by Alison Ryan
“Addie, you don’t remember me? I guess that’s understandable. Last time I saw you we both had most of our baby teeth,” she sauntered over taking the swing next to me, “I’m McKenna.”
Of course! McKenna Holt. The Holts had been my grandma’s neighbors since I was six, about a year before Mom took me away. McKenna had been one of those girls who every little girl in school stared at in wonder. She always wore the prettiest clothes, had the perfect French braids, raised her hand and always had the correct answer. People like McKenna never went through awkward phases. Even right now she looked perfect. Not a hair out of place. Her overalls, meant to be casual, were adorable on her flawless figure. She had boobs and a tan. Why did it not shock me life had treated her so kindly?
“Actually, I’m surprised you remember me,” I said dragging my feet through the dirt. McKenna reminded me of the girls in Texas who had told me I dressed like trailer trash. I was a little guarded.
“How could I forget? Your grandma only talks about you every other five minutes,” she said as she slowly moved side to side next to me, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me too. Sorry if I don’t have much to say. I kind of just found out what’s going on.”
“Yeah?” McKenna stopped moving for a moment, “I guess that doesn’t surprise me. Your grandma kind of kept it from all of us for a while. My parents just told me about a week ago. I’m very sorry.”
“Thanks. I mean… You don’t need to be sorry. Aunt Shayla says it’s bad but this is the ‘90s, they’ve got so much advanced stuff to treat this kind of thing. She looks bad but she’s taking like two pounds of meds a day. I am sure they must be helping in some kind of way…” I trailed off feeling stupid.
“That’s true. Miracles happen all the time. My mom’s got the whole church praying for her. I think just about every church in town has her on the prayer list. If you believe in that kind of thing, it has to be comforting. Just the people thinking of her and all. So you never know. If anyone deserves to beat this, it’s your grandma.”
I nodded and we both swung again, side by side, in silence. It was awkward and I wanted to talk about pretty much any other subject but cancer or prayer. God had never been on my radar.
“Is your dad still a dentist?” I broke the silence.
McKenna nodded, “Yep. He’s expanded in the last couple of years. Has an office over in Lynchburg that he goes to twice a week.”
“And your mom?”
“Still stays at home. She’s been trying to write a romance novel the last couple of years.” McKenna looked at me like she had just said something she didn’t mean to say.
“Really? That’s actually pretty cool. Have you read it?”
McKenna looked relieved, “It’s just weird. No, I haven’t read it. The last thing a girl wants to see is her mom’s made up sex scenes on paper. Ugh.”
I laughed really hard at that. It was a great point. No kid wants to even think about the knowledge that their parents hold as far as sex goes. I already knew too much about my mom. I tried my best to think of her as an asexual being, which was hard most of the time being that she had been a stripper most of my life. Also, my mother’s main humor arsenal consisted of cheesy sexual innuendos that she had learned from her customers. It was enough to make me want to bleach my brain at times.
“Well,” I said, “At least she’s going for it. Maybe she’s the next Danielle Steele.”
“The thought has crossed her mind, believe me. I think she just doesn’t know what to do with herself now that I am in high school. She’s bored. Just like everyone else in the world.”
A light breeze hit us carrying the scent of freshly cut grass. It was a good moment. I suddenly remembered I was supposed to be getting the mail.
“Want to walk with me to the mail boxes?” I asked.
“For sure. I need to see if my new Seventeen has come anyway. My friend Rhiannon got hers two days ago.”
“Rhiannon? Like the song?”
“Yep. Her mom is like a super fan or something.”
“It’s a good song.”
“Rhiannon hates it.”
We started walking barefoot down my grandma’s long driveway. As a kid I had used her pedometer to see how long it was while piggy backing on Granddaddy’s back. “Half a mile,” he had said, “One fifty-secondth of a marathon. And you did it!”
“Do you have plans tonight?” McKenna hopped over a large root sticking out of the ground.
“I don’t think so. My mom is hungover so I’m guessing she’ll just play sick on the couch while Aunt Shayla cooks some fat riddled meal. I might need to help with Grandma.”
“Well, there’s a cookout at this guy Kyle Joel’s house,” she said, “Well. I say ‘this guy’ but he’s more than that. He’s kind of my current sort-of love interest of the moment. But I’m not sure he knows that yet. Anyway, Rhiannon will be there and a couple other people. I think you and her would get along really well. It might be fun to get on out for a couple hours, you know?”
It was hard to think of having any kind of fun. But being away from the house of doom and gloom didn’t sound so horrible. Being away from my mother sounded like a great idea, anyway. I suspected Grandma would go to bed early.
“If I’m not needed at home, for sure. I would like that. How long has Rhiannon lived here?”
McKenna hopped over another live oak root, “She moved here a couple of years after you left. She’s from a pretty big family. They live near Pritchett Road.” She looked at me knowingly.
“Oh, yeah. Kind of a rough area,” I replied. I remembered that much.
“Yeah. So it’s always good for her to get out. Her family is a little… different.”
“I can relate to that.”
We reached the boxes. Sure enough, McKenna had her Seventeen magazine.
“This makes my whole week! And Drew Barrymore is on the cover!” She jumped on my shoulders, hugging me, “And we’re going to a cookout! With boys! And beer! Well. Maybe beer. Depends on if Bode can convince his brother to get us some. But the night is full of possibilities! Can’t you feel it?”
I smiled at her excitement. It was nice to be around that kind of energy. It helped me forget, momentarily, what was really going on.
After I said goodbye to McKenna I walked back to the house. Music blared from an open window on the second floor. My mother was awake and listening to Kenny Loggins.
I marched upstairs. The shower was running yet the music was blaring on max volume from her empty bedroom. Defiantly, I walked over and switched off the boom box on her dresser drawers. The sudden silence rang in my ears.
“Hey! Shayla! What’s the deal?” I heard her yell over the running water.
I ignored her indignant plea and slammed my own bedroom door closed. It was ridiculous. Grandma was probably napping. And even if she wasn’t, who over the age of nineteen listened to music that loud? My mother lived her life as if she was the only one who existed in her space. This was the worst time to be so selfish.
About ten minutes later she stood in my doorway wrapped in a towel, her wet hair dripping on the floor.
“Do you mind?” I asked, “You’re getting my floor wet.”
“Have you lost your mind? What was that about?”
I couldn’t even look at her. I was seething.
“Mom,” I said in a hushed voice, “Are you aware your mother has cancer?”
Her expression darkened, “More aware than you know. How dare you challenge me? I’m your mother. I know you’re upset but-“
“Bullshit, Mom,” I said, “You had four days to tell me what we were driving to. You also went to a bar last night, slept in and are now playing music loud enough for Jesus himself to hear and your cancer stricken mother is trying to take a nap. So my question is completely reasonable. You are not acting like a daughter. Or a mother.”
The slap was so quick. She jumped across the room, her towel dropping to the floor and smacked me across my face. When I
turned back to look at her she stood stark naked, crying.
“You little bitch! Don’t you dare talk to me like that! Your mouth is the last thing I need. Remember your place! My momma would have jerked a knot in my tail if I ever spoke to her the way you speak to me. You best watch yourself.”
I stood up to her. I was taller, probably by at least two inches. For a moment she seemed to cower. She had never hit me before. Her parenting flaws were negligence and self-indulgence, not violence. The feel of her hand across my cheek still sat on my face.
“It’s too bad your mother couldn’t have been mine,” I said, “But here’s to hoping being a great mother doesn’t skip more than one generation.” With that I was out the door, down the stairs, and back into the woods of my own discontent. I thought I would feel better having told my mother my true thoughts. But instead I felt worse than I had ever felt in my life.
I climbed one of the low hanging branches of the live oaks between McKenna’s house and my grandma’s for an hour or so. Finally, as expected, my mother sauntered out of the house in a short little sundress and platform flip flops. One would never have guessed she had just been in a terrible fight with her daughter or that she had a mother dying of cancer. She practically had a skip in her step. She was off to the bar. Her long love affair with whiskey and jukeboxes would continue on. It was the one thing she did consistently.
As soon as I saw the LeBaron pull away I walked towards the back porch to see if Grandma was there.
She had fallen asleep in her lounge chair, tiny and frail. She looked like she could slip right through the plastic slats. On her chest was an open Flannery O’Connor book, the same one she read every summer.
As soon as my feet hit the steps, she stirred. Grandma had always been the lightest sleeper.
“Angel!” she exclaimed, her arms outstretched, “Am I dreaming or are you really here?”
I laughed, “Oh I’m here alright. I was wondering if you were up for some Rummy.”
Grandma nodded enthusiastically, the scarf around her head shifting. Tufts of stringy gray poked out. She adjusted it, embarrassed.
“I’ll grab the cards. Do you need anything?” I asked reaching for her hand. When she took it I was alarmed at the birdlike boniness. I felt like even holding her hand would break it.
“Lay with me. Snuggle me, like when you were small. I’ll read to you for a bit,” she scooted over and patted the space. Sadly, there was plenty of room for another person.
“Well, I can’t resist a good snuggle,” I admitted sliding in next to her. The sharpness of her hip joined my fleshier one. My grandma had always been a woman with meat to her, with substance and hardiness. She was something to be held onto.
But that afternoon, for the first time in my life, I held my grandma and listened to the words of her favorite author.
5
“I don’t need to know how to read.” I was five years old and I had started Kindergarten a couple of weeks prior. I was already struggling.
“Just because something is difficult doesn’t mean you aren’t expected to do it, Addison,” Grandma was scrubbing the pots from dinner. She was up to her chubby elbows in dingy suds.
“Grandma,” I said sweetly, climbing the step stool next to her so I could be closer to her face, “You can just do all my reading for me. You love to read. You’re good at it and I enjoy listening. So as long as I have you, I don’t need to learn! I don’t even need to go to school! I can stay home with you and help with chores. We can watch All My Children every day!” My grandma had started letting me watch her stories with her. I didn’t understand what was really happening but I thought Erica Kane was beautiful.
Grandma stopped scrubbing, “Well, what if I’m not around one day? What would you do then? Reading is very important. You want to be an actress, right?”
I shook my head, “Not anymore. I want to be a dentist. Like McKenna’s daddy. He gets to help people learn to brush! And I bet he gets a lot of free toothbrushes. And Granddaddy says dentists make a killing. So I could buy a house right next door to you with a hot tub and a big Cadillac out front. And dentists don’t have to read, Grandma. All they do is clean teeth and ask you how your family is doing even though I can never answer because he’s brushing my teeth.”
Grandma chuckled, “You are something, angel. Well, first off, dentists definitely have to know how to read. They have to read charts and X-rays and all kinds of things. They have to be able to read the labels of their supplies so they know who needs what. They also go to school for a very long time to learn how to be a dentist which I imagine requires quite a bit of reading. So if your heart is set on dentistry I am afraid reading is still a must.”
I immediately burst into tears.
“Angel! Addison! What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Grandma gathered me into her soapy arms. Her feathered hairdo brushed against me, the tears causing it to stick to my cheeks.
“Grandma, I’m too dumb to learn. The letters all look mixed up to me on the page. I don’t see what other people see. My teacher calls on me to tell her the word and I get so scared because everyone is looking at me. Yesterday Granddaddy had to pour Pepto down my throat to get me out the door because my stomach hurt so badly. I want to learn things but I’m not smart enough, Grandma. I am not smart enough or good enough and that’s why my mommy and daddy left me. And now you’ll leave me. Because I can’t do any of it.”
I could almost hear my grandma’s heart stop beating underneath me.
“Addison,” her voice shook, “you are so wrong that it breaks my heart, sweet angel.”
I quietly sobbed under her chin as she rubbed my back in circles.
“There is absolutely nothing,” she said, her voice more assertive, “that you could ever do to make me leave. The thing that would make me do something like that doesn’t exist. You can never learn to read. Or count. Or be pretty. Or be funny. Or be sweet and kind. You could be and do none of those things and I would still love you and stick with you until the end of my life. Do you understand? Addison, you are the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. No one is leaving anyone in this house. And all those things I just listed? You are all of them and more. You will always be enough, Addison. You are so much more than enough that there isn’t a word for it.”
I hugged her tight, “Promise me, Grandma. Promise you’re here forever. That you’ll read to me even when I do finally learn. And love me when I don’t love myself.”
She nodded above me, “Oh that’s about the easiest thing to promise. And you’ve gotta promise me something too, angel. You’ve gotta know that sometimes even when things are true and unchangeable, they can always be something we can stomach. If we’re in it together. Whether that’s reading or missing your mommy. If we stick together, we can’t lose. Okay?”
“Okay.” I smiled, “If I know you’re not leaving I think I can handle anything.”
6
McKenna told me to meet up at her house around eight. I had spent an hour in my room going through my luggage deciding what to wear. I’d even gone through Mom’s stuff while she was downstairs watching a rerun of Cheers on the couch. We still hadn’t spoken.
I settled on jean shorts, a floral tank top, and Birkenstocks. The tank top and shorts I had recently bought from the Delia’s catalog. I looked in the mirror and shrugged. If Rhiannon was as beautiful as McKenna I was going to be the plainest girl at this get together.
It’s not that I thought I was ugly. I knew I was ok looking and half pretty on my best days. I had thick auburn hair like my mom and olive skin that was nothing like her at all. I assumed I got that from my father. I was thicker than I wanted to be, but what girl doesn’t want to lose a few pounds? None that I had ever met. My mom was constantly nagging on me to watch what I ate, another thing to add to the long checklist of things that bothered me about her. At the same time she was the one who always bought me cookies, candy bars, and soda when I was sad. She was both my enabler and my critic. That about defined our relat
ionship.
McKenna’s house is separated from Grandma’s by an acre of woods with a worn path snaking through it. It was still light out so it was an easy enough walk. The Holts have an enormous screened in wraparound porch and I could see the silhouette of a girl dancing under the haint blue ceiling that all southern porches seem to have. I also heard a sing songy laugh that I knew wasn’t McKenna’s.
“Rhiannon! It’s Addie!” I heard McKenna call out. She was the dancing silhouette. A tall, lanky red head stood up from the porch swing. This was Rhiannon. She was long in every way. Long legs, long arms, long torso, and long, beautiful red hair that was bone straight and hung down almost to her waist. She looked like a Delia’s model. The girl who wears boyish cargo pants but somehow makes them look sexy. What would she think of ordinary me?
“Hey, Addie,” Rhiannon immediately jumped forward and held out her hand. She had long thin fingers and bony wrists.
“Hi, Rhiannon. Good to meet you.” Her hand shake was sturdy. My granddaddy would have approved.
“McKenna told me you’re here for the summer. I’m really sorry about your grandma,” she said, her voice changing. “I don’t get to see my grandma much but I would be torn to pieces if she was ever sick. I don’t know what else to say besides I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok. I appreciate it,” I nodded, a little uncomfortable. “Is your mom going to drive us? I forgot to ask how we were getting there.”
McKenna spun around me and tousled my hair. “Nope! Rhiannon is going to drive us!”
I looked at Rhiannon, “You have your license?”
Rhiannon looked sheepishly down at her foam platform flip flops, “Not exactly.”
McKenna piped in. She was full of energy tonight. “She definitely doesn’t, but she drives us around all the time. The cops give her a pass, it’s a long story. But she has her brother’s Buick. Big Rhoda!”
“Big Rhoda?” I asked.
“That’s what I call her,” said Rhiannon. “I don’t drive her much. She’s a big boat of a car. I just drive her home when my dad can’t…” She trailed off.