The Two Grandmothers

Tara stared at the short email until the black pixels started to bounce and blur. The notice telling her she’d better travel the 12,000 miles to her grandmother’s funeral read as both a plea and a threat. Tara shut her laptop and thought of calling her mother instead of replying. She'd told her mother she’d been unable to get a phone with international calling capabilities and so had only been communicating by email.

Though it was 10:00 a.m. and a Tuesday, Tara opened a bottle of wine and sat in front of the fan. Her rationale for drinking on the morning of a workday was that she had no emotional reaction to her mother’s news and she hoped the wine might help one along. She tried to empty her head and conjure images of the woman she had once loved more than anyone. But she didn’t know which woman to think of, the woman of Before. Or After.

At least once a month for as long as she could remember, Tara “spent the night with Grandma and Grandpa,” During these 24 hours, they played countless hands of rummy at the dining room table, M&Ms and sodas always at their sides. On cold days the trio baked cookies or created masterpieces in Grandpa’s shop, and on sunny afternoons, she crawled into the backseat as Grandpa took the wheel and Grandma rode shotgun. They drove for hours in the countryside, making up stories about the abandoned barns. Grandpa didn’t say much, but he always smiled and winked in the rear-view mirror anytime she said something clever. Grandpa was a dead ringer for Kirk Douglas and though Grandma’s composite wasn’t Hollywood lovely, some of her individual bits were, like the impossibly large blue eyes and a sparkling laugh that filled a room.

In the evening, Tara was tucked in snug on the sofa that seemed to stretch for miles, wrapped in fresh sheets and afghan blankets, drifting off to the sound of her grandparents’ murmurs, chuckles, and later, snores. In the morning, they ate BLT sandwiches in their pyjamas and Tara tried to ward off the growing dread of waiting for her mother to collect her, bringing with her a heaviness that flattened the room as she recounted yet another confrontation with Tara’s stepmother at the grocery store or a date gone wrong.

Grandma never drank and wouldn’t tolerate alcohol in her house but she did need a daily dose of chocolate to feel “right in the head”. That mild July day, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and Grandpa was more than happy to pop over to the store, as doing so allowed him his own indulgence of smoking his pipe. Windows rolled down, public radio blaring, he drove the long way home, arm resting on the window, one hand on the wheel. The horizontal light beams of the 7:00 sun had temporarily blinded him and he didn’t see the other car coming. Men his age ignored seatbelts so he, his pipe, and a lone Hershey’s bar were found 100 meters from the crumpled car.

The After Grandma still played cards but distractedly and without enjoyment. She suspected that everyone was cheating or letting her win out of pity. During these games, she chastised her companions for not having appreciated the man who was “the heart of this family”. She stopped going to church because “God only took the good ones” and each week she highlighted in detail how she hoped she’d die, wanting most to be “euthanized like an old cat”. One day she’d be nostalgic and amazed that a man loved her so much he’d die for her, while on another day she might weep and say she should have been an alcoholic. “Frank would never have gone out to get me more drink.” When her sister’s husband died of cancer, After Grandma, rather than offer condolences, sputtered bitterly, “You better damn well appreciate you had the chance to say goodbye!” Soon, friends stopped calling round and she began to shrink inside the rooms she once had filled with laughter. She watched TV, ate chocolate, and did little to take care of herself despite her family’s attempts at interventions.

Tara graduated and went to college and left the Midwest. She tried to send chipper emails, but the replies she did receive left her feeling helpless. “NOBODY TOLD ME HOW HORRIBLE GETTING OLD WOULD BE AND THAT YOUR FAMILY WOULD ALL EVENTUALLY ABANDON YOU. GRANDMA.”

The last time she had seen her grandmother was before she left for Thailand. Tara sat in the bright cafeteria with her and as they played rummy, her grandmother tried to make sense of what she was doing teaching English in a country halfway around the world. She said she and Grandpa had planned to travel when he retired but they’d been robbed of that dream. It was the first she’d heard of this plan and eagerly asked where they had wanted to go. “Why think of it now? I’ll die in this chair, in this prison. But you, you keep on seeing the world. You always had the freest spirit of all of them.”

Tara looked at her empty bottle of wine and contemplated her “free spirit”. She’d thought that by escaping toxic relationships and dead-end jobs, she’d be free. But her demons had followed her, stowed away as she boarded the plane. And here she was, drunk and likely to call in sick again so as not to be a spectacle in front of her class of 60 students who she doubted would even notice.

She opened the message again and considered getting more wine, but felt clear-headed and sure of what to do. The truth struck her so forcibly that tears formed as she poised her fingertips over the keys and sent her mother an equally curt reply.

“My grandmother did not die yesterday. She died July 12, 1991. There was and never has been a chance to say good-bye. I’m sorry.”