Saturday, June 20, 2015
Broken beams of light reach Honoree’s room from a window in the hall, softening the jagged edges of my claustrophobia. The slightest bright strip dulls the effect of the white walls, low ceiling, and monotonous tile, helping me to breathe.
Conversely, the sunshine also illuminates the angles and shadows in Honoree’s face. I drift into a corner to stare.
My grandmother Maggie is eighty-nine, but age gathers everyone under one roof, and these two women look almost the same. Both are small-boned with a head full of cottony white curls, a thin nose, a high forehead, and full lips, which strikes me as odd. I thought lips withered with age. They also have a similar jut to the jaw and sharpness to the cheekbones.
There are, however, differences.
Honoree’s skin is a spotty canvas of light and dark flesh. Maggie’s skin is smooth and pale brown, and her voice is soft, breathy, and poetic. Honoree’s voice is rough, dismissive, and crude. Luckily for Maggie, she doesn’t have large pointy ears that stick out from both sides of her head like an elf in a graphic novel.
“Is that you, Sawyer? Why are you hiding in the corner?”
I drop my backpack and step forward. “Miss Honoree. How are you today?”
“Where you been? You didn’t come back.”
“My apologies, but I’m back and anxious to talk to you.”
She raises her left hand briefly before hiding the arm beneath the sheet. Her wrist is a twisted, swollen joint the size of a golf ball. It must be an arthritic condition, but there is also a long puckered scar, a scorching burn from the middle of her forearm to her shoulder.
“What are you gaping at?” One eyelid closes as the other eye glares. “Stop staring at my disfigurement. Happened a hundred years ago in a fire when I was a child—kerosene spilled from a lamp and lit up my arm. It stopped hurting a long while back.” She frowns. “What are you doing here?”
I tear my gaze away from her burned arm. “I hoped we could start fresh.”
“I don’t trust you to stick around.”
I inch forward. “Give me a chance. I’ll prove I’m trustworthy.”
“How? As soon as you get what you need, you’ll be on your way back home.”
“I promise I’ll return the next day and the next day, and the day after that. I won’t duck out on you as I did before. My project is already a year late, but I am committed to finishing it in the next two weeks.” I capture her gaze. “That can only happen with your help.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” she says, sizing me up. “What made it late? Your project. What happened that you couldn’t finish it a year ago?”
Her directness doesn’t surprise me too much. “What made my project late? Let’s call it life—and death.” I add the latter for the sake of accuracy.
Honoree turns and rests her cheek against the pillow as she looks up at me. “There’s a chair in the corner. Pull it over here, close to the bed.”
I glance around the small room, still firing my claustrophobia on all cylinders. The narrow beam of light from the hall window is a godsend. I plant the chair close to the bed and sit.
Honoree lets me settle before she begins. “Yes, that is better.”
I remove my iPad from my backpack. “Whaddaya say we watch a video. I have footage from a 1925 motion picture. I think you’ll recognize one of the chorus girls.” I adjust the over-the-bed tray table and place the tablet in the center, so Honoree has a good view.
“What the hell is that?”
“An electronic tablet, an iPad.”
“Looks like a tiny TV.” She points at the television on the wall. “That’s a bigger one up there. What do I need this for?”
“When it’s on, you’ll see just fine.” I open the app and tap Play. “Do you know any of them—” I nod at the screen. “The girls dancing?”
“Too blurry.” She points at the tablet. “I might recognize her. The one in the middle. You think it’s me, don’t you?” She smiles at the figure on the monitor. “What a pretty little chorus girl. One of the best in the city.”
She stares ahead with dull eyes as if traveling back in time.
“I’ll have a better film clip in a week or so. Do you recognize any of the dancers? Or one of the men standing off to the side of the frame? One of them might be Oscar Micheaux.”
