Reaching for Sun (6 page)
Authors: Tracie Vaughn Zimmer
on stroke recovery by ten tonight—
and she’ll talk the talk like a veteran nurse.
But me, I hold Gran’s curled hand
and let my silent tears
drip like the IV.
Mom sends me to the cafeteria
to get some food and bring back coffee.
I stand in the line,
choose a bagel,
an apple juice with a tinfoil top.
Everything is prepackaged, wrapped
in plastic.
It’s not that different from school:
doctors sit together,
and nurses,
and the cafeteria and sanitation workers
wear hairnets.
I shrink into a corner.
The wallpaper, the chairs,
even the landscapes
share the same teal color,
so it’s hard to pretend interest.
My thoughts splintered
and my insides shattered
as broken glass.
Gran.
I must’ve lost track of time,
because Mom appears in the cafeteria.
When she asks me what happened
I blurt:
“I’ve been skipping the clinic all week.”
My hand covers my mouth.
I didn’t mean for that to come out first—
more like last,
or better yet,
never.
Fire crawls up her face;
she stands with her tray and
just a little past loud she says,
“You what?”
And the hospital hushes;
some doctors turn and stare,
the hairnets freeze in their seats,
looking for invisible insects on walls.
She swallows,
sits down.
Her face matches her hair.
In a voice that doesn’t seem my own
I answer.
“You didn’t bother to
ask
me;
I didn’t bother to
tell
you.”
She shoots up out of her seat like something bit her.
Crosses her arms, starts to speak but then
walks out.
In the closet at home
hangs Granny’s purse—
brown vinyl, almost as big as my backpack.
Ask her for anything,
she usually has it:
paper clip, safety pin, mint,
emery board, lip balm.
It’s a walking drugstore.
And seeing it
still hanging on its peg
in the hall closet
and her not home
makes this whole nightmare
real.
While Mom calls her friend, a nurse,
I slip into the closet,
pull the purse from the hook,
and stroke it like it’s a small wounded
animal, swallowing sobs.
In the morning Mom wakes me,
tells me to get ready
for the clinic.
I can’t believe she
expects me
to return.
“No.”
“What did you say to me?”
“No. I won’t go.”
“I’ll just make you.”
“I won’t do what they say
even if you do.”
She stomps out of my room,
slams my door;
in five minutes, she reappears
with a list of two dozen chores.
“You’ll regret it then, Josie.
And don’t you even think
about leaving this yard.”
After work, she won’t even speak
to me.
The Morse-code tap of Jordan’s knock,
missing.
The hymns Gran hummed,
silent.
The friendly ring of the phone,
mute.
The soap operas Gran pretended not to watch,
outlawed.
Only the birds,
fat on their feeders,
are happy I’m home—
grounded alone.
I miss
Jordan’s
questioning brown eyes,
his curly hair,
his busy building hands.
I miss his
strings of facts,
experiments off track,
long days
just knowing he’s there.
Gran’s philodendron’s arms droop
and mourn;
the tips of the violets are crispy around the edge
as if a match were held there;
the lacy green gloves of tomato plants curl back,
hiding from the sun’s angry stare.
Regret,
my only friend,
listens to recordings of my lies
as they play over again in my mind.
Kneeling and tending
I beg the plants:
live
live
live.
The front of the oven looks blank
without Gran’s wide frame
stationed there,
and the flower blooms seem to mock her
absence;
the lace of the hammock curled
like a chrysalis
waits for her return.
Jordan’s experiments
in his three-square plot
lie abandoned,
forgotten,
left behind like me.
For the first time I feel
as broken inside
as everyone must see
on the outside.
There’s this vine
called kudzu
someone brought over from
Japan,
trying to make
here
look more like
there.
Thing is,
that vine goes
crazy in this climate,
blanketing whole forests.
No sunlight
or even fresh air
can get under the umbrella
of its leaves
so things can breathe
and grow.
The way Mom and I don’t talk
out what happened
grows between us
until the air
feels
choked
like
those
trees.
After Mom’s long day at the nursery
we head to the ICU,
stuffing our faces with fast food on the way,
which covers up the not talking—nearly.
After three long days,
just when hope
starts to fade,
Gran’s eyes flutter.
She squeezes the doctor’s hand
and pulls the tubes
out of her nose,
but she looks so confused
when what she tries to say
comes out like a mouthful of marshmallows.
The worry lines etched
around Mom’s eyes fade,
and across the tubes
and the high metal bed
our eyes meet
for just a flash
and a smile.
A letter from Jordan:
it’s filled with details
about experiments with liquid nitrogen,
helium, and bases.
About a half-dozen kids’ names
litter the letter.
I decide not to tell him
about Gran—
not because
I’m a good friend
and don’t want to ruin his summer,
‘cause I kind of do.
I write replies I’ll never send—
about a new neighbor who loves
insects,
the science festival downtown,
weekends spent camping
with Mom and Gran in the mountains—
all lies
about the summer I wish
I was having.
The chores
Mom leaves each day
as punishment
have me falling asleep
almost after dinner:
weeding the gardens,
watering them too,
washing and scrubbing
under sinks, between tiles,
behind the refrigerator.
So when a cramp knocks
between my hip bones
again and again,
I’m sure it’s from the work.
Instead I’m surprised to find
my first blood stain.
I stand
on my bed, in just my panties,
to see myself full on in the mirror
and my hands follow curves
where once there were none.
At Lazy Acres I slip back into
old routines:
painting Mrs. Courtney’s
yellowing fingernails shell pink,
brushing Miss Ollie’s thinning
white hair.
Then Mr. Jakobs and I
sort out his baseball cards
by team and year.
I wheel Gran
down to rehabilitation—
those old tormentors of my own.
A cruel knot tied around my throat
to see her a patient here
instead of serving
her old friends.
All morning I gather
every container
I can find—
vases, buckets, even large cups
from the convenience store.
I fill them with cool water from the hose.
I use both my hands, which ache
from the exercise, but I still manage
to cut every stem
of every bloom in the garden:
roses,
asters,
bee balm,
iris,
lilies,
Russian sage,
bachelor’s buttons,
coneflower,
coral bells.
Mom’s eyes well up when she sees
what I’ve done, but she still won’t cry.
She coughs, blinks, and starts loading
the Jeep full.
Tonight
Gran will sleep
in her garden.
Our old red Formica kitchen table
stands guard
out by the mailbox
each summer.
It’s usually loaded with our crop
of tomatoes
cucumbers, sweet corn, squash,
a scale sheltered
by a Tupperware lid,
plus my faded pink piggy bank.
Granny says
it’s an honor system.
She’s not one of those old people
who expects the worst
and sees it.
Nope, she hopes for the best
and usually gets it.
Besides, she always says,
if a body can’t afford the thirty-five cents
a pound,
they probably need the vegetables
more than we need the coins
for our dishwasher fund.
I watch people slow down,
looking for the table of Gran’s organic bounty,
but the vegetables Gran’s hands produced
this year we won’t share.
Paroled.
It takes me hours,
but I finally write,
tell Jordan about Gran,
and close with hopes
that he has a good final week
and mean it—
like a real friend
would.
Gran’s coming home! Home!
It feels like the first butterfly
or the golden notes of cardinals
or a whole bed of poppies ablaze.
We can bring her home.
Mom needs to drop off a design
at the nursery. Her office,
not much bigger than a closet,
but I’m impressed to see her name on the door
with manager and designer under it.
It’s all she wanted for those
years of school and waiting tables.
On the corner of her messy desk
a photo of me, a baby.
I pick it up, stare,
trying to find myself in
the drooling grin.
Mom plucks it, says:
“I really need a new picture.”
Then she looks me
straight in the eye for the first time
since she grounded me and says:
“I know you’re not a baby anymore.”
“How would you know?
I acted just like one.
I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I’m sorry too, Josie-bug.” I roll
my eyes at her silly nickname.
I promise Mom I’ll exercise and
wear my brace more, but
squeezing my courage, I add:
“But I don’t want to take
speech or OT at school anymore.”
She sorts papers silently. Finally answers:
“All right, Josie, but I’m hiring a private tutor
for one day after school.”
That’s fair, I guess.
“But then no more flash card sessions.
I’ll study by myself. Deal?”
Mom agrees and then tells me
about a plan for Edna to
come stay with Gran
one night a week so I can work
at the nursery with her.
Just the two of us.
And she asks me what I think.
“I’d like that, Mom.”
She pulls me to her
and I feel that old kudzu vine
ripped away between us
and the truth
like sun on my face.
Summer’s nearly over,
but Granny’s home,
dragging her left foot,
her left hand
more useless than mine,
dangling by her hip.
Even her left eye and lip
look wilted.
Words crumble
in her mouth
before she can speak them.
Winded
just watering
the house plants,
she sits:
on the benches,
at the kitchen table,
across the daybed,
on the covered porch
that has never held her shadow
very long.
She’s home though,
and everything looks
greener with her in it.
The Morse-code knock on