said.
“Grandma?”
I touched the back of her head. Her white hair was so tenuous and brittle, but long and floating about her head in wild wisps, that it was like air that had calcified. As if shallow breaths had risen and stiffened in frayed strands around my grandmother’s head.
She lifted her face but didn’t open her eyes.
How, I thought, looking at her eyelids, could such thin lids keep the light out.
For a frightening second I thought she might have been looking at me through them.
“It’s me,” I said. “Grandma. It’s Mark.”
The eyelids sprang open.
She blinked away the milk—six, seven, eight times—and then she smiled.
I knew, looking at her, that anyone who didn’t know her would probably fail to register the smile as a smile. As pleasure. As joy . What they’d see instead was the wrecked body around the smile. The misery of her old age. The blindness.
But, if you knew her, you’d see that she was incredibly happy to see me.
A few months earlier, I’d taken Hilary Agnew to the prom. She’d been the one who asked me—shoved a piece of paper across the biology lab table that said, “Mark. Would you like to go to the prom with me? Hilary.”
I had no way of knowing for sure, but my feeling was that some friend of Hilary’s might have written that note. If Hilary had any friends. Or maybe an older sister, or her mother. When I saw her in the hall later, and said, trying to smile politely, “Sure, Hilary,” she’d only shrugged, bitten her quivering bottom lip, her eyebrows also trembling, as if she might cry, as if I’d agreed to attend her funeral.
But she’d worn an amazing dress.
There were layers and layers of satin involved in that dress, and, under the satin, there seemed to be lace. It was a pale purple, with straps that held it elaborately around her chest and neck, and then crisscrossed in a dizzying ladder down her bare back.
It would have been easy to see only that dress. The frivolous, girlish, ecstasy of that. But, if you looked closer, what you saw at the center of all that—Hilary—was still a small, depressed girl with mascara smeared under one of her eyes. She drooped in the dress beside me in her parents’ living room while her mother grimly took pictures. She dropped in the dress in my father’s car beside me.When we pulled up to the high school, I turned the keys off in the ignition and said, “Hilary? Is this what you want to do?”
She looked down at her elaborate lap.
After what seemed like a very long time, she shook her head, and a tear fell off her face, disappearing in the satin.
“Is there—anything wrong?” I asked.
So quietly I almost couldn’t hear her, she said, “No.”
Her mother was standing on the front porch when I brought Hilary home.
The expression on Mrs. Agnew’s face, even before she could have recognized who it was pulling into her long, winding drive, did not betray the slightest shred of surprise.
“Grandma. Want to go for a ride?”
Behind us, Eve L. parroted me in a nasty little voice, “ Grandma want to go for a ride?”
My grandmother slapped her knee with her curled and rigid hand, and said, “Yes, I, do.”
I took the tray off her chair and put it on the floor, and pushed my grandmother past Eve L. into the hallway and down the long, whimpering corridor to the front door, and then out into the bright sunshine.
The nurses and aides at the front desk did not seem to notice us leave, or, if they noticed, they apparently did not feel it was any of their concern.
My father’s car was the only one in the lot. I wheeled my grandmother to the passenger side, and opened it. I scooped her out (she was as light as a skeleton—a skeleton in a polyester dress) and set her down in the seat. When I leaned across her to buckle her belt, she giggled. I didn’t know what to do with the wheelchair, so I left it sitting empty in the parking lot. The sky was clear, and who would steal a wheelchair.
Anyway, at that time,
“Grandma?”
I touched the back of her head. Her white hair was so tenuous and brittle, but long and floating about her head in wild wisps, that it was like air that had calcified. As if shallow breaths had risen and stiffened in frayed strands around my grandmother’s head.
She lifted her face but didn’t open her eyes.
How, I thought, looking at her eyelids, could such thin lids keep the light out.
For a frightening second I thought she might have been looking at me through them.
“It’s me,” I said. “Grandma. It’s Mark.”
The eyelids sprang open.
She blinked away the milk—six, seven, eight times—and then she smiled.
I knew, looking at her, that anyone who didn’t know her would probably fail to register the smile as a smile. As pleasure. As joy . What they’d see instead was the wrecked body around the smile. The misery of her old age. The blindness.
But, if you knew her, you’d see that she was incredibly happy to see me.
A few months earlier, I’d taken Hilary Agnew to the prom. She’d been the one who asked me—shoved a piece of paper across the biology lab table that said, “Mark. Would you like to go to the prom with me? Hilary.”
I had no way of knowing for sure, but my feeling was that some friend of Hilary’s might have written that note. If Hilary had any friends. Or maybe an older sister, or her mother. When I saw her in the hall later, and said, trying to smile politely, “Sure, Hilary,” she’d only shrugged, bitten her quivering bottom lip, her eyebrows also trembling, as if she might cry, as if I’d agreed to attend her funeral.
But she’d worn an amazing dress.
There were layers and layers of satin involved in that dress, and, under the satin, there seemed to be lace. It was a pale purple, with straps that held it elaborately around her chest and neck, and then crisscrossed in a dizzying ladder down her bare back.
It would have been easy to see only that dress. The frivolous, girlish, ecstasy of that. But, if you looked closer, what you saw at the center of all that—Hilary—was still a small, depressed girl with mascara smeared under one of her eyes. She drooped in the dress beside me in her parents’ living room while her mother grimly took pictures. She dropped in the dress in my father’s car beside me.When we pulled up to the high school, I turned the keys off in the ignition and said, “Hilary? Is this what you want to do?”
She looked down at her elaborate lap.
After what seemed like a very long time, she shook her head, and a tear fell off her face, disappearing in the satin.
“Is there—anything wrong?” I asked.
So quietly I almost couldn’t hear her, she said, “No.”
Her mother was standing on the front porch when I brought Hilary home.
The expression on Mrs. Agnew’s face, even before she could have recognized who it was pulling into her long, winding drive, did not betray the slightest shred of surprise.
“Grandma. Want to go for a ride?”
Behind us, Eve L. parroted me in a nasty little voice, “ Grandma want to go for a ride?”
My grandmother slapped her knee with her curled and rigid hand, and said, “Yes, I, do.”
I took the tray off her chair and put it on the floor, and pushed my grandmother past Eve L. into the hallway and down the long, whimpering corridor to the front door, and then out into the bright sunshine.
The nurses and aides at the front desk did not seem to notice us leave, or, if they noticed, they apparently did not feel it was any of their concern.
My father’s car was the only one in the lot. I wheeled my grandmother to the passenger side, and opened it. I scooped her out (she was as light as a skeleton—a skeleton in a polyester dress) and set her down in the seat. When I leaned across her to buckle her belt, she giggled. I didn’t know what to do with the wheelchair, so I left it sitting empty in the parking lot. The sky was clear, and who would steal a wheelchair.
Anyway, at that time,
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