Nan's Story (2 page)

“That’s my good boy,” Elsie crooned. “Look sweetie, Grandmama is busy right now, but…”

“Is my mother getting up soon?” CJ interrupted.

Nan felt a rush of pleasure to hear him mention her, and admittedly even more so by the scowl that flickered over Elsie’s face. It had been brief but unmistakable. Nan smirked.

“Oh…let’s let her sleep a bit longer, okay sweetheart?” Elsie said. “You
know
how difficult it is for her to get up and take care of you.”

The backhanded slight wiped the smile from Nan’s face. She had hoped that with time, Elsie’s iron grip on CJ might loosen, but if anything, it had only grown more steadfast.

“If she’s not up by noon you can go wake her,” Elsie paused. “How about a Snickerdoodle instead?”

Nan wasn’t surprised by the offer of a cookie as an alternative to spending time with her, but that didn’t take the sting out of it. She bit her lip in frustration, though any anger starting to simmer was quickly trumped by self-reproach. It was true. She
could
have gotten up earlier. Her mother hadn’t forced her to oversleep. Another layer of failure made her shoulders droop.

“Yes please,” CJ replied, reaching up to touch his grandmother’s cheek. It was so tender a gesture, Nan wanted to cry. The very few times he hugged
her
, usually at someone’s insistence, it had been stiff and uncomfortable.

“You are most welcome CJ, darling,” Elsie said, kissing him gently and spinning him back toward the house.

Nan watched her son walk, hands clasped behind him and bent slightly forward. It wasn’t the typical bouncing step of a four year old, but more the dragging stride of an old man carrying a lifetime of struggle on his back. It pained her to know that much of his burden was the result of decisions that she and she alone had made.

Nan’s mother waited until the door closed behind CJ and then stood up straight. She returned her full attention to the movers, stare fixed, mouth twitching once before she spoke.

“My son’s wedding reception is in twenty-four hours. If I had time to hire anyone else to do this job, and I mean
anyone
, you can bet your ass you’d be leaving this house on the end of my foot.”

She gritted her teeth.

“You have exactly one hour to get that tent set up,” she said, lowering her voice to a growl. “If you fail to do that, I can promise you
will
live to regret it.”

Both men clearly sensed that despite her diminutive stature, Elsie was a force to be reckoned with. Given who she was married to, she was not without clout and could undoubtedly make their lives very, very difficult.

Nan’s mother glanced at the diamond Rolex on her slender wrist and looked back at the movers.

“One…hour.”

With a theatrical click of her heel, Elsie turned and dismissively stalked away in the same direction CJ had just gone. When she reached the edge of the flagstone patio, her shoe caught on something and she stumbled a bit. It wasn’t much and Nan’s mother never lost her footing, but it was enough for Nan to whisper:

“God gotcha’.”

Dead more than ten years, her father’s voice remained with Nan always. Sam Bower had a kitschy saying for every occasion, and ‘God gotcha’ was a favorite for those times karma delivered a well-deserved kick in the pants. Despite his long list of failings, Nan missed him terribly, which was not something she would ever share with her mother.

Struck by how quiet it was in Elsie’s wake, Nan watched as the men began carefully picking up the poles and moving them further from the house. In addition to the light clanging noises the shifting metal made, she could hear birdsong from the trees and the faint strains of jazz, Count Basie Nan thought, playing from her mother’s stereo downstairs.

As was the case with the movers, Mother Nature didn’t seem inclined to tangle with Elsie, bestowing on them a stretch of deep blue skies and warm temperatures more common to June than September. Although it was only a few degrees shy of hot, the tangy scent of fall permeated the air. By all accounts though, the weather was supposed to hold through the weekend, which boded well for all of them.

It hadn’t been Arthur and Laura’s idea to host their wedding reception at the house, but Elsie’s, and once she took hold of the reins, the couple could do little more than hang on for the ride. Arthur was the most easy-going of Nan’s three brothers, and that had kept most of the peace through the process. But even his laid back nature had been tested from time to time during the past few months. Nan had to give Arthur a lot of credit for putting up with their mother the way he did, and more so to his bride-to-be Laura, who wasn’t even blood related to this crazy family. Not for the first time, Nan wondered if Laura knew what she was getting into.

In fairness to Elsie though, the yard really was an ideal location for the wedding reception. A little less than an acre, it was artfully landscaped and a blend of maple and oak trees stood tall around the perimeter. Despite the unseasonable weather, the leaves had already begun changing and were dotted with bright red, yellow and orange plumage. Flower beds filled with autumn blooms like hardy mums and marigolds flowed effortlessly throughout the space. Several strategically placed sitting areas with granite benches and ornate statues gave the unmistakable impression that money lived here.

The property was bordered on the far end by the Piscataqua River, which separated the rocky coasts of Maine and New Hampshire. A tall wrought iron gate had been erected a year after CJ was born where the yard ended in a craggy drop, but from Nan’s vantage point it didn’t interrupt her view of the water. Shimmering in the late morning sun, a few sail boats and a single chugging tug moved lazily through the deep. Nan tried to picture how everything would look the following day, though it was difficult given how many tasks still needed to be done. It was hard to believe that it would all be over the day after next and Nan wondered what, or who, Elsie would sink her teeth into then.

She turned from the window and walked to the closet where her bridesmaid’s dress, wrapped in layers of clear plastic, hung from the door. Although they’d been friendly in high school, Nan was surprised when Laura asked her to be part of the wedding. Sure, Nan was Arthur’s sister and all, but she thought it more likely the invitation was the result of Elsie’s urging. Whatever the reason, Nan dreaded wearing the tacky explosion of milky blue satin and tulle. She pushed it aside and opened the door, rifling among the hangers until she found the black cardigan sweater she was looking for. Reaching her her hand into the pocket, Nan extracted a battered pack of Winston’s and took a seat at her vanity. She opened the bottom drawer and pulled out a book of matches and a chipped oyster shell that served as her ashtray. As she lit her cigarette, Nan caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Extinguishing the sputtering flame on the head of the match, she watched her reflection inhale.

Her hair was a tangle of dark brown curls that if pulled straight would reach the middle of her back, but wound as they were just brushed her shoulders. They framed her heart-shaped face, and the reddish highlights (though not nearly the deep russet hue of CJ’s) brought out the green of her eyes. Holding the cigarette between her lips, she used her hands to scoop it all up into a ponytail, deftly winding the elastic around the thickness of it.

“Nancy Elaine Bower, you put that cigarette out immediately!” Nan’s mother shouted from downstairs.

She winked at herself in the mirror.

“Oh
yes
mama, I’ll do that
right now
,” she mused, cigarette bouncing as she spoke.

Taking another long drag, she exhaled a series of lopsided smoke rings. She never could get the damn things right. Not like her brother Buddy. He tried to teach her a few times when they were younger, but Nan never mastered it. It didn’t stop her from trying though, just from succeeding. Now wasn’t
that
the story of her life.

“Nan? Nancy? Did you hear me? So help me God, don’t make me come up these stairs!”

Nan smiled ruefully. At one time her mother’s threat would have caused her to cease whatever censored activity she was doing immediately, but now she knows Elsie won’t actually come up to her room. It was the fight she really wanted, not the conquest. Besides, every day started this way. Not with the chaotic events in the yard, but with Nan’s mother establishing her rule of law. Sometimes it was about smoking, but other times,
most
other times, it had to with CJ and Nan’s ability to parent him. Or lack thereof if Elsie was to be believed.

“You could always move,” Nan said out loud to her reflection. “Get a job, take CJ and just go.”

The image in the mirror laughed in her face.

“Really?” Nan replied to herself with more than a note of derision. “Just get a job. And what exactly are you going to
do
?”

Despite the question emerging from Nan’s own mouth, it sounded suspiciously like her mother’s voice. Maybe not the timbre exactly, but the patronizing tone for sure.

The only job she’d ever held was cashiering down at JJ Newberry and that was a lifetime ago. Even if she could find something that would pay her enough to scrape by, did CJ deserve a life of just scraping by? After everything she’d done to him, Nan didn’t think she’d be able to live with herself if she uprooted her son from the only home he’d ever known and dragged him into a life of poverty and uncertainty. And to be honest, something she generally didn’t like being with herself, she wasn’t sure she could. Even after nearly three years gone by, she was still afraid. Afraid of leaving. Afraid of living.

So there it was. If she wanted to have a life with CJ, she was stuck. Stuck here and stuck with her mother. Nan shook her head and sighed as she stubbed out her cigarette. Oh well, no sense wasting time wishing the sky wasn’t blue, her father would have said.

On her way out of the room, Nan grabbed her red flannel robe from the foot of the bed. Elsie had bought several new ones over the years, pleading with Nan repeatedly to throw away the one she held in her hand. Sure, it was a bit threadbare in places, but there were no holes in it, and so whether this act of defiance had underlying motives, there was no good reason she could think of to get rid of it. This was a concept her mother would
never
understand.

Walking down the hallway to the stairs, Nan barely glanced at the framed snapshots that lined the walls. She knew by heart the pictures of her and her brothers, and dozens of CJ, of course. There were a few of Elsie and Joe, and none of Nan’s father. Nan wasn’t sure if any of the latter still existed or not, but if they did, she hoped they had been packed away in some long forgotten far corner of the house. She hated to think that her mother might have destroyed them, but knowing Elsie the way she did, their destruction wasn’t entirely impossible.

Nan stopped half way down the stairs. Her mother stood alone in the living room watching the movers through a set of French doors. Sparsely yet sleekly furnished in modern art deco, the room was in the new part of the house, an addition Nan would always think of as new though it had been built eight years before. The stark white carpet and equally bright white walls that reached toward a soaring cathedral ceiling made Elsie look small in the space she occupied. But from where Nan stood, her mother’s exasperation was evident.

“Good morning mama,” Nan greeted coolly as she continued down the stairs. She hadn’t forgotten the sting of Elsie’s earlier barb about her sleeping in. It didn’t matter that her mother hadn’t seen her standing in the window. Somehow that made it worse.

“Look at them, would you?” Elsie said, indifferent to Nan’s sternness. “If they were any more primitive, their God damned knuckles would be dragging on the ground.”

Nan didn’t answer.

“They broke my crystal,” her mother pouted. “That set is irreplaceable. It belonged to Joe’s mother you know. When he finds out, he’s going to have somebody’s balls stuffed and mounted over the fireplace.”

Nan wrinkled her nose at her mother’s crassness. Elsie’s language had always been salty and marrying money hadn’t changed that much. Despite her mother’s prediction, Nan didn’t believe her stepfather was going to give two shits about a bunch of crystal, even if it had belonged to his mother. Joe Hamilton, a lawyer more interested in fees than justice, was a dollars and cents kind of guy. Undoubtedly, the glassware was well insured, and hell, Joe would probably rather have the cash.

“Look at the bright side,” Nan replied. “At least now you can justify buying that set you were looking at in Spiegel’s last week.”

Elsie spent hours each day perusing thick glossy catalogues, circling things she wanted with a fat red marker. Each week, often every few days, a delivery of boxes filled with these coveted items would be left on the front porch. Extraordinary wealth did not come without perks after all. Nan didn’t consider
herself
rich since it was Joe’s, and by extension her mother’s fortune, but she had to admit, she certainly benefitted from the circumstances.

“Hmm,” Elsie said, appearing to mull it over. She looked at Nan, her eyes narrowing.

“Are you feeling alright? You look terrible.”

“Thank you, mama,” Nan sighed.

“Don’t be flip with me, Nancy. You
know
what I mean. You’re pale.”

“I prefer to think of it as alabaster,” Nan retorted, tightening the belt of her robe.