Believe it or not, I know you’re not fighting fascism. Grandma told me. It’s okay. Grandma told me the word fascism might have the same root as the word for body, but fascism is not the same thing as necrotizing fasciitis which is flesh-eating disease. Grandma said that flesh-eating disease could be an apt metaphor, though. Her hospital roommate had it one time and Grandma didn’t even care. They traded breakfast trays even though it was against the rules. Grandma wasn’t supposed to have bacon even though it’s her favourite food and the flesh-eating person really wanted Grandma’s yogurt and Grandma would rather chew on broken glass or poke sharp sticks into her eyes than eat yogurt, so they traded breakfast trays and everything was fine. They didn’t get caught. Grandma had to have her rib cage sawed open, and then they took her heart out and put it on a bedside table next to her and inserted small balloons into her arteries which they blew up to help her blood flow. They cut a vein out of her leg and attached it to her heart instead. After that they made her walk around to test it out and she didn’t even care that her hospital gown was open at the back. Even though there were also men in the hospital. Fighting means different things for different people. You’ll know for yourself what to fight. Grandma told me fighting can be making peace. She said sometimes we move forward by looking back and sometimes the onward can be knowing when to stop. Well, anyway, you know Grandma! We all have fires inside us, even you. Grandma said you pour so much alcohol on the fire inside you that it’s guaranteed never to go out.
12.
After Grandma’s nap we went on Ken’s sailboat, which is called Irene after his mom, who was Grandma’s sister. We drove out to a lake. It’s not the Pacific Ocean. Ken said on a clear day we could see the Hollywood sign from the lake, but Jude said it wasn’t true. It took three weeks to get Grandma onto the boat because every time she tried to step off the dock into the boat it would move a bit in the water, and then she’d lose her balance and step back onto the dock and laugh for six hours. Finally we were in the boat. Ken made me and Grandma wear orange life jackets. Grandma accidentally tried to get the child-size life jacket over her head and it got stuck halfway down her face. I was afraid the boat would tip from her laughing and shaking so much and from Ken standing up to pry the life jacket off her face.
Lou poured everyone a glass of white wine to toast to family. He looked sad and happy at the same time. That’s a popular adult look because adults are busy and have to do everything at once, even feel things. Grandma put her head back so the sun shone on her face. She looked at her old nephews and at me and Jude and raised her glass up. She said it was good to be alive. She was sitting at the tip of the sailboat and Ken had to keep telling her to hang on to the gunwales. Then Lou went over and sat beside her so she wouldn’t fall out. She told Lou about how she’d fallen off a banana boat in Jamaica and had to be towed back into shore by six fishermen. Catch of the day! said Lou. Jude trailed her hand in the water and splashed Ken. He smiled and didn’t wipe the water off his sunglasses. He just let the drops stay there on his lenses. He looks very commanding, doesn’t he, said Jude. I nodded. O captain, my captain, she said. She put her hand on his thigh. He didn’t move it away.
Lou and Grandma held hands again. I had a sip of my wine. I didn’t want to drink wine. It was so hot. Grandma was turning pink. She was wearing Ken’s cut-off UCLA sweatpants because she forgot to pack shorts. She was talking so much. She had to talk loudly in the wind so Lou could hear her. Lou smiled and smiled and hung on to her. I felt the outside of my backpack to see if Grandma’s nitro spray was in it. I was sitting next to Jude. I didn’t want to think about her thong. I wanted to tell Grandma to stop talking and just breathe but I didn’t want Lou and Ken and Jude to think I was bossy. I tried to let my wine slosh over the side of the boat without them noticing. What if everyone on the boat got drunk? How would we get back to the dock? I watched Ken closely to see what he was doing so I could sail the boat if everyone died suddenly from alcohol poisoning. I had my phone. I could call Mom and tell her to call someone American to rescue us. It was good that we were in a lake and not the ocean so we could stay alive by drinking the water and not go insane.
Grandma waved at me. She didn’t know she was on the voyage of the Dawn Treader. She kept drinking! Everyone kept drinking, and Jude kept splashing Ken and touching his thigh and Ken kept not doing anything about it, just smiling, and Grandma kept talking and Lou kept making sure she didn’t fall over the side. Lou looked at me. I liked the way he smiled with half his mouth. I liked the way he hunched over when he sat. He lifted his glass. Jude lifted her glass. Grandma waved again. She held up her glass. Jude gave Ken his glass so he could hold it up too. Everyone was holding up their glasses. I didn’t want everyone to see that my glass was empty from throwing my wine overboard. Would they think I’d drunk it all and give me more? I held up my glass with both my hands around it like a baby so people couldn’t see inside it.