I was loading the last of the groceries into the trunk of my car when my mother’s name popped up on my phone screen. I stared at it in stunned silence. She’d never phoned me this early before. Honestly, I don’t think she’d ever phoned me, period. You know how parents usually prefer calling over spending ten minutes unsuccessfully jabbing the screen with their index finger? Well, my mother was an exception to that rule.
I said, “Hello?”, and waited for the inevitable husky voice to tell me they’d abducted my only parent and demand a ransom.
“Erica?” my mother’s voice came through the speaker. She sounded as confused as I was, “Are you there?”
“I’m here, mom, what’s wrong?”
“Erica?” she repeated, as though she hadn’t even heard me, and I suspected that she may not be holding the phone up to her ear, “Grandma’s very ill. The doctor has put her on bed rest, but…”
Beads of sweat sprang out on my forehead, “But what?”
“Okay, I’ll be right there,” her voice was distant, and I realized she was addressing someone else. My mother worked in marketing and boasted the attention span of a pea. ‘If it doesn’t pique my interest within the first three seconds, it’s a lost cause’, she’d always say. It’s a wonder I was even conceived.
“Hello? Mom?” I shook the phone in frustration. Couldn’t she just focus on one thing at a time?
Her voice drifted back to the speaker, “Sorry, darling, where was I? Oh yes, grandma is very ill, and you should go visit her, before… Well, y’know.”
She didn’t sound the slightest bit upset or empathetic. It was as though grandma’s illness was akin to the inconvenience of an indoor fly. But then again, she and my grandma had never been on the best terms.
I promised her I would and hung up, fervently pushing the final carton of milk into place and getting into the driver’s seat. Despite the impending heat, the groceries would have to wait.
#
I pulled into the driveway of my grandparents’ house within fifteen minutes. I hadn’t called beforehand but was hoping someone would be there to answer the door. If grandma was on bed rest, she might not be able to get up. My grandpa was permanently wheelchair-bound and couldn’t do much, aside from light reading and watching T.V.
I jabbed at the doorbell and heard it chime on the other side. Within seconds, an unfamiliar woman appeared on the opposite side of the threshold.
“Yes?” she looked me up and down, as though she was expecting me to present a charity case, or at the very least, hand her an envelope.
“I’m Erica,” I smiled at her, “I’ve come to see my grandmother Elize.”
The woman slapped the kitchen towel she’d been holding onto her shoulder and leaned against the doorframe.
“She’s not doing well,” she uttered, matter-of-factly, “She’s refusing to take her medicine.”
I swooped past her, sliding out of my coat in the process. The woman remained motionless against the wall, staring out into the street through the open door. Her cheeks were flushed and her messy top bun indicated she was hard at work.
“Maybe you can knock some sense into her,” she murmured, “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”
I nodded and made my way down the hallway, wondering what the hell grandmother was thinking, not following her doctor’s advice. I half-expected to find her out of bed too, raiding drawers or frantically pacing back and forth.
Here’s the thing about my grandmother: she’s always been eccentric. Ever since I was a little girl she’d constantly get up to new shenanigans, and find herself in bizarre situations. I suppose that’s the reason she and my mother never got along. She’d been arrested for reckless driving more times than I can count, eventually getting her license revoked. That’s when we found out about the stock-pile of unpaid parking tickets in the glove box. I was about ten at the time. Mom had just gotten a raise and certainly wasn’t pleased about her first pay-check going down the drain.
“Why do you have to pay for grandma?” I remember asking her, “Doesn’t she have her own money?”
But my mother only shook her head and sighed, “It’s a wonder she’s not in jail yet. She’s got to start cleaning up her act.”
I knocked on grandma’s bedroom door and waited. I heard her snort and immediately knew she was in a foul mood.
“For the last time, Cornelia, I don’t want your pigeon pie! Get that crap away from me!”
I turned the doorknob and peeked into the room.
“It’s only me! And as for the pigeon pie, well… I’m afraid I didn’t bring any.”
Her eyes lit up, “Erica! I’ve not seen you in ages! You don’t call, you don’t write. I’m sorry, I look bloody awful, Cornelia is poisoning me with her British food and won’t give me any real sustenance.”
She started hacking and reached into the bedside drawer, pulling out a cigarette, “Fetch me that lighter off the table, would you? Cornelia keeps misplacing it. What do we even pay her for?”
“You shouldn’t be smoking, grandma, think of your lungs.”
“Nonsense!” she waved her hand dismissively, “My lungs want this cigarette just as much as I do! Now, if that Dr. May can’t handle his nicotine, that sounds like his problem.”
I chuckled and passed her the lighter, “Cornelia told me you haven’t been taking your meds.”
“Eh,” she rolled her eyes, fervently fiddling with the nub of the lighter, “They won’t save me. I’m too far gone.”
“Grandma…” I protested, but she shook her head.
“Never mind me! Tell me about you! How’s Justin? Still going after that sales job?”
I flinched, “Well, actually, we broke up. Just over a month ago.”
“Hm,” she puffed out a ball of smoke, “Well, I never liked him anyway. Too snobby. And I’ll tell you something else too, that haircut of his - ridiculous!”
“Yeah, well, y’know… It is what it is. We can’t all have a relationship like yours and grandad’s.”
She snorted, “Grandpa and I haven’t been right for a long time, pet.”
“But you’ve been married for years!”
She tapped the tip of her cigarette on the edge of a teacup.
“Ah, time isn’t nearly as powerful as it’s made out to be. It won’t heal and it certainly won’t make someone fall in love.”
She leaned back against her pillow, blowing rings of smoke into the air. Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine, and I noticed she was trying not to cry.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, alarmed, “Does it hurt? Shall I call Cornelia?”
“No, no,” her voice was low and husky, “She is the last person I want to see…”
She trailed off and I waited, wondering if she was expecting an answer.
“Listen, Erica… I’ve done some questionable things throughout my life, but you have to know that I never meant for any of them to hurt you. I love you, and that will never change.”
My own eyes were prickling as I reached for her free hand. She clutched it, giving it a light squeeze.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she whispered, “I don’t have much time left, and I think that you have the right to know.”
I tensed up, wondering if she was about to let me in on the whereabouts of a hidden treasure, or the meaning of life.
“Tell someone if you must, but wait ‘til they lower me down first.”
I blinked, “I won’t tell anyone, grandma, what is it?”
She pointed to a small cross hanging on the wall above the bed, “Not even Jesus can save a wretch like me.”
“Grandma, you’re no wretch!”
She hushed me, “Your grandpa and I have been married for fifty-six years. Fifty-six! That’s about twice as long as you’ve been alive. Last week, I read an article about a couple of old-timers letting readers in on their secret to a long marriage. Do you know what they said? They said that marriage can only work with a ‘three-T principle’”.
“What’s a ‘three-T principle’?”
“Trust, teamwork, and tolerance,” she grabbed the same cup she’d flicked the ashes into a couple of minutes ago, and took a swig.
“Are they wrong?” I asked. She seemed gravely upset.
“I wouldn’t know,” she shrugged and I spied a tear in the corner of her eye, “I’ve never tried it.”
I wondered whether I should call Cornelia. Grandma seemed to be getting agitated and I didn’t know how to help.
“I’ll get your meds,” I said, scrambling to my feet, “Where are they?”
She pointed to the closet weakly and I made my way to it. It was filled with clothing and general knick-knacks that hadn’t qualified for the interior. I had just found the medicine in one of the lower compartments when grandma spoke again.
“You wanna know the secret to a long marriage?” her voice was low, gruff, and almost ominous. I turned to look at her and saw that she was no longer lying back on her pillow. She was sitting up with her hands in her lap and staring me dead in the eye.
Caught off guard by her sudden change in composure, I muttered, “Uh… sure?”
“Come, quick, before I change my mind,” she wailed, cupping her face in her hands. Even from a distance, I could see they were shaking.
I plopped down on the bed and handed her a small white pill I’d found in the closet. She fingered it carefully, turning it over several times in her hands, before shoving it into her mouth and swallowing in one quick motion.
“The first step to a successful marriage,” she took a deep breath, “Is to love someone very much.”
I smiled, marveling at the idea. How lucky were my grandparents to have found each other? What were the odds of maintaining a loving relationship for that long?
“I’ve loved your grandfather since the first day I saw him. I loved him more than I loved anything. More than life itself,” she continued, and although her words were intrinsically warm, her tone was cold and rigid, as though she were saying them against her will.
“That’s great, grandma-” I began, but she cut me off.
“But he didn’t love me.”
I stared at her, not understanding, “What…What do you mean?”
“He loved another girl. Her name was Angie. Angie Summers. Looked exactly like she sounded. Blonde, freckled, always smiling. No wonder he was in love with her.”
She trailed off into silence and buried her face in her hands again. I could feel a knot forming in my stomach and had to take a couple of deep breaths to calm down.
“But he chose you in the end?” I said when the silence grew too uncomfortable to bear.
She took her time, “No. He didn’t. He chose her.”
I swallowed, “Then what happened?”
“They had a baby. A beautiful baby girl named Susan. Too late, they’d discovered she was pregnant and ran out of time to get married. They were planning a summer wedding.”
“So grandpa has been married twice?”
“No, he never married Angie.”
“Why not?” I asked, examining her reaction. I knew there was something she wasn’t telling me.
“Because…” she whispered, “…she died.”
“H-how…?” I stammered.
“Because of me.”
I pressed my lips together in a tight line, “I’m sure that’s not true. It couldn’t have been your fault!”
But she shot me an aggravated look, “You don’t even know what happened! It was my fault! I planned the whole thing! I was the one who tied that noose, and I was the one who strung her on it. I made it look like an accident. A gruesome, life-changing, terrible accident.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Whenever I think back to that moment, I wonder if I’d imagined it. My grandma was on her death bed, confessing to a murder. She wanted me to know about it. Why? I looked down at my clammy hands and noticed they were shaking.
“You remember the time you asked me why grandpa was in a wheelchair?” she didn’t seem afraid anymore, and I noticed a mischievous gleam in her eyes, “I told you he’d gotten into a car accident, but he hadn’t. Not really.”
She tried to take my hand, but I snatched it away.
“You did this to him?” my bewilderment was sending jolts of electricity through my spine and I jumped to my feet. I wanted to go find grandpa and weep at his knees, but she grabbed my arm.
“I had to,” she said, “It was the only way he’d stay. He hated me with every inch of his being, but he stayed with me. Not just because he was dependent on me, but also for Susan’s sake.”
I recoiled, “For Susan’s sake? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What did you do to her?”
“We renamed her,” she shrugged, “Monica.”
I was gasping for air at this point, my slimy hands sliding along the bed frame, as I desperately tried to hold on to my sanity. Monica. That’s my mother’s name.
“Does she know?” I choked, “Does she know about you?”
She gave a gargled laugh, “No, but if you must tell her…” she paused, “Wait ‘til I’m in the ground.”
“I’ll do as I bloody please,” I snapped, grabbing my bag and making my way towards the door, “You’re sick.”
“Erica?” she called after me, but her voice was weak, “…there’s one more thing.”
I halted, bracing myself for whatever she had to say.
“That pill you gave me…” she trailed off, and I turned to face her, “…is a lethal agent.”
She gasped, and I could see she was having trouble breathing, “Guess…guess we’re equal now, hm..?”
I pushed the bedroom door open and glanced at her one more time. Her eyes were half-open, and she looked just as she had a moment ago. Except now, she was completely still. She was gone. I murmured, “No. No, we’re not.”
As I walked along the corridor towards the front door, my eyes brimming with tears, I caught a glimpse of my grandpa, sitting in front of the T.V. in the living room. For a brief moment, our gazes met and I smiled, raising my hand to give a slight wave. When he waved back I noticed a letter peeking out from under one of his sleeves. It looked old and tattered, and I couldn’t help wondering if it was from Angie. My real grandmother.