SandScript 2020

“I can’t take it,” I said. “I’ll clean this
up in a bit. Friday or Saturday.”
“Me too.” Grandma went to her knees
and rolled to her side next to me on the
floor. “What’s so funny?”
“You should get a towel. With your
sloppy nightgown, you’re going to look like
a doughnut rolled in nuts and brown sugar
when you get up. A crunchy donut-stick.”
Grandma retrieved a towel and
spread it out next to me.
“Dog likes it.” Grandma started again.
“Came to me and licked my hand.”
“No, Grandma. Lilith came because
she loves you. Period. You took advantage.” I
wanted her to understand. “Some people do
things they don’t want to do for people they
love.”
Her manner, her body was engaged,
but Grandma’s eyes were unfocused,
tracking side to side.
My chest caved with pain. “Love
compromises. You end up like a dog,
vomiting on the floor,” I said more to myself
than her.
Grandma tensed, a spark of
understanding, a flash of shame? “The girl
did it, not me.”
“Oh, right, the other grandma.”
“It’s a little girl who’s bad.”
“Yeah, well, you tell that little girl to
knock it off. I’m serious. I’ve had enough
sweaters in the toilet, lace-less tennis shoes
in the refrigerator.” Fatigue that stops
crying and hysteria and laughing set in, and
I lay empty.
Grandma looked puzzled. Her head
turned back and forth like a newborn
listening for a voice, looking for a mother.
When she saw me, she smiled and said, “I
love you.”
I lifted onto my elbow and waited
until I had her attention. Her vacuous
marble blue eyes returned to the center as
she studied me. I’m sure she didn’t know me,
but she responded with a smile when I told
her I loved her too.
Grandma said, “Whenever I have a
good thought, you are there.”
Oblivion darkened the fleeting
moment.
We lay together on the rug at the
foot of the bed with our feet in the hallway
until the sun was on the other side of the
trailer. I watched the patterned wallpaper—
there were fairies, and disembodied eyes
peering through the rose and teal foliage—
and listened to the exertion of Grandma’s
breath. Living here had become a forever
time out.
Hearing her soft movements, I
turned on my shoulder to see what she was
doing. Intent as a scientist—did Madame
Curie have white hair matted in a sticky
braid? Grandma studied her index finger
and thumb. She pressed a dirty pearl of
shortening between them then released her
fingers slowly to test her resistance theory
from the viscosity of the grease.
“You like that?” I lifted a splotch
of the fully-hydrogenated fat from her
forearm and smeared the tip of her nose.
“Like Lilith?”
Grandma ignored me with a
scientist’s focus and calmly observed,
“Fucking Crisco.”
FICTION
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