MY grandmother is in the living room, her thin hands picking up books, books with titles such as Life Between Life and Aliens Really Were At Roswell. She picks them up and tosses them into the U-Haul box sitting on the carpet. I notice she has drawn a thick, black line through the “Camping Gear” label, and written “Things That Remind Me Of LeRoy” above it.
Last night Grandma called my aunt. She wanted someone to come over in the morning and help her get rid of his things. She couldn’t look at them anymore. Then she wanted to take a vacation. She wanted to go to Hawaii and take surfing lessons. She wanted to learn how to sail a boat. She wanted to suntan. “Melanie will do it,” my aunt, who worked two jobs, had probably said. As if I didn’t have my own problems to deal with.
Now she is going for the record collection. It sits in a milk crate by the entertainment center. She bends down and places a palm on the carpet to balance herself as she lowers the rest of her body to the floor. She sifts through the records, then picks them up one by one, displaying each to me as if I care before setting them on the carpet.
“Mel, will you bring that box over here?” she asks, not even looking at me.
She picks up Johnny Cash: Live at San Quentin, turns it over in her hands.
“It might be easier if I just put the whole crate in the garage for you Grandma.”
She puts Johnny on the floor and turns her head forty-five degrees to the right to look at me. The skin around her eyes looks raw.
“These aren’t going in the garage. We’re taking them to the shelter.”
Great. The shelter. So now not only do I have to lug all this shit around, but I have to load it into her trunk, sit in her car for ages because she drives like a slug, and then unload it and carry it all into the shelter. Not happening. If I’m late for our appointment, Cindy will kill me. She’ll say I don’t care about her and our yet-to-be-conceived child, and she’ll be right about one of those things.
“I’ll just put the crate in the trunk then, Grandma. Save a few steps.”
She looks up at me again with a face like a whimpering dog’s. I can tell she is trying to fight back tears. She didn’t cry at the funeral. I noticed. Everyone noticed. When people walked up to her to give their condolences she smiled and responded with phrases such as: "Thank you for coming" and "I love your blouse." Cindy told her in the limousine on the way to the church that she could call us when it finally sunk in. She had put her hand on Grandma’s leg and squeezed the flesh around her kneecap when she said it. Like she does when she can tell I’m upset about something. Or like I imagine she’ll do when donor 9872’s sperm finally teams up with her egg, and the end product gets made fun of on the school bus because it has two moms.
“I want to keep the crate,” Grandma says. “I can put my crossword books in it.”
Crossword books. I don’t know why she doesn’t throw them out after she finishes them. She only ever has one that she’s actually doing. Last year on her birthday, Cindy and I bought her three or four of them and she complained. Asked why she would need that many. “I can only do one at a time,” she said. Realizing this is an argument I don’t have time to win, however, I bend my knees and lift the box. It’s almost full.
“Thanks Mel,” she says. I lower the box next to the crate. I lift the records she has already taken out of the crate off the floor and place them in the U-Haul box. Grandma smiles at me. I look at her flushed face and I wonder if she’ll regret this later, giving all of Grandpa’s stuff away. Knowing she’ll take her time looking at each record before dumping them in the box, I grab a stack of them, as many as I can hold, and place them in with the rest.
“What else needs to be packed Grandma?” I ask.
“Just his wheelchair,” she says. “It’s in the garage.” She stands, steadies herself with her cane. “But you can just put that in the trunk.”
I forget how clever my grandmother is sometimes. You think, because she’s 78 years old and somewhat frail, that she doesn’t know when you’re trying to pull something over on her, as if she were a child. But my grandmother gunned at the range with my grandfather every Sunday until he had another stent put in his heart. Every night she pops a can of Keystone Light and watches Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. I’ve seen her gut a wild turkey. She has a Facebook page. She ‘pokes.’
I fold the flaps of the box closed, tucking them under the others because I don’t feel like getting tape. I bend my knees and lift the box, gripping opposite sides. She wobbles toward the door in a way that reminds me of when Cindy and I visited a few weeks ago. My grandparents were wobbling around the living room like little one-toothed, no-assed angels on canes, arguing over whether or not Grandpa could carry the laundry basket to the washer for Grandma. She didn’t want him to exert himself, was worried about his heart. He just wanted to do something nice for her. I imagine he felt useless, lying around all day reading about aliens while she cooked meals and washed his clothes. He couldn’t even get in the shower by himself anymore.
Grandma opens the storm door and I walk through, carrying the box to the car. She pops the trunk with her keychain from the doorframe, and I steady the box against the bumper with my knee and use my free hand to lift. Inside, I notice a few Shasta boxes full of empty cans. Grandma turns them in once she has a few. She used to go to Honey Dew for coffee and pastries with Grandpa with the money she received, but since my father died eight years ago she donates it to Save The Bay. When he wasn’t drunk off his ass, my father was a quahogger, until he went out after having a few too many one morning and misjudged how close he was to the rocks off Goddard Park and tore a gash in the bottom of his skiff, Atlantic salt filling its insides. By the time the Harbor Master got a call and alerted the Coast Guard, he was floating back-side up about 50 feet from the public beach. He was probably too far gone to even know that he was drowning. I didn’t go to his funeral. I imagine Grandpa had it a lot worse, he knew he was slowly becoming more incapable. That’s much more terrifying.
“Go get the scooter,” Grandma yells. “I’ll open the garage door.”
The door slides up and I walk into the garage. The wheelchair is folded up by the lawnmower I got familiar with in the past year. Against the wall are the locked cabinets where my grandfather kept his rifles. I toy around with the idea of taking the wheelchair for a joy ride, but remember Cindy. I never wanted kids. But I’m in love with Cindy, and she wants them so badly that I find it hard to say no to her. So we go to these appointments every month. Cindy is given a white bag with a tube of sperm inside. We go into a white-walled room and Cindy drops her pants and sits spread-eagle on the couch. My job is to insert the sperm. I have to be careful that I get it in all the way; otherwise, it won’t work. Two months ago I made a joke about it. I said: “Should I kiss you first?” and she giggled. Last month I said: “I’m now going to impregnate you.” Cindy didn’t talk to me the entire ride home. This month I don’t know what I should or shouldn’t say, so I’ve decided not to say anything. It’s awkward enough that I’m inserting some unknown man’s sperm into her vag. But this is what happens when you commit to having a baby with someone, you have to be a part of the process. Even if, biologically, you’re unnecessary.
I hear a door shut and Grandma walks in front of the garage, black granny bag in tow. She’s still a beautiful woman, despite her age. Cindy thinks the age makes her more beautiful because it shows how much she’s endured. When Cindy says things like that, it’s easy for me to remember why I am with her. Once I have the wheelchair in the trunk, we head toward the shelter. Grandma doesn’t say much in the car, which is not like her. Since Grandpa died, it’s been hard to read how she’s feeling. One minute she seems to not be aware that he’s gone, the next she’s grief-stricken. Cindy is much better at gauging her mood than I am, and with knowing what to say and when to say it.
At the shelter, there are women scattered on couches, at tables, standing in circles. Some of them rock babies in their arms, a distant look on their faces. Their eyes stare at nothing in particular, darting around the room like fish in an aquarium. Most of them look like wet dogs, mangled, hair all a mess, starving for love and attention. I feel both inadequate and drained looking at them, thinking about what they might need from me. One woman sits on a purple recliner in the corner, three children gathered around her as if she’s got candy to eat or something shiny to show them. One of them, a little girl, asks her when they can go home. The woman pats her head, but isn’t looking at her, she is looking at the wall behind her. I wonder if our kid will look at me like that one day, expecting answers that I can’t provide. I wonder if I could even call it my kid. I can’t even legally be considered its parent until six months after it’s born. I wonder if it will be like me at all, having none of my genes. I wonder if that’s necessarily a bad thing. I spent most of my teenage years into my twenties wishing I didn’t even have my genes. You grow up with a drunk for a father and the fear that you’ll be like him never leaves.
Grandma walks up to the nun sitting at the volunteer sign-in desk. I stand behind her, box nestled under my chin. Another woman rocks in a chair. She wears a huge, neon green sweatshirt and purple sweatpants. She is talking to one of the volunteers. “They changed my medication,” she says. “I get really antsy when they change my medication.” The volunteer hangs a poster on the wall. Something about a knitting class. “Yesterday I walked all the way to Helen’s house. It was one of those tunnel episodes. Took me two hours. It was raining and when I got there, Helen told me I should take the bus next time.”
A few weeks ago Cindy found letters I’d received long ago from another woman, someone I was with before my father died. I thought she’d be upset, but she said that we all have a drawer full of letters somewhere. “Do you have one?” I asked. She nodded. It got me thinking about why Cindy is the one I’m making a life with. I talked to my friend Brock about it and he said that was normal. Before he and Benny had their ceremony, he thought about his one could-have-been, if circumstances were different. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I’d never leave Benny. But sometimes I do wonder. I think we all do.”
The nun asks Grandma if she is a volunteer. And if so, she needs to sign in. Grandma tells her she used to volunteer, but now she just wants to donate some things. “My husband passed,” she said. “My grand-daughter and I brought his records, a few books, and his wheelchair.”
The nun tells my grandmother how sorry she is and wraps her arms around her like a soft pretzel. I hope that she doesn’t extend the same gesture to me, so I keep holding the box, which would make hugging impossible. I always feel uncomfortable when strangers try to get intimate with me, even if it’s meant in kindness.
Grandma and I follow the nun to a common area. A television set plays Catholic mass, and there are a few bookshelves lining the walls. In the corner, on an end table, is the record player, and in front of it is where I drop the box. I turn around to find Grandma, to try to hurry her to say goodbye to the nun, who is chatting her up about Grief Counseling services, but just when I intend to cut in, Grandma says she wants to make sure the records work.
“Why wouldn’t they work?” I ask. “Didn’t Grandpa listen to them all the time?”
“I just want to make sure, Mel,” she says.
Grandma takes a few records out of the box until she finds what she was looking for—the Johnny Cash album she was staring at earlier. She puts it on the spinner and drops the needle. As soon as the music starts, I realize why she’s having such a hard time letting go of that album.
Darlin’ companion, come on and give me understandin’.
And let me be your champion: a hand to hold your pretty hand in.
Darlin’ companion, now you know you’ll never be abandoned.
Love will always light our landin’: I can depend on you.
She looks at me.
I know it was their wedding song, but I’m not sure what she wants me to say. I know she probably wants someone to be honest with her for once. Tell her that it will hurt; that it won’t get better, not all at once; that she can’t avoid the pain; that she can’t just pretend that he never existed. I know this, but I find myself speechless. Maybe she doesn’t want honesty, but reassurance. Maybe she wants me to put my hand on her leg like Cindy had done and let her know I’m there for her if she needs me. Maybe she wants both.
“I just gave them the album with our wedding song.”
“Grandma,” I say. I touch her arm.
“You don’t have to say anything,” she says. “There’s nothing that can be said.”
I wrap my arms around her. I kiss her cheek. I say the things that can’t be said. I feel like an asshole for hustling her so I can get to my appointment. Cindy’s not that cold-hearted that she wouldn’t understand. I feel like an asshole, yet I look at my watch and realize I have thirty minutes to get to the clinic. It should take about five minutes to get Grandma outside and have someone get the wheelchair, fifteen to get back to Grandma’s, and twenty to get to the clinic. Going back to her house and driving myself is not an option. Grandma will have to come with me. But first I have to get her away from this album and outside.
“Why don’t you keep that album, Grandma?” I suggest. “If you change your mind, you can bring it back.”
“I don’t think I’ll have the strength to do this again,” she says.
“Then I’ll do it for you, if that’s what you decide later.”
“No,” she says. “It’s just a piece of vinyl. It’s not important. It’ll make me feel good to give it to someone else, that’s what your aunt suggested.”
Grandma begins to put the records back in the box, one by one. I tell her she can probably just leave them, one of the volunteers can sort through them later, but she shoos me away, so to consolidate time I help her.
Outside, I take the wheelchair out of the trunk and we wait. When my grandfather got the chair, Grandma was really excited about it. She called everyone she could think of to let them know. “He can go out for walks again,” she said. “He hasn’t been able to do that for at least a year.” She thought for sure it would brighten him up; she had already tried everything else she could think of—even asked the nurses the VA sent to the house if they could get him a prescription for anti-depressants. When the wheelchair came, she said he took it out once, wheeled in a circle or two on the street in front of their house and then put it back in the garage with everything else in storage. When my Grandmother prodded, he said he was too attractive to be gracing the neighborhood; it would make everyone else feel ugly. My Grandmother laughed about it when she told me on the phone. “You know your grandfather,” she said, “always a joker.”
A woman in a cardigan and a long black skirt walks out of the shelter and approaches us. She wears rosary beads. I try to imagine my grandmother once volunteering here with these women. I could see her shaking up a place like this, trying to convince the nuns to go out for beers after a shift, being resented for it by some of the sisters who were happy and set in their routine, being praised by those who felt refreshed and newly alive with her around.
“This is it,” I say to the woman, lifting the folded chair and holding it out to her, hoping she doesn’t want to have a conversation. She thanks us, and takes off before Grandma has a chance to talk her up or change her mind. In my experience, some decisions are better made in haste; otherwise, you sit around thinking about them forever. That’s what happened with Cindy and me. One night in the middle of a George Clooney flick, Cindy said she wanted a baby. “We’ve been together for seven years,” she said, “How much longer do you want to wait?” I was caught off guard; normally she mentioned it indirectly, hinted around, ways easily ignored or replaced with other topics. Because she said it so directly, I knew that if I said I didn’t want to have a baby, she’d leave me and find someone who did. So I said yes. I never wanted children, but I figured that it was probably one of the things in life that you ended up happy you did afterwards, if you didn’t fuck them up too much. However, I didn’t expect we’d have so much trouble. It’s already cost us $4500 for the insemination, not counting the fertility drugs and the ovulation kits. Our whole life is scheduled around this. If it continues not to work, Cindy’s mentioned adoption. One of us would have to cut into our 401k to do that. We haven’t even told anyone yet because of Grandpa.
We tried to tell them two months ago. Cindy suggested we take them to Newport Grand one afternoon. I don’t even like the casino; there’re too many people around and all the background noise makes me feel like I’m going insane. But Cindy likes to walk around and she thinks all the gaudy sculptures and water fountains are cool. We thought it would be good for Grandma and Grandpa to get out of the house, to put the wheelchair to use. We tried to talk to Grandma, but she guzzled two dollar ’Gansett tall boys and I couldn’t pull her away from the penny slots. Later, I sat with Grandpa at one of the casino bars, where he drank tea. Just as I was about to tell him about the clinic, he poked my shoulder and pointed his index finger to a soiled spot on his jeans. “Please don’t say anything,” he said, as if he were a toddler whose brain knows he should use the toilet, but whose body hasn’t quite gotten the message yet. After I cleaned him up in the bathroom, I spent the rest of the time scanning the room for men who fit donor 9872’s description. I didn’t like what I saw.
I walk over to the passenger door, but Grandma hasn’t moved. She stares at something far off in the distance, the cardigan woman walking with the chair through the shelter door. I walk up behind her, I don’t have time for niceties. “Let’s go, Grandma.”
She turns around and places her palm on my forearm. “Why are you rushing me Mel?” she asks. “Do you think this is easy for me?”
“Cindy and I are trying to have a baby,” I say.
Grandma takes her palm off my arm and looks at me. She doesn’t now what to say, I can tell. So I just keep talking.
“I didn’t want to, but I love her, and she wants to. And we’ve been going to these appointments, artificial insemination, or alternative insemination, that’s the P.C. term for it now. And we have one today. And if I’m late she’ll kill me.”
Grandma stares at me.
“When is it?” she asks.
“In about 25 minutes.”
“Well, I guess we better get going then.”
“Grandma,” I say.
She doesn’t say anything else, just drives. I know this type of silence—it’s not the type where you should say something, attempt to rectify what you’ve just said, assure the person that you do care, explain that you chose the wrong words, because it won’t matter. It’s already been said. It’s the type of silence where you keep your mouth shut.
Cindy is sitting on a chair in the waiting room when we arrive. She sits, right leg crossed over her left, magazine on her lap. In profile, she looks like she did when we met, seven years ago. I went with Brock to see a show at the Black Rep. She sat in the same manner in the audience, a few rows away from us, bottle of ’Gansett in hand. She was thumbing through the playbill, just as she does now with the magazine. She looks at everything with such interest and intensity. To me, it’s just pictures and words. Just dates, times, names, places. But she seems to regard it all with such fascination, as if it were all beautiful in some unique way. She looks up now and smiles.
“Grandma,” she says, standing up to greet her. She kisses her on the cheek and asks how she’s feeling.
“Not bad,” Grandma says. “Got to spend the day with my patient, caring granddaughter.”
I kiss Cindy. I give Grandma a look.
“She was worried she’d be late,” Grandma adds. She smiles at me, which is her way of letting me know she’s no longer angry.
Cindy asks me what Grandma and I were doing, but I’m not thinking about that. I’m thinking about this whole process of insemination. It sounds like such an awful term. I shove a tube into my partner’s vagina, release the sperm and it chases around her egg until one latches on, if it does. I wonder if this time it will work, and if it does, whether I’ll feel excited, useful. Or if it doesn’t, whether I’ll feel as deeply sad as Cindy will. Whether—when she cries in the bathtub listening to Joni Mitchell, sipping whiskey—I will want to undress, open the door, and get in the tub with her, cradling my body around hers and kissing her all over, latching on to each other like donor 9872’s sperm was trying to do with her egg. I wonder if we could do this together. I wonder if I could try.
Cindy weaves her fingers through mine and squeezes my hand. We sit down, and Grandma sits across from us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lindsay Wells grew up in Rhode Island. Her fiction has been published in Queer Episodes: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose, and her poetry has been published in Shark Reef. She earned an MFA from Eastern Washington University, and currently lives in Hawaii, where she teaches writing and is working on her first novel.
LF #055 © Lindsay Wells. Published by Little Fiction | Big Truths, December 2013.
