Gramma Read online

  George had puzzled over these matters long and long, and finally, about a month after Aunt Flo had departed, he went to his mother and told her he had heard her and Aunt Flo talking. He knew what a skeleton in the closet meant by then, because he had asked Mrs. Redenbacher at school. She said it meant having a scandal in the family, and a scandal was something that made people talk a lot. Like Cora Simard talks a lot? George had asked Mrs. Redenbacher, and Mrs. Redenbacher's face had worked strangely and her lips had quivered and she had said, That's not nice, George, but... yes, something like that.

  When he asked Mom, her face had gotten very still, and her hands had paused over the solitaire clockface of cards she had been laying out.

  Do you think that's a good thing for you to be doing, Georgie? Do you and your brother make a habit of eaves-dropping over the register?

  George, then only nine, had hung his head.

  We like Aunt Flo, Mom. We wanted to listen to her a little longer.

  This was the truth.

  Was it Buddy's idea?

  It had been, but George wasn't going to tell her that. He didn't want to go walking around with his head on backwards, which might happen if Buddy found out he had tattled.

  No, mine.

  Mom had sat silent for a long time, and then she slowly began laying her cards out again. Maybe it's time you did know, she had said. Lying's worse than eavesdropping, I guess, and we all lie to our children about Gramma. And we lie to ourselves too, I guess. Most of the time, we do. And then she spoke with a sudden, vicious bitterness that was like acid squirting out between her front teeth -- he felt that her words were so hot they would have burned his face if he hadn't recoiled. Except for me. I have to live with her, and I can no longer afford the luxury of lies.

  So his Mom told him that after Granpa and Gramma had gotten married, they had had a baby that was born dead, and a year later they had another baby, and that was born dead too, and the doctor told Gramma she would never be able to carry a child to term and all she could do was keep on having babies that were dead or babies that died as soon as they sucked air. That would go on, he said, until one of them died inside her too long before her body could shove it out and it would rot in there and kill her, too.

  The doctor told her that.

  Not long after, the books began.

  Books about how to have babies?

  But Mom didn't -- or wouldn't -- say what kind of books they were, or where Gramma got them, or how she knew to get them. Gramma got pregnant again, and this time the baby wasn't born dead and the baby didn't die after a breath or two; this time the baby was fine, and that was George's Uncle Larson. And after that, Gramma kept getting pregnant and having babies. Once, Mom said, Granpa had tried to make her get rid of the books to see if they could do it without them (or even if they couldn't, maybe Granpa figured they had enough yowwens by then so it wouldn't matter) and Gramma wouldn't. George asked his mother why and she said: "I think that by then having the books was as important to her as having the babies."

  "I don't get it," George said.

  "Well," George's mother said, "I'm not sure 1 do, either... I was very small, remember. All I know for sure is that those books got a hold over her. She said there would be no more talk about it and there wasn't, either. Because Gramma wore the pants in our family."

  George closed his history book with a snap. He looked at the clock and saw that it was nearly five o'clock. His stomach was grumbling softly. He realized suddenly, and with something very like horror, that if Mom wasn't home by six or so, Gramma would wake up and start hollering for her supper. Mom had forgotten to give him instructions about that, probably because she was so upset about Buddy's leg. He supposed he could make Gramma one of her special frozen dinners. They were special because Gramma was on a saltfree diet. She also had about a thousand different kinds of pills.

  As for himself, he could heat up what was left of last night's macaroni and cheese, n he poured a lot of catsup on it, it would be pretty good.

  He got the macaroni and cheese out of the fridge, spooned it into a pan, and put the pan on the burner next to the teakettle, which was still waiting in case Gramma woke up and wanted what she sometimes called "a cuppa cheer." George started to get himself a glass of milk, paused, and picked up the telephone again.

  " -- and I couldn't even believe my eyes when.. " Henrietta Dodd's voice broke off and then rose shrilly: "Who keeps listening in on this line, I'd like to know!"

  George put the phone back on the hook in a hurry, his face burning.

  She doesn't know it's you, stupe. There's six parties on the line!

  All the same, it was wrong to eavesdrop, even if it was just to hear another voice when you were alone in the house, alone except for Gramma, the fat thing sleeping in the hospital bed in the other room; even when it seemed almost necessary to hear another human voice because your Mom was in Lewiston and it was going to be dark soon and Gramma was in the other room and Gramma looked like

  (yes oh yes she did)

  a she-bear that might have just one more murderous swipe left in her old clotted claws.

  George went and got the milk.

  Mom herself had been born in 1930, followed by Aunt Flo in 1932, and then Uncle Franklin in 1934. Uncle Franklin had died in 1948, of a burst appendix, and Mom sometimes still got teary about that, and carried his picture. She had liked Frank the best of all her brothers and sisters, and she said there was no need for him to die that way, of peritonitis. She said that God had played dirty when He took Frank.

  George looked out the window over the sink. The light was more golden now, low over the hill. The shadow of their back shed stretched all the way across the lawn. If Buddy hadn't broken his dumb leg, Mom would be here now, making chili or something (plus Gramma's salt-free dinner), and they would all be talking and laughing and maybe they'd play some gin rummy later on.

  George flicked on the kitchen light, even though it really wasn't dark enough for it yet. Then he turned on to heat under his macaroni. His thoughts kept returning to Gramma, sitting in her white vinyl chair like a big fat worm in a dress, her corona of hair every crazy whichway on the shoulders of her pink rayon robe, holding out her arms for him to come, him shrinking back against his Mom, bawling.

  Send him to me, Ruth. I want to hug him.

  He's a little frightened, Momma. He'll come in time. But his mother sounded frightened, too.

  Frightened? Mom?

  George stopped, thinking. Was that true? Buddy said your memory could play tricks on you. Had she really sounded frightened?

  Yes. She had.

  Gramma's voice rising peremptorily: Don't coddle the boy, Ruth! Send him over here; I want to give him a hug.

  No. He's crying.

  And as Gramma lowered her heavy arms from which the flesh hung in great, doughlike gobbets, a sly, senile smile had overspread her face and she had said: Does he really look like Franklin, Ruth? I remember you saying he favored Frank.

  Slowly, George stirred the macaroni and cheese and catsup. He hadn't remembered the incident so clearly before. Maybe it was the silence that had made him remember. The silence, and being alone with Gramma.

  So Gramma had her babies and taught school, and the doctors were properly dumbfounded, and Granpa carpentered and generally got more and more prosperous, finding work even in the depths of the Depression, and at last people began tt talk, Mom said.

  What did they say? George asked.

  Nothing important, Mom said, but she suddenly swept her cards together. They said your Gramma and Granpa were too lucky for ordinary folks, that's all. And it was just after that that the books had been found. Mom wouldn't say more than that, except that the school board had found some and that a hired man had found some more. There had been a big scandal. Granpa and Gramma had moved to Buxton and that was the end of it.

  The children had grown up and had children of their own, making aunts and uncles of each other; Mom had gotten married and moved to New
York with Dad (who George could not even remember). Buddy had been born, and then they had moved to Stratford and in 1969 George had been born, and in 1971 Dad had been hit and killed by a car driven by the Drunk Man Who Had to Go to Jail.

  When Granpa had his heart attack there had been a great many letters back and forth among- the aunts and uncles. They didn't want to put the old lady in a nursing home. And she didn't want to go to a home. If Gramma didn't want to do a thing like that, it might be better to accede to her wishes. The old lady wanted to go to one of them and live out the rest of her years with that child. But they were all married, and none of them had spouses who felt like sharing their home with a senile and often unpleasant old woman. All were married, that was, except Ruth.

  The letters flew back and forth, and at last George's Mom had given in. She quit her job and came to Maine to take care of the old lady. The others had chipped together to buy a small house in outer Castle View, where property values were low. Each month they would send her a check, so she could "do" for the old lady and for her boys.

  What's happened is my brothers and sisters have turned me into a sharecropper, George could remember her saying once, and he didn't know for sure what that meant, but she had sounded bitter when she said it, like it was a joke that didn't come out smooth in a laugh but instead stuck in her throat like a bone. George knew (because Buddy had told him) that Mom had finally given in because everyone in the big, far-flung family had assured her that Gramma couldn't possibly last long. She had too many things wrong with her -- high blood pressure, urernic poisoning, obesity, heart palpitations -- to last long. It would be eight months, Aunt Flo and Aunt Stephanie and Uncle George (after whom George had been named) all said; a year at the most. But now it had been five years, and George called that lasting pretty long.

  She had lasted pretty long, all right. Like a she-bear in hibernation, "waiting for... what?

  (you know how to deal with her best Ruth you know how to shut her up) George, on his way to the fridge to check the directions on one of Gramma's special salt-free dinners, stopped. Stopped cold. Where had that come from? That voice speaking inside his head?

  Suddenly his belly and chest broke out in gooseflesh. He reached inside his shirt and touched one of his nipples. It was like a little pebble, and he took his finger away in a hurry.

  Uncle George. His "namesake uncle," who worked for Sperry-Rand in New York. It had been his voice. He had said that when he and his family came up for Christmas two -- no, three -- years ago.

  She's more dangerous now that she's senile. George, be quiet. The boys are around somewhere.

  George stood by the refrigerator, one hand on the cold chrome handle, thinking, remembering, and looking out into the growing dark. Buddy hadn't been around that day. Buddy was already outside, because Buddy had wanted the good sled, that was why; they were going sliding on Joe Camber's hill and the other sled had a buckled runner. So Buddy was outside and here was George, hunting through the boot-and-sock box in the entryway, looking for a pair of heavy socks that matched, and was it his fault his mother and Uncle George were talking in the kitchen? George didn't think so. Was it George's fault that God hadn't struck him deaf, or, lacking the extremity of that measure, at least located the conversation elsewhere in the house? George didn't believe that, either. As his mother had pointed out on more than one occasion (usually after a glass of wine or two), God sometimes played dirty.

  You know what I mean, Uncle George said.

  His wife and his three girls had gone over to Gates Falls to do some last-minute Christmas shopping, and Uncle George was pretty much in the bag, just like the Drunk Man Who Had to Go to Jail. George could tell by the way his uncle slurred his words.

  You remember what happened to Franklin when he crossed her.

  George, be quiet, or I'll pour the rest of your beer right down the sink!

  Well, she didn't really mean to do it. Her tongue just got away from her. Peritonitis --

  George, shut up!

  Maybe, George remembered thinking vaguely, God isn't the only one who plays dirty.

  Now he broke the hold of these old memories and looked in the freezer and took out one of Gramma's dinners. Veal. With peas on the side. You had to preheat the oven and then bake it for forty minutes at 300 degrees. Easy. He was all set. The tea was ready on the stove if Gramma wanted that. He could make tea, or he could make dinner in short order if Gramma woke up and yelled for it. Tea or dinner, he was a regular two-gun Sam. Dr. Arlinder's number was on the board, in case of an emergency. Everything was cool. So what was he worried about?

  He had never been left alone with Gramma, that was what he was worried about.

  Send the boy to me, Ruth. Send him over here.

  No. He's crying.

  She's more dangerous now... you know what I mean.

  We all lie to our children about Gramma.

  Neither he nor Buddy. Neither of them had ever been left alone with Gramma. Until now.

  Suddenly George's mouth went dry. He went to the sink and got a drink of water. He felt... funny. These thoughts. These memories. Why was his brain dragging them all up now?

  He felt as if someone had dumped all the pieces to a puzzle in front of him and that he couldn't quite put them together. And maybe it was good he couldn't put them together, because the finished picture might be, well, sort of boogery. It might --

  From the other room, where Gramma lived all her days and nights, a choking, rattling, gargling noise suddenly arose.

  A whistling gasp was sucked into George as he pulled breath. He turned toward Gramma's room and discovered his shoes were tightly nailed to the linoleum floor. His heart was spike-iron in his chest. His eyes were wide and bulging. Go now, his brain told his feet, and his feet saluted and said Not at all, sir!

  Gramma had never made a noise like that before.

  Gramma had never made a noise like that before.

  It arose again, a choking sound, low and then descending lower, becoming an insectile buzz before it died out altogether. George was able to move at last. He walked toward the entryway that separated the kitchen from Gramma's room. He crossed it and looked into her room, his heart slamming. Now his throat was choked with wool mittens; it would be impossible to swallow past them.

  Gramma was still sleeping and it was all right, that was his first thought; it had only been some weird sound, after all; maybe she made it all the time when he and Buddy were in school. Just a snore. Gramma was fine. Sleeping.

  That was his first thought. Then he noticed that the yellow hand that had been on the coverlet was now dangling limply over the side of the bed, the long nails almost but not quite touching the floor. And her mouth was open, as wrinkled and caved-in as an orifice dug into a rotten piece of fruit.

  Timidly, hesitantly, George approached her.

  He stood by her side for a long time, looking down at her, not daring to touch her. The imperceptible rise and fall of the coverlet appeared to have ceased.

  Appeared.

  That was the key word. Appeared.

  But that's just because you are spooked, Georgie. You're just being Seilor El-Stupido, like Buddy says -- it's a game. Your brain's playing tricks on your eyes, she's breathing just fine, she's --

  "Gramma?" he said, and all that came out was a whisper.

  He cleared his throat and jumped back, frightened of the

  sound. But his voice was a little louder. "Gramma? You

  want your tea now? Gramma?"

  Nothing.

  The eyes were closed.

  The mouth was open.

  The hand hung.

  Outside, the setting sun shone golden-red through the trees.

  He saw her in a positive fullness then; saw her with that childish and brilliantly unhoused eye of unformed immature reflection, not here, not now, not in bed, but sitting in the white vinyl chair, holding out her arms, her face at the same time stupid and triumphant. He found himself remembering one of the "bad spells"
when Gramma began to shout, as if in a foreign language -- Gyaagin! Gyaagin! Hastur degryon Yos-soth-oth! -- and Mom had sent them outside, had screamed.

  "Just GO!" at Buddy when Buddy stopped at the box in the entry to hunt for his gloves, and Buddy had looked back over his shoulder, so scared he was walleyed with it because their mom never shouted, and they had both gone out and stood in the driveway, not talking, their hands stuffed in their pockets for warmth, wondering what was happening.

  Later, Mom had called them in for supper as if nothing had happened.

  (you know how to deal with her best Ruth you know how to shut her up)

  George had not thought of that particular "bad spell" from that day to this. Except now, looking at Gramma, who was sleeping so strangely in her crank-up hospital bed, it occurred to him with dawning horror that it was the next day they had learned that Mrs. Harham, who lived up the road and sometimes visited Gramma, had died in her sleep that night.

  Gramma's "bad spells."

  Spells.

  Witches were supposed to be able to cast spells. That's what made them witches, wasn't it? Poisoned apples. Princes into toads. Gingerbread nouses. Abracadabra. Presto-chango. Spells.

  Spilled-out pieces of an unknown puzzle flying together in George's mind, as if by magic.

  Magic, George thought, and groaned.

  What was the picture? It was Gramma, of course, Gramma and her books, Gramma who had been driven out of town, Gramma who hadn't been able to have babies and then had been able to, Gramma who had been driven out of the church as well as out of town. The picture was Gramma, yellow and fat and wrinkled and sluglike, her toothless mouth curved into a sunken grin, her faded, blind eyes somehow sly and cunning; and on her head was a black, conical hat sprinkled with silver stars and glittering Babylonian crescents; at her feet were slinking black cats with eyes as yellow as urine, and the smells were pork and blindness, pork and burning, ancient stars and candles as dark as the earth in which coffins lay; he heard words spoken from ancient books, and each word was like a stone and each sentence like a crypt reared in some stinking boneyard and every paragraph like a nightmare caravan of the plague-dead taken to a place of burning; his eye was the eye of a child and in that moment it opened wide in startled understanding on blackness.