Mom and Grandma got talking about other things and the whole time they were talking the photo album lay open on the table with the picture of the dead woman. I tried not to look at it but I couldn’t stop myself. Mom and Grandma didn’t care. They made jokes about it. They didn’t look at it while they talked. I tried to make the times I didn’t look at the picture longer and longer. I counted seconds. But I kept having to look. I looked at the young girl who was Grandma’s grandma! Her hand was on a dead person.
4.
This morning I went downstairs and found Grandma lying on the kitchen floor. She was singing. Grandma! I shouted it. Oh! said Grandma. Good morning, sunshine! What are you doing! I said. Just resting, she said. No! I yelled again. Grandma! What are you doing? She laughed. She said hooooooo. I was helping her up. What happened! I said. She said, na oba, jeepers creepers, where’d you get them peepers. I was mad. Cool your jets! said Grandma. Nothing happened! Nuscht! I just fell. Oba! Not a problem, not a problem. I helped Grandma walk to her chair and sit down properly. She was trying to breathe and laugh and talk.
What happened is that the wheel on her walker came off, and so she fell. Usually she doesn’t need her walker but today she needed it because of her ridiculous foot business. She didn’t fall hard. She fell in slow motion, but she couldn’t get back up. She tried to but she couldn’t. She decided to pass the time by singing hymns in her secret language. She sang a hymn about the Lord. The translation was: I can’t take another step without you, Lord. Then she realized that was literally true and she started laughing and couldn’t stop. It was the funniest thing that had happened to her in years, since the time she got stuck between the pews in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and not counting being hazed at nursing school. She could see the clock on the stove. It was really early, and me and Mom were still sleeping. She decided to call out my name and Mom’s name every fifteen minutes. We didn’t hear her. She had no air to shout. She only had enough air to sing and laugh.
Today I was Grandma’s human walker. She stood behind me with her hands on my shoulders and we shuffled slowly from room to room. Conga line! said Grandma. It’s just one of those things. I called Mario and he’s going to come here and fix her wheel. He said he’s going to bring some of Joe’s fresh corn for us. After breakfast and dropping pills and showering and shuffling around Grandma was so tired she needed to lie down for a bit. I lay down beside her. I squeezed in between her and a bunch of her books and clothes that are always on her bed and never move an inch, even when she’s sleeping in bed next to them. Grandma uses an obituary of Auntie Momo as her bookmarker. It’s getting ragged. Grandma wants me to laminate it for her. We lay in bed and watched Call the Midwife. Grandma told me about different types of difficult births that she had scrubbed for when she was a nurse. We were quiet together, holding hands and breathing.
Why is Mom so weird? I asked Grandma. She had fallen asleep. Weird? she said, after a minute. She put on her glasses. Well, let’s see. Is it because of Gord? I asked her. No, no, said Grandma. Well, maybe. Her hormones might be out of whack but that’s not really why she’s weird, as you say. Gord makes her happy! Really? I said. Very happy, said Grandma. As do you. Grandma moved her hand over my hair. It got caught in a massive tangle and she laughed. She called the tangle an elflock. Your mom is fighting on every front, said Grandma. Internally, externally. Eternally, I said. Yes, it would seem so, said Grandma. With your dad being gone and—
But where is he? I asked her. The truth is we don’t know, said Grandma. Is he dead? I said. Unlikely, said Grandma. I don’t think he is. And your mom is worried about losing her mind, said Grandma. Well, everybody worries about that, especially as one ages, but your Mom is terrified of losing her mind because of what she has inherited. Mom is a fighter on every front, said Grandma. She has to be. And a lover, too! Because of Gord? I asked. Because of everything, said Grandma. She screws around, I said. Perhaaaaaaps, said Grandma, but we can express that in so many different ways. And what difference does it make. Women are punished forever for everything! And her biggest fear is of losing you and Gord. I won’t be around forever to take care of you and your dad is MIA for the time being.
I take care of you! I said. Ha! said Grandma. That’s true, you do. But if your mom gets sick she worries about who will take care of you and Gord. I will! I said. Like the Boxcar Children. You could do it, said Grandma. You definitely have what it takes. But it might not be ideal. Yeah, I said. I’d rather raise Gord on a boat than a boxcar without wheels so we could actually get to places and ideally travel the world. Mom is afraid of losing her mind and killing herself but Grandma says she’s nowhere near losing her mind and killing herself. There’s stress, said Grandma. And fear and anxiety and rage. These are normal things. Normal, normal, normal. And then there’s mental illness. That’s a whole other kettle of fish. Whoa. Grandpa and Auntie Momo killed themselves, and your dad is somewhere else, those things are true, said Grandma. But we’re here! We are all here now. Then Grandma recited a poem or something. “In the long shadows of their misdeeds we are here fighting for the light of the world.” But in fact, she said, their suicides weren’t misdeeds. She talked about that. While she talked she tried to untangle the knot in my hair gently. She picked up one of the books on her bed. It was a thin book so she hadn’t needed to saw it into pieces. Let’s see, let’s see, let’s see, she said. Where is that? Then she found it and read: “He reached out a hand. Was it really raining still? No, it wasn’t. The sky spread itself unevenly and thinly as if it could open whenever the time came. Sparrows appeared on the wires, sat shaking the rain off. Yes, the world was … however it wanted to be. One way or the other, it wasn’t to be counted upon. It pleased itself. Not much point in having special wishes, as far as the world went, that was clear. So long as one could be alive, take part in it. And that’s what he was doing.”