued.

"We encouraged David to get
away, travel, find out how people live in other places. He chose California,
where everything was happening, so we sent him to Sacramento. Ray's younger
sister and her family lived there, and we thought it would be safer than San
Francisco. Ray's sister helped him find a place to live and a job in a nearby
restaurant. That's where he met your mother."

I filled her in on the part I knew
about, the wedding chapel in Reno and my birth six months later.

"He never told us, Cassandra.
He checked in with Ray's sister once in a while, and she let us know when she
heard from him. The first we learned of Janice and you was when he showed up in
Moscow the summer you turned two. We fell in love with you and your mom. We
were so happy to have David home again."

"Did he love my mother?"
I asked.

"He loved her. They loved each
other. They held hands all the time, and they were kind and funny and silly together.
She was a better match for him than Terry. Yes, he loved her."

"She said everything he told
her was a lie."

"I'm sure he lied, sweetheart.
He probably didn't tell your mother anything about Terry and Mark.

"Ray and I assumed Janice and
David weren't married. We didn't think David would want to marry again, and
they were free-spirited California kids, so we didn't know.”

"Maybe we should have asked
questions," Lila said. "Many times I've thought back over those days,
trying to make things turn out better for everyone."

"Tell me about me,
Grandma," I said, trying to get a picture of myself at two years old with
loving parents and loving grandparents.

"You were a fairy tale
princess. With your blonde curls and big green eyes, and so bright, so smart. There
was a popular song on the radio then, "Yellow Submarine," and you
could sing the whole thing by yourself. Your daddy would start the song, and
you would sing it all the way to the end. We laughed and laughed. You were
perfect, my dear. Just as you are now."

"Grandma, don't tease me. I'm
horrible."

"Cassandra, don't you dare
think that for one second. You are glorious. Beautiful, smart, sweet. Don't
believe anyone who says you aren't. If
you
doubt your magnificence,
don't even believe yourself."

"Grandma!" I said,
jumping up to use the bathroom. I liked what she said, though, and I bowed to
my image in the bathroom mirror and said, "Glorious! Cassandra the
Magnificent!"

I was still giggling when I
rejoined Lila on the couch.

"What's funny,
sweetheart?"

"You are, Lila," I said.
"Lila the Glorious!"

We both laughed until we realized
we were exhausted. It was so far past bedtime that Chloe and Zoe had given up
on us and put themselves to bed. Tired as I was, I took time to write
Cassandra
the Magnificent
in my journal, along with
Glorious! Sweet! Smart!
Beautiful! Extraordinaire!

As soon as I snuggled under Lila's
quilts in my little bedroom, I smiled and fell asleep.

I woke late the next morning,
tangled in sheets. The quilts had been kicked off onto the floor beside the
bed, and I nearly tripped on them when I got up to use the bathroom.

I'd been dreaming all night, it
seemed, one vivid mind movie after another, as if the dreams had been lining up
ready to be played and somehow I had pressed the on button.

In the kitchen, Lila was at the
table writing in her journal. She smiled and said, "Sweet dreams?"

"So many dreams," I said.
"I don't know if they were sweet, though." I poured myself half a mug
of coffee and filled it up with milk and sugar.

"I dreamed, too," she
said. "I'm just recording the best one here." She finished in her
journal then closed it and freshened her coffee. "Tell me the dream you
remember best."

I sat beside her and stared out at
the misty fog. A few people were walking on the beach. I recognized them from
other mornings. "The main one was about a big house," I said.
"It was night, and I was alone, and I opened tall double doors and walked
in. The entry hall was shadowy. No one was there. Stone floors and no
furniture."

"Go on," Lila said, and I
realized I'd been staring into middle space seeing the dream replay in my head
instead of telling it.

"The main thing was a spiral
staircase. The stairs were carpeted with a bright red runner, so bright it
seemed to be illuminated. Red was the only color in the dream.

"I walked up the stairs and at
the top was a long hallway lined with closed doors, almost like hotel rooms,
with brass numbers on the doors." I couldn't remember this part very
clearly. My mind was supplying a choice of memories, as if it were trying to
fill in the blanks, as if I were back in the dream world trying to read the
numbers. I shook my head to pull myself back out of it.

"What happened next?"
Lila asked. She leaned toward me, intensely interested.

No one had ever cared about my
dreams before. When I had bad dreams as a kid, my mom washed my face with a
cold cloth and said, "Forget it, Sandy. It's a dream. Dreams don't mean
anything."

Lila was giving me a different
message here, and I wondered if my mother ever had dreams or if anyone ever
wanted to hear about her dream houses.

"The dream seemed to change
then," I continued, "or I can't remember the middle part, and then I
was standing in a room at the end of the hall. The ceiling was very tall, like
a church steeple, and there were beautiful red glass windows high up on the
walls. Light came through the windows and filled the room with pink. It was
beautiful and strange. Then I knew I was not alone. There was some kind of
animal in the room, hiding in the shadows, but I couldn't see it. I got the
sense it was a wolf or a dog, big, but I wasn't afraid. It felt like my dog,
one I'd lost and forgotten about. I was trying to find some way to get more
light in the room, a light switch or lamp or something, but I couldn't find
anything. I was still looking when I woke up."

"How did you feel when you
woke up?" Lila asked.

"Well, the sheets were all
twisted. I'd kicked the quilts off the bed. It was hard to come out of the
dream." I closed my eyes to try to recall. "How did I feel? Frustrated
that I couldn't find the light. Anxious. Hopeful? I hoped the animal was
okay."

"Good," Lila said,
nodding her head as if what I had said made perfect sense to her.

"But how could it mean
anything?" I asked. "It was just a dream."

"Just a dream?" Lila
said. "Dreams can be warnings, gifts, messages, blessings. Dreams have
saved my life!"

That sounded crazy to me. "How
could a dream save anyone?"

"Look in the Bible," Lila
said. "Angels were always appearing in dreams telling people to go here or
do that. God still sends angels to us in dreams." She laughed.
"Waking life, too, of course. God sends angels whenever we need
them."

"Grandma! It was a
dream."

"It's okay, Cassandra. I just
get a little excited about the subject. I've been working with my dreams all my
life. My own grandma taught me to read dream symbols when I was very young, so
now I'm surprised when people don't pay attention to their dreams. Dreams are
your hotline to the subconscious, Freud's murky underworld of the Id. Some
people believe this life is all a dream, that the nature of consciousness is to
dream, and we dream up physical reality. 'Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
life is but a dream,'" she sang.

"That's a kid song!" I
said, alarmed by the implications of her ideas.

"And a profound spiritual
truth, hidden in plain sight," she said. "I love dreams. The whole
subject could keep me coming back several more lifetimes."

She raised her arms out to take in
the ocean and sky before us. "Thank you, Dream Mother!"

"Grandma," I said, shaking
my head at her. "You are so weird."

Her laugh made me happy.

"Thank you, sweetheart,"
she said. She gave me a quick hug and kissed my cheek, then got up and whipped
up some banana waffles for breakfast. She dressed them up with peanut butter
and maple syrup. They were weird, but I have to admit they were delicious.

Lila had the day off, and she
wanted us to do something special. It was July second, and already families
were coming to the beach resorts for the long weekend.

"What sounds good to you, Cassandra?"

She didn't say anything about
continuing the David story, and I didn't mention it. I wanted to rest at the
'Cassandra the Magnificent' part for a while.

In answer to Lila's question, I
smiled and shrugged. I was happy staying home reading. Gray clouds hung low
over the ocean, and the air was heavy with mist.

"I'm making an afghan for
Jamie, and it's almost done," she said. "I could show you how to knit
if you like."

"You made the afghans
too?" I asked. Was there anything my grandma couldn't do?

"The pattern is very
simple," she said. "The fancy yarn is what makes them so pretty.
After you've learned the basics, we'll visit Kitty Lynn's shop and choose the
color you want for your afghan."

"Okay," I said. "If
it's easy."

I told Lila about how my teacher in
fifth grade made us all learn to sew on buttons. Then we each had to design a
cloth bookmark and sew it by hand. Mine had blue daisies down the center. I
gave it to my mom. Even though she never needed a bookmark for anything, she
said it was really pretty and put it in her jewelry box. I didn't have any
trouble threading needles and learning how to make even stitches. Some of the
boys in class grumbled like crazy about having to sew, but our teacher was
strict. A few people ended up getting more blood on their bookmarks than
thread.