“You can’t blame me.” Eddie tilted his head down to give Ralph better access to his neck. “Our team was twenty points ahead.”
“My point is, he can nod off in a chair just as well as on a bed. Maybe better. He’ll be sawing logs as soon as his butt hits a cushion.”
Eddie nodded. “It’s one of my many mad skills.”
Ralph ended the neck massage and swatted Eddie’s butt. “And you have very many, very mad skills.”
Eddie playfully elbowed him in the ribs. “Not in front of the children.”
I laughed, but felt more wistful than amused. Eddie and Ralph had been together for more than a dozen years and shared the kind of warm, easy affection I’d hoped for in my own marriage.
“I, on the other hand, require a prone position,” Ralph said, “so I’m off to the Mosey On Inn.” Ralph was allergic to dogs, and Gran had a shaggy mixed breed named Snowball, so Ralph and Eddie always stayed at the town’s only inn whenever they visited Wedding Tree.
Eddie hugged him good-bye, then kissed my cheek and turned toward the door to Gran’s room.
“Sure you’ll be okay here alone?” I asked.
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Mom for company.”
“Not to mention his grandmother on the ceiling,” Ralph said dryly.
Eddie rolled his eyes. “I’ll chalk your insensitivity up to sleep deprivation this time, but it better not happen again.” He turned the “Visitors Welcome” sign on Gran’s door around to read “Patient Sleeping—No Visitors Allowed” and made a shooing motion with his hand. “Now get on out of here, you two. I need my beauty sleep.”
I peeked in as Eddie entered the room. Gran was sleeping peacefully, her chest rising and falling. Eddie plopped into the bedside recliner, kicked back the footrest, and closed his eyes. Satisfied, I backed out. Before the door even closed behind me, the soft snuffle of Eddie’s snore rose from the chair.
3
hope
Ialways wax nostalgic when I first see Gran’s house after a long absence, but this time, I steeled myself against it. I’d watched quite a bit of HGTV over the last few months, and I’d learned about the importance of curb appeal. I would try, I decided, to view the house through the objective eyes of a potential buyer.
My heart sank as I pulled my rented Sonata onto the familiar herringbone-patterned brick driveway and gazed at the gabled two-story house. I’d been here at Christmas, but my eagerness to see Gran and my sentimental attachment to the place apparently had obscured the fact the house was in need of an extreme makeover. Well, maybe not extreme, but at least substantial; the gingerbread trim needed painting, the gray wooden siding was dingy with mildew, and the railing on the wraparound porch looked like a gap-toothed fighter who’d lost a few rounds.
The landscaping wasn’t any better. The gardenia bush on the west side hulked over the living room window, the azaleas in the front bed gasped for fertilizer and a trim, and the centipede grass had been hijacked by dollarweed and dandelions. The only spot of color was a large patch of tulips blooming in the front flower garden.
I climbed out of the car, grabbed my bag from the backseat, and headed toward the house, noting additional needed repairs with every step. A board on the third porch stair shifted under my foot,the paint curled and flaked off the porch railing, and the screen door sported several tears and dents. The hinges squeaked as I opened it and inserted the key into the faded red front door.
The lock tumbled, and I pushed the door open. The scent of Gran’s house—of a million home-cooked meals mingled with floor polish and old furniture and the lavender potpourri she always kept by the door—flew out to greet me, sweeping me up in a whirlwind of olfactory-borne memories. All attempts at objectivity abandoned, I stepped through the door and into my past.
Funny, how almost all of my childhood memories were based here. I’d only visited Gran at Christmas and during summer vacations, yet my recollections of this place were sharp and clear, while memories of most of my childhood in Chicago were blurry or nonexistent.
Maybe it was because this was where I’d felt most alive, I thought, dropping my keys on the bureau in the foyer. Gran’s house had always buzzed with possibilities, with wonderful things just about to happen—Christmas presents waiting to be opened, cake icing needing to be licked from beaters, long summer days stretching out like magic carpets, as full of promised delight as the stack of canvasses Gran always bought me.
Mom used to fly me down to Louisiana when school let out in early June, then pick me up again in August. While she managed portfolios and brokered big deals in Chicago, I ran barefoot, frolicked through schedule-free days, and indulged my passion for painting.
Gran has always been my biggest fan and supporter. She’d noticed my love of art when I was about four years old and she caught me sitting cross-legged on her white chenille bedspread, staring at the print of Van Gogh’sStarry Nightthat hung over her high oak headboard. I told her that if I looked at it long enough, the stars seemed to spin.
“Would you like to paint a picture like that?” Gran had asked.
I’d nodded, and that very afternoon, Gran had taken me to thestore, bought me paint supplies, and set me up with a little easel on the back patio. I worked out there until nearly bedtime, when I’d declared my painting finished.
“That’s beautiful, sweetheart,” Gran had said.
“It’s very nice,” my mother had remarked when I’d proudly shown her the piece a couple of months later. “But shouldn’t the big star be on the other side?”
“Oh, I wasn’t copying,” I’d said. “I looked at the sky myself.”
“That’s my girl.” Gran’s laugh had vibrated against me as she enfolded me in a big hug. “Don’t ever stop viewing the world through your own eyes, sweetie.”
