Grandma was almost dead and I was completely soaked with sweat by the time I got our little suitcases into the overhead bin and her purse and my backpack and my jean jacket and Grandma’s track jacket stuffed under the seat, and then we had to stand up again and move everything around because we were in the wrong seats, and by the time we finally sat down for good Grandma wasn’t even laughing anymore, she just sat there with her hands on the arms of the seat going hooooo, hoooooo, looking straight ahead and sometimes sort of but barely smiling at me. Then she closed her eyes and just went hooooooooo, hoooooooo, and the stewardess came over and asked her how she was doing and all she did was nod and smile with her eyes still closed. The stewardess said she’d bring Grandma water. I put my hand on her arm. Grandma stayed the same. I looked at her chest. It was moving. The water came and Grandma didn’t drink it right away, just went hooooo, hooooo with her eyes closed. I wondered if I should throw the water at her face. I just sat there holding Grandma’s water. Finally Grandma opened her eyes and looked at me and smiled. She took the water. Her hand was shaking. Drops of water fell onto her legs. Na, possup! she said. I took the cup and held it for her to have a sip. Okaaaaay, she said after she’d had a sip. She looked out the window. We had the whole row of seats to ourself. Oh! We’re still on terra firma, she said. Shall we play magnetic chess?
It was taking a long time to start flying. I’d forgotten the magnetic chess game. The pilot announced over the speaker that we were having mechanical problems. Oh no! I said. Grandma laughed. Can you fish out my book, Swiv? she said. I gave her the section. How can Grandma almost die from not being able to breathe, then be told she’s on a plane that’s obviously going to crash, and then calmly read her book? She put on her glasses. I took out Mom’s assignment to mark. Freedom comes at a cost. All the words started to disappear. Everything was blurry. Fucking hell! I got my jean jacket from under the seat in front of me and put it over my head. Grandma kept reading. I was trying hard not to make noises. I accidentally made a noise but I don’t think Grandma heard it. Then I felt her arm around me, the arm with the giant walnut on it, the arm she was using to grow another arm. I was so hot. There was snot in my mouth! I couldn’t breathe under my jean jacket. I kept it on my head. Grandma held me tight. She whispered to me through my jean jacket. It’s okay, Swiv, everything is gonna be fine. It’s okay. She kept saying it’s okay and holding me. Then she started quietly singing a German song, like a lullaby for babies. It went du, du, bist mir im herzen, du, du liegst mir im sinn and on and on. I took my jean jacket off my head. Grandma kissed my forehead. She pushed my hair away from it. It was wet from sweating. She took a Kleenex out of her purse and wiped my nose. I’ll do it, I said. I told Grandma I was having a nervous breakdown. Tell me what’s on your mind, said Grandma. I told Grandma I was scared she was going to die and that Mom was insane and would kill herself and that Gord would die and Dad would be killed by fascists and never come home and I’d be alone forever, and then Jay Gatsby would take the house from me and then I’d die from hunger or from being killed by cops.
Grandma nodded. She put her Dead Heat into her purse. She put her arm around me again. She said, Okay, Swiv, I hear you. She kept nodding her head and made her face tiny. She held me like that with her face all small from thinking until I had stopped crying and was normal again. Then she said she wanted to tell me a story. What’s it about? I said. Mom, she said. Mom? I said. Does it have a title? Grandma said, Well, why don’t we call it The Truth. The Truth about Mom? I said. Well, said Grandma. Yes, and other things. But mostly about Mom.
We still weren’t flying. I took the magazine out of the pocket on the seat in front of me and opened it to an ad that said Literally in Love with Jumpsuits. I put it back into the pocket. I looked out the window at the ground. Grandma waited. I pulled the little window blind to close it and then I opened it again. I saw people in orange safety vests zipping around the airplane in carts with suitcases on them. I stopped looking out the window and looked straight ahead. Okay, I said. Tell it.
Chapter One, said Grandma. She looked at me. She smiled.
You don’t have to say chapters, I said. Just say it. Okay, said Grandma.
I pushed record on my phone.
10.
So when was it? Let’s see. I seem to recall that I’d just returned home from Knipstja’s funeral in Rosenort—she was old, so it wasn’t unexpected … And your mom was waiting for me in the lobby of my apartment block, that one by the river in the shape of a milk carton, with that awful landlord. Momo had died. Yes, she had already died that spring. It was summertime when Knipstja had her funeral. Your mom and I were … not ourselves. Of course! We had lost Momo. Oh … well, Momo fought so hard. She made all those jokes. Do you remember that one joke? I mean, you were young. Maybe you were too young to remember … And your mom and I were in shock. Well not shock, really, we could see this coming but … we had all been fighting hard. Momo most of all. But we lost. We lost! Did Momo make a decision to stop fighting? Was it a conscious decision? Well, we don’t know. I’d say it was. I’d say it was and we can honour that. We can accept that. Well … But the doctors weren’t fighting hard. They were clueless. Don’t make them deal with mental illness. They don’t have a clue. They don’t listen! Read Virginia Woolf instead. But I could tell that your mom was … what’s the word … well, just decimated. Momo was her … I’d say her best friend. I mean they were really in cahoots. We were all … not ourselves … I mean good grief, Charlie Brown! But there was something else with your mom. This loss was … I mean there’s loss and then there’s loss … and this loss … it altered something in her. She was full of fear, I think. She was afraid it would happen to her, too. Like a contagion. First your grandpa, then Marijke, then Momo … So your mom became very anxious. She became very afraid that she would, well, lose her mind too, and … it would happen again. To her.