Grandmother Knows

Those were the sweet summers of our youth. My cousin always sheltered from the summer heat in the shaded home of our grandparents. Images flashing across the tiny screen of an old television expanded our world on hot, muggy days. Unfazed by the sounds of laughter as we wrestled, grandfather lazed in his big chair in the living room. We’d listen to him snore as the afternoon heat finally penetrated the defenses of the house’s thin walls. He often fell asleep with a lit wicker pipe dangling from his mouth, causing grandmother to awaken him.

“Jacob, you’re tryin’ to kill us, ain’t ya?”

“Myrtle, you worry too much. I ain’t burned down this house in all our years…”

“That’s right. ‘Cause I’m always here to wake you up.”

“Well, I admit I need ya as much as I ever did. Come here and give us a kiss.”

Sometimes Joyce and I would creep out into the hallway to watch them. Grandmother never gave him that kiss that we could see. We always thought it was because she knew we were watching. That was one thing you could count on. Grandmother knew everything.

She knew about the candy we snuck in under our loose tops. She knew how we’d fight over who was going to grow up and marry our favorite actor in whatever movie we were watching that day. She knew to fill our bellies with blueberry pancakes and sausage every morning. She knew we’d need plenty of lemonade for our evenings on the porch as we waited for twilight and the chance to chase lightning bugs.

That’s probably why none of us knew what to do when we found the one thing that grandmother didn’t know all about. It was another of those lazy summer days. Joyce and I had finally found a movie where each of us fell for a different character, so we hadn’t fought all day. Our conversation as we slipped lemonade mirrored the stillness of the growing dusk. Our excitement grew as it neared the time to collect lightning bugs. If we collected enough, we could tell stories by their glow before we fell asleep to the gentle sound of the wind in the trees outside the window.

It was as we slowly rose from the porch swing that we realized something was wrong. Somehow standing up made it easier to hear the voices we had only vaguely noticed as we lounged in the last rays of the sun. I looked at Joyce, unable to identify exactly what I was hearing. Her face assured me that she shared my confusion. As I opened my mouth to voice our question, she raised a finger to her lips and shook her head. She took a couple of slow, careful steps toward the open window, leaning in to listen. I followed her lead, leaning in until I could make out the words.

“…forty years?”

“I told you that I didn’t know, woman. I only just found out.”

“But we were married…”

“…a year later. It was one night with her. I’ve devoted my life to you.” Grandfather pleaded.

“I won’t forgive you for this. You know I can’t…” Tears softened my grandmother’s strong voice.

My mouth opened to form a slack oval. Joyce frowned as her brow furrowed. We raced off into the meadow, not to look for fireflies as we had planned but to get away from the sounds of discord echoing from the house. When we finally returned to the house, grandmother sat alone in the living room with her knitting across her lap. She didn’t look up as we tiptoed down the stairs. I know she heard us, but she didn’t want us to see her tears.

A few weeks later, my aunt Christina moved in with my grandparents. Born to a woman who knew grandfather before he met our grandmother, she favored him in appearance. We accepted her into the family, everyone but grandmother. She knew that this woman’s arrival would change our family. At first, Joyce and I thought she changed it for the better.

Aunt Chris knew how to have fun. She laughed and joked with us. She even included us in practical jokes on grandfather. We tried pranking our grandmother once, but rediscovered how much she knows when she chased us through the house with a broom before we got a chance to switch the powdered sugar for flour.

 While Aunt Chris brought a certain sense of carefree abandonment, her levity came at a price. As the summer drew to a close, her disposition changed. Lethargy overtook her. An aroma of stale alcohol accompanied her from room to room. She demanded quiet to sleep off her latest round of drinking. More and more, the television remained dark. Either Aunt Chris would stumble out to turn it off or curse at us until we did.

Grandmother’s anger flared up more often and fell on Joyce and I. Grandfather no longer took his naps on his favorite chair. Instead he sought the solitude of a small copse of trees behind the house. Distracted by her own concerns, grandmother stopped making fresh lemonade. Joyce mixed up the powder a few times, but we found it wanting and stopped trying.

One night, Aunt Chris’s snoring kept me awake, so I tiptoed down the stairs. I figured I could get a few hours of sleep on the couch. As my padded feet neared the lowest stairs, I became aware of the soft sound of hushed voices.

“I know that she is your daughter. That’s why she is staying.” Grandmother hissed.

“But I love having the girls here for the summer, Myrtle.”

“I won’t have them here with her any longer. I’ve already called their mothers.”

“It’s not like she’s going to turn them into alcoholics. Come on…” Grandfather reassured her in a hushed voice.

“I would hope not. My girls are smarter than that.”

As my grandmother defended us, my cheeks burned. A faint hint of whiskey still tinged my breath. Aunt Chris shared her libations with us on more than one occasion that summer. I gave in more often than my cousin. I guess I wasn’t as smart.

That’s just one more thing grandmother didn’t know.