Crush Control (16 page)

“It's not really about my dad,” I said honestly. It was about Mom, Grandma, and Grandpa, and it was about Max
.
In my mind I had built up this beach-photo-perfect depiction of how life would be once we moved to Georgia, and so far, things weren't turning out as planned.

Max's legs swung back and forth, draped in front of my desk. “I think it's kind of cool that we both are raised by single, strong, independent mothers,” he said.

And I smiled, agreeing with him. Because there it was, another thing that bonded us. And everything else just fell away.

Friday morning I woke up to a rusty grumble from the vent above my bed, followed by a welcome blast of frosty air. I lay there for a few minutes letting the cool wind saturate my sweltering skin. When I emerged, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with a young guy, probably in his twenties, eating lemon pound cake, drinking coffee, and discussing the tattoo on his left forearm.

“Yeah, so it's a symbol for me,” the guy said between bites of the breakfast cake, “of my life before.”

“That's so interesting,” Mom said with her innate ability to have complete strangers want to open up and divulge their life stories. “I'm doing that too,” she added, conspiratorially, like they were on the same team. “I'm starting over too.”

The AC repair guy smiled. “Looks like you're doing a great job.”

I cleared my throat and they both looked my way, startled.

The AC guy was closer to my age actually than Mom's. “Well, I better get going,” he said. “I've got a ton of service calls. This heat wave is doing a number on all the units around town.”

Mom thanked him again and closed the door behind him. “Hallelujah, I can breathe again!” she said, gesturing to the blowing vent above her. She sat back down at the table and I joined her. She broke off a sheet from the paper towel roll and passed me the store-bought cake. “So,” Mom said. “We're going over to Grandma and Grandpa's tonight for dinner.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked at her stirring the three teaspoons of sugar into her coffee and wondered if the AC repair had anything to do with our sudden plans—if the money came from somewhere other than our account.

“It's time,” Mom said with no mention of money. So I would never know if she called them and asked for help or if she finally just felt ready to face them.

I nodded. “When?”

“Seven.”

We both glanced over at the clock.

All along I'd been wishing and waiting for our reconciliation with my grandparents, so now that it was finally happening, why did I feel more nervous than excited?

After school, I asked Max if he could drive me into town to a clothing store.

“Sure,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”

“Someplace your mom shops.”

“Okay.” He hooked an illegal U-turn and pulled up next to the curb in front of a store called Angie's. Max stayed in the car while I walked inside. It was small and intimate, with twenty or so racks of sweaters and pants. A middle-aged woman came over and asked if she could help me.

“Mom and I are going to a nice dinner tonight,” I explained. “And she asked me to pick up an outfit for her.”

“Oh, how nice,” the saleswoman said. Together we picked out a pair of straight-leg black pants and a light blue button-down top. It was fitted, with a little bit of spandex, so Mom couldn't say it was old-ladyish, but it wasn't low-cut or cropped. It didn't have any sequins or rhinestones. It was perfect.

The sales lady rang up the bill, but when she slid the credit card through the reader, she grimaced. “I'm sorry, hon, it's saying the card is declined. Maybe she gave you the wrong one?” she asked kindly.

“Um, yeah. Probably.” I backed out quickly and raced toward Max's truck.

“Didn't find anything?” he asked, turning down the volume of the radio.

I shook my head. “Let's just go home.”

He nodded and drove away, not asking any more questions. Back at the house, I rummaged through Mom's closet, trying desperately to find something she could wear that would not provoke Grandma. As each minute ticked closer to 7 p.m., my nerves frayed. I didn't know what to expect. After everything with Max, I was learning that words on paper or the computer screen or even the phone didn't always translate into the relationship I'd built up in my mind.

It was hard to know how to feel. My memories of my grandparents were both good and bad. I remembered Grandma taking me to the American Girl doll store, letting me pick out any doll I wanted and buying all the clothes and hair accessories. I remembered Grandma teaching me how to play chess. I remembered our hourlong Scrabble marathons. I remembered Grandma telling me that her beautiful mother, my great-grandmother, had keyhole-shaped pupils too, and that a key was a symbol of authority. It meant I would have great responsibility in my life. I remembered Grandpa teaching me how to throw a ball, how to cast a fishing line into the river by their house. I remembered how he laughed so easily, so heartily. But I also remembered the tension that filled the air when we visited—the sharp words that passed between them and my mother and the hurt in Mom's eyes whenever we left their enormous farm and returned to our small apartment across town.

Mom came home dressed in a sleeveless polyester beaded dress with a sixties geometric design. She wore large gold-plated hoop earrings, an oversize rhinestone cuff bracelet, and platform wedge shoes. I took a deep breath.

“Do you want to borrow my cardigan?” I asked. “In case, you, um, get chilly?” It was ninety-seven degrees outside. Mom looked at me for a long minute. I tapped my foot nervously and wondered if ever there was a time when Mom redressed me in her mind. If when she pranced around the show lights of Vegas, she wished her daughter wasn't afraid to wear fishnet stockings or zebra print. No, I thought, looking at her. She was nothing but proud of me. Enormous waves of shame crashed over me.

“Ready?” Mom asked.

I nodded. I followed her to our car and we drove the ten minutes across town in silence. We passed the entrance to Mia's subdivision, with clusters of kids riding bikes and Big Wheels in the cul-de-sac, and then turned down Magnolia Drive. The houses grew farther apart, long stretches of green rolling pasture separating them. At the first sight of the familiar white split-rail fence, Mom took in a sharp breath. I reached over and put my hand on top of hers on the steering wheel, trying to calm her. But instead, my touch shocked her, jolted her out of some long-forgotten memory, and her hand jerked, pulling the steering wheel fast to the right and onto the shoulder of the road.

“Oh Jesus,” she said, hitting the brakes. Then she started laughing, the hysterical, maniacal laughing that only nerves can bring. I laughed too.

After a few minutes we regained our composure. She took a deep breath and put the car in drive. We pulled up the long, curving driveway to the stately white-columned house on top of the hill. She parked the car and just sat there for a minute, staring out at the chestnut-colored horse grazing on some hay.

I elbowed her gently. “Come on, Mom,” I said, afraid that she might sit there in the car all night.

We walked slowly up the stone walkway under the white arching branches of river birch trees. She pressed the doorbell and everything felt odd—ringing the doorbell at her parents' home, the home she grew up in. I could never imagine seventeen years from now feeling like I couldn't just barge in on my mom's life.

The heavy double doors opened and there was Grandma, wearing a pale blue striped skirt and an ivory short-sleeved sweater. She wore pearl earrings, and her platinum hair was coiffed to chic perfection. “Willow!” she exclaimed, taking me into a hug and pressing me against her soft chest. She smelled sweet like a mixture of powder and flowery perfume. It felt like just yesterday that I had been in her arms. She pulled back and smiled. “How grown-up you've become,” she said. She held one of my hands then turned toward Mom. Her glassy hair moved in one shellacked swing. “Victoria,” she said tentatively.

“Hi Mom,” Mom said.

We stood there on the porch with the soft sound of crickets starting to chirp off in the distant woods. It felt stiff. Like a first date.

“Well, come in,” Grandma finally said. She led us through the foyer, closing the doors behind us, and into the formal living room, where overstuffed couches were adorned with matching decorative pillows and beautiful framed photographs artfully decorated the top of a glass table. I noticed all the pictures of my mother as an infant, a child, an adolescent, but none after that. Pictures of me in matching silver frames joined the others, making me feel special, documented. Mom never seemed to be organized enough to print out pictures off her digital camera, let alone frame and display them.

A shiny black grand piano sat adjacent to two sets of French doors. A spread of sheet music rested on the top of the piano as if just last night this room was flooded with joyful music and happily dancing and singing people. A flash of a memory snuck into my mind of me and Grandma and Grandpa, squeezed onto the slippery piano bench, the keys of the player piano automatically strumming Christmas carols as we sang along.

Adjacent to the living room, a large mahogany table was draped with a white linen tablecloth. Four places were neatly set with bone white china, two plates on each side facing each other and a large vase filled with fresh flowers in between. I looked over at Mom, easing herself down onto the couch painfully, as if it were made of needles instead of obviously expensive fabric, and wondered how she could have chosen to leave all this. How could Mom have felt so suffocated and strangled here when I, stepping into such order and tidiness, felt nothing but harmony?

Grandma took a seat on the ivory wing-backed chair and crossed her legs at the ankle. She gestured with a sway of her bony hand to the large, sweating pitcher of iced tea resting on a silver platter between us. “Some tea?” she offered.

“Is it sweetened?” Mom asked.

“No,” Grandma said and motioned towards two small ceramic containers. “There's sugar and sweetener if you'd like.”

“Yes,” Mom said tightly. “You know I like my tea sweet. You know Willow likes her tea sweet. And I know
you
like your tea sweet. You could have just made sweet tea.”

My back prickled. Why was Mom getting so irritated?

“But,” Grandma responded tensely, “if you make sweet tea, you can't take the sugar out. You can always
add
sugar.”

Mom exhaled loudly. “But if you know we all like sweet tea . . .”

I knew this wasn't about the stupid tea. As always, it ran so much deeper. “Okay,” I said, clapping my hands. I was feeling a little desperate. We hadn't been there for ten minutes. I reached over and poured three glasses of tea. I handed one to each Mom and Grandma. I added a teaspoon of sugar and took a sip. “Delicious,” I said loudly.

Grandma took the glass with a small nod of approval. “Thank you, Willow.” Mom gave a forced smile and I was ready to just stand up and say,
Come on guys! You're sorry, she's sorry, everyone's sorry. Let's move past this rift so I can have grandparents again and we can be a normal family.

Everyone slipped into silence.

“Where's Dad?” Mom asked, craning her neck to look toward the study.

“He's not feeling well,” Grandma said, a concerned look falling over her face.

Mom got up and walked toward the study. I followed, stopping beside her at the entrance to the bookshelf-lined room. Propped in a cognac-colored leather club chair, Grandpa snored softly, his reading glasses dangling from his wrinkled hand. He looked like a fraction of the burly linebacker he once was. The Grandpa I remembered had mitts for hands and a fierce grip. He had broad shoulders and a thick neck, eyebrows that looked like bushy caterpillars. But this man was shrunken—shriveled, actually—a pathetic remnant of the man he used to be.

A gasp caught in my throat. Only seeing him now, seeing how sick he looked, made me realize how easily a relationship built on phone calls and letters could disguise the real truth.

Mom turned away, visibly upset by the sight of him and the undeniable evidence of how much time had passed. “He looks terrible,” she whispered to Grandma as we found ourselves back on the stiff living room couches. “Has he been in therapy since the stroke?”

Grandma nodded slightly. “Yes, physical therapy. It's helping a little with mobility but doesn't really help much with the pain. The doctors keep trying to pump him full of pills, but you know your father—he doesn't like medicine.” She twisted her hands together in her lap.