Millicent Glenn's Last Wish: A Novel

by Tori Whitaker

  “Oh, Mama,” I said, reaching for her elbow. The music resumed, and I spoke so that she could barely hear. “I can’t wait to have a house full of little elves, just like them.”

  Her face shifted. “Not all women have babies the way alley cats squirt out kittens.”

  My vision darted side to side. My sister-in-law Abbie was frowning at us from about a yard away. Had she heard? I hoped not.

  Mama had first used those words with me when I was a child, after I’d asked why I had no brothers or sisters. I’d wanted someone to play hide-and-seek with in the park or to curl up with under a tent made of blankets or to form a chorus of voices when my birthday song was sung. I wanted big birthday parties even if we had no candles on a cake at all. But there’d been an edge in Mama’s voice that bade me never to speak again of having siblings.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” I whispered. “I never meant to hurt your feelings.”

  I felt bad for her, but my life would be different. For one thing, my father had died too young. My handsome husband turned from a conversation with a friend and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek. Dennis and I would have the big, rowdy family of our dreams. And I would be the perfect mother.

  There was nothing to stop us.

  2015

  I climbed out of Jane’s white Taurus in front of Union Terminal. It was an art deco building with a great round clock on the front with red neon hands. The building awed me the same way it had in 1933. I’d been eight years old then and couldn’t fathom why the clock had twelve dashes where real numbers should be. Before that I’d watched men erect this limestone structure with its massive steel beams, and I’d thought it was shaped like a rainbow. Opa had taken me here the first week it opened. We never rode the trains. We’d come to watch the people, to see the murals inside for free. Today the terminal also housed Cincinnati’s multimuseum center, where my granddaughter was employed. This imposing place symbolized the passage of time in my life. Yet unlike me, this building got to go on reinventing itself, finding new purpose. It would remain standing long after I was buried.

  Kelsey’s job was not in the terminal’s children’s museum, which was filled with stations to learn and play. Nor was it in the museum where the bones of a dinosaur’s tail stretched above a man’s head. Kelsey was an archivist in the history library downstairs, and today she was getting off early.

  “Kelsey said we should meet her in front of the OMNIMAX Theater,” I said to Jane.

  “We’re early,” Jane said, shooting me a sideways glance. She hadn’t inherited my punctuality gene.

  We stood among grade-schoolers, on a field trip I presumed, in the center of the grand rotunda with its towering arched ceiling. I was about their age the first time I beheld the murals in this rotunda. “The panoramic murals are made of mosaic glass tiles,” a teacher was saying. “The one on the left shows the history of our country.” She pointed to the Native Americans. “And the murals to the right depict the past of Cincinnati,” she said. “See the river? The steamboats?”

  Opa’s face had wrinkled with anger when he’d told me how the city’s great brewing industry was nowhere in the scene; the German artist had begun the designs when Prohibition still reigned.

  When Kelsey arrived at our designated spot, she threw out her arms and said, “Hello, my two besties, my favorite women in the whole wide world.” She always dropped her professional persona the minute she saw me—and I relished being at least one of her besties. She wore some kind of poncho or cape that draped over her shoulders and hung open in front. Her glasses had large, round frames in the primary blue of a color wheel, although her vision was twenty-twenty. Her flowing plaid skirt, purple flats, and loose top bearing John Lennon’s face all spoke to how her mother had influenced her. Or it could be Kelsey’s bohemian style was the latest rage.

  Kelsey embraced me first. “You’ll turn some heads today, Grandma, you senior sexpot, you.”

  “Hi, sweetie,” I said, rolling my eyes in fun. All I wore was a pair of brown slacks and my gold cable-knit sweater—nothing with buttons or zippers or heels. I kissed Kelsey, leaving my trademark lipstick-print on her cheek. How I loved that girl. Imagine calling a thirty-eight-year-old married career woman a girl. But Kelsey would always be Grandma’s little girl, my munchkin doing cartwheels in the yard.

  “What about me?” Jane said, pretending to pout, and they hugged.

  Watching them together warmed my heart. But something also niggled at me. Something foolish. With Jane back home, I didn’t have Kelsey all to myself anymore.

  “Let’s do the whispering drinking fountains,” I said, “before going to the Rookwood for malts.”

  “We absolutely have to do the fountains,” Kelsey said as the students marched by, hand in hand in pairs. The buddy system.

  “Really?” That was Jane. “Aren’t we a bit too old for those?”

  “Mom,” Kelsey said. “I want to create some déjà vu.”

  I felt as if Kelsey had come to my rescue. My opa had taught me the trick of the terminal’s whispering drinking fountains. The first time Dennis and I had performed the same experiment with Jane, she was five. Then she and I had passed the tradition down to Kelsey when she was a kid. Given my age, who knew if this time could be my last? Surely Jane wouldn’t begrudge me that.

  “You take the one at that end, Mom.” Kelsey pointed Jane toward the drinking fountain in the far-right corner. My daughter didn’t look thrilled to be the one going solo, but this required us to split up. “I’ll text you when it’s time,” Kelsey said. “Grandma, you stick with me.”

  We headed to the fountain at the opposite end of the rotunda. We dodged more youngsters and passengers bound for the Amtrak rails until we were standing in line at the fountain. Jane was getting into position on the other side of one of the largest half domes in the world; this place spanned 180 feet. “That’s as long as eighteen boxcars lined end to end,” my opa had told me way back when.

  “I’ve been so excited for today,” Kelsey said, squeezing me with one arm.

  “Me too.” I hoped this day would go well.

  Only one person in line separated us from the drinking fountain. Kelsey texted Jane.

  We stepped up for our turn. “You first,” Kelsey said, looking at her cell. “Go.”

  I bent over the dark marble fountain as if I were going to crank the knob and sip from a flowing arch of water. Instead, I spoke into it in a normal tone of voice: “Jane? Jane? Can you hear me?”

  I listened carefully, the volume high on my hearing aids. I could feel my granddaughter breathing as she hovered over my shoulder to hear, too.

  “I’m here.” It was Jane’s voice coming through the fountains, a scientific trick of the dome. She sounded faint, like an echo or the voice of God. “Can you hear me?” she said.

  “We hear you,” Kelsey and I said in unison.

  “Has Kelsey told you yet, Mom?” Jane said.

  “Told me what?” I said back, confused and oblivious as to whether anyone was waiting in line behind us.

  Jane’s whisper of a voice came through again clearly: “I’m going to be a grandma.”

  I pulled back, covered my mouth, and looked at Kelsey, thinking I was hearing Jane wrong.

  “I’m going to have a baby, Grandma,” she said with a flicker of panic, probably noting the mix of excitement and bewilderment on my face. This was how I would learn she was pregnant?

  “I didn’t expect Mom to blurt it out,” Kelsey said, frowning. “I’d planned on telling you today myself. But she’s gonna be Nana. And you’re going to be Great-Grandmama.”

  My granddaughter’s face lit up more than when she’d finally grown tall enough to ride The Beast roller coaster at Kings Island. My joy for her trumped all my misgivings.

  We stepped aside, and I took hold of her arms. “That’s the most wonderful news,” I said. A knot formed in my throat. Kelsey was expecting after all these years. “I couldn’t be happier for you. You and Aaron both,” I said. />
  “I’m sixteen weeks along.” She rubbed her tummy.

  Four months along already? How could that be?

  My daughter jogged up before I could confirm. Sounding a little winded, she said, “Now you know. My grandchild is the main reason I moved back to Ohio. Kelsey’s been dying to tell you, but I insisted she wait. I wanted to see your face. Gotta say, it’s priceless.”

  No wonder Jane had retired so suddenly. Now it made sense. She was going to be a grandmother.

  But why had Kelsey waited this long to share her news with me? That, I could not believe. How had I missed all the signs? She looked the same. If my Kelsey was showing beneath all those layers of clothes, I couldn’t tell it. Jane wasn’t home a week, and already my relationship with my granddaughter was shifting. I had been first to hear when Aaron proposed to Kelsey, the first to learn when they purchased a condo. For the last thirteen years, since Kelsey got out of grad school, she and I had enjoyed outings a couple of times a month. Just us two. We’d go down to Mecklenburg’s for sauerbraten or to a tiny Italian trattoria. We’d see art at the Taft or sit out a rainstorm playing checkers or chess.

  I looked away to hide my reddening face. First, these two had kept to themselves Jane’s return home. And now this. Jane had made sure I was last to know Kelsey’s big news—and worse, she’d managed to tell it to me herself. Jane had struggled some over the years while away, knowing how close Kelsey and I were. Once my daughter had returned, I’d known our family dynamic would change. I just hadn’t foreseen it would be so abrupt.

  I sat across the square table from my daughter and granddaughter in Union Terminal’s Rookwood Ice Cream Parlor, glancing from one to the other as they spoke and used lots of hand gestures. Originally a tearoom, this place maintained its whimsical, locally made tiles in the Rookwood colors of mint green, pale gray, yellow, and pink. We sipped on chocolate malts from disposable cups with plastic lids.

  “Any morning sickness?” I asked. With Kelsey into her second trimester, it had probably passed. I still couldn’t get over how I’d missed her nausea or her fatigue, given how often we saw each other.

  “I’ve been pretty lucky,” Kelsey said. “Hardly any at all.”

  “You must take that from your great-grandma Glenn’s side of the family,” I said.

  “Did you have morning sickness when you were pregnant, Mom?” Jane asked.

  “This is Kelsey’s day to shine,” I said, still miffed that Jane had butted in with Kelsey’s news. “As you know, I’m four months behind on hearing all the details.”

  “Kels didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant,” Jane said in a snappish way, “until her first trimester was done. Including me.”

  Well, at least there was that. But I didn’t respond. Instead, I directed my next question to Kelsey. “Know what you’re having? Boy? Girl?”

  “Not yet. But we won’t be hosting a gender-reveal party.”

  I frowned. “What in the world is a gender-reveal party?”

  “It’s when friends gather to celebrate whether a couple’s having a boy or a girl. Could be they slice a big piece of cake, a cake baked with pink or blue batter. Some parties let guests smash plastic golf balls outside, and pink or blue powder sprays up in big clouds.” Kelsey threw her hands in the air. “Personally, I think it’s silly.”

  I shook my head in wonder. Kelsey might’ve thought a gender-reveal party crossed a line, but she’d created a spectacle or two herself. When she got engaged, Aaron popped the question at the Hauck Botanical Gardens—with a hired photographer and six friends coming out of the leaves to watch. Then there was the engagement party, and the bachelorettes “doing Nashville,” and the kitchen shower and lingerie shower and “couple’s shower.” I’d never seen so many gifts. There was the bridal brunch and wedding spa treatments and custom-labeled bottles of wine.

  Kelsey’s generation craved more, more, more. They’d never really lived without. I’d been ecstatic just to wear a real gown and marry Dennis Glenn in a candlelit parlor.

  “Everything has to be Instagram-worthy.” That was Jane. “Young people these days.”

  My daughter and I exchanged glances; we could be comrades on this point. We were capable of a moment of unity today after all. My spirits lifted.

  Kelsey went on about how much weight she was allowed to gain and how she and Aaron would turn their spare room into a nursery.

  “The first night Janie was in our house,” I said, “your papaw and I sat with the door cracked so the soft light of the hall filtered into the bedroom. We huddled over the cradle, watching her sleep for an hour.”

  Then I turned to Jane. “Your hair was thick as a baby goat’s. If I had died right there on that day, I would’ve died a fulfilled woman.”

  “Aww,” said Kelsey. “That’s the sweetest thing I ever heard.”

  “I’m pretty sure I cried,” Jane said, “and screamed and spat up and made messes of diapers.”

  “You were a perfect baby,” I said. I watched my daughter’s face register surprise. “Everything we’d wanted.”

  A sentimental wave flowed over me, washing away the petty, foolish jealousies of an old woman. Jane and I need not compete for Kelsey’s affection. The three of us were together.

  “Too bad I wasn’t perfect in your eyes when I grew up,” Jane said.

  That yanked me right out of my peace. Tears stung my eyes. I loved that girl every day of her life. I don’t know how I messed up by not letting her know it—and by letting the rifts between us drag on forever.

  Kelsey tried to redirect us. “There’s a chance Aaron and I will wait to be surprised with the baby’s gender. As women did in your day, Grandma.” She winked.

  I shifted my gaze to Jane, already thinking of her as a Nana, but her eyes didn’t meet mine. She was staring blankly out at the fanciful flowers and dragonfly tiles in the frieze.

  I turned back to Kelsey. “When it comes to finding out the gender, as long as you and your husband agree on whether or not to be surprised, that’s what’s important.”

  Kelsey lifted her brows. “Well, I don’t think that one will be an issue. We are still deciding, though, whether or not I’ll continue to work. It’s tough. I absolutely love what I do. And it’s not as if my income goes to waste,” she said.

  Again my granddaughter evoked memories of my husband and me—and now, too, my work in the early days and reflections on how Mama had raised me. There would be time enough to discuss all this with Kelsey.

  “Then there’s the midwife-versus-hospital debate we’re having,” she said, and I stiffened.

  The word hospital alone was enough to make me tense, but this was exacerbated by the fact that Kelsey and her husband were in disagreement. Spouses should be aligned on critical matters of family. Dennis and I had learned that the hard way.

  “What do you mean by debate?” I asked.

  Kelsey drummed her fingers on the table, stalling. “I suppose you guys will know sooner or later. I want to use a midwife. Actually, I want to give birth at home.” She made a face that mimicked “Eek.”

  “Oh my,” I said, before I’d thought better of it. Jane snapped out of her daze and faced me.

  I fiddled nervously with the napkins on the table. Were home births as safe as hospitals? Not that hospitals were always safe. I knew that as well as anyone. I had tried throughout today’s conversation to focus on Kelsey and her baby, and then I’d allowed myself to indulge in the joyous memories of bringing Janie home. But other memories were sealed inside of me, and I felt the lock on them cracking open.

  I looked up to find Jane out-and-out glaring at me. She hadn’t done that yet since her return. But I knew that glare. It warned, Don’t intrude here, Mother. Not with Kelsey.

  Jane’s look left me feeling duly scolded. Yet I had to protect my granddaughter.

  “What does Aaron think?” I said as nonchalantly as I could. It was hard, considering how my pulse spiked. “About a midwife at home versus the hospital.”

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nbsp; “Daddy-to-be thinks I should deliver where there are machines and intercoms and drugs and doctors in case of trouble. It’s the lawyer in him.”

  What if Aaron has a point? I thought but didn’t say.

  “This is my body, though, isn’t it?” Kelsey said.

  I shuddered. I’d said those very words myself . . . long, long ago.

  “Don’t even start,” Jane said, picking up on the swelling sense of my alarm. “In my day women were trained on how to have natural births in hospitals—Lamaze classes and all that. Though I guess I proved a hospital wasn’t necessary.”

  Jane had delivered Kelsey in a commune in the wilds of Arizona without a doctor—and without a husband. And she hadn’t had the courtesy to let her father and me know until Kelsey was three months old. She’d simply arrived from Arizona unannounced (much the way she’d landed in my drive days before now). It’d been the end of summer when Dennis heard a car door shut and we moseyed from the kitchen to our front door stoop, both of us in our early fifties. There was our Jane, looking more beautiful than we’d seen her the year before: she was twenty-seven and carrying a baby. The two were both bare-legged and barefooted, wearing flimsy sleeveless tops and shorts. No one spoke. As Jane neared us, we could smell the sun and the heat and the dust of the West, and we could smell baby. One look at that tiny round face told us she was ours. That baby belonged to our Jane. And Jane had said nothing about her existence till then. I remember how blood rushed through every vein I had, and how salty tears clouded my eyes and I had to wipe them away with the pads of my fingers to get a clearer look, and how I reached out my empty arms—my sad and empty arms—and that baby girl snuggled into me as if she already knew who I was.

  Regardless of the reasons why Jane had punished us—reasons I’d yet to decipher—she’d seen how we instantly loved Kelsey, and she never deprived us of her again. If only Jane and I had become closer in the process—truly close, that is. Not just close for outward appearances.