Grandma's Company

By Dotti Dahlia


Mia brought her cold white hand to her nose and pinched it shut before submerging herself in the river water. The water was unusually warm and her jet- black hair glistened silkily as she rose out of the water. Wearing a red and green plaid bathing suit the whiteness of her skin seemed exaggerated, like the white river stones sliding beneath her feet as she walked with the current. She stopped beneath a canopy of cottonwoods and smiled as a breeze rushed over her damp skin, she could feel autumn sneaking through the leaves, blowing the clouds across the sky.

Before arriving at Lake Merwin, Mia had spent five years caring for her grandmother without relief. Mia was the only one left in her family and found the loneliness surprisingly comforting. She was her only responsibility. And frankly, Mia was ready for some time alone, without the smells of Vicks Vapor Rub, chicken broth and sounds of mucous winning an arduous battle.

Floating on her back, Mia stared into the thick canopy above her; King Fishers ignored her as they dove head first for their dinner – their calls begging her to return to camp for her own dinner. She could smell camp from where she was, though she was considerably far away, having let the river and her thoughts carry her far. She could also hear her boom box, “69 Love Songs” by the Magnetic Fields was spinning over and over, stuck on repeat, bouncing off the trees and the boulders. Her grandmother hated her music, especially the Magnetic Fields. The last five years were a blur of Sinatra, Chopin and Paul Harvey – Mia was celebrating all of her senses tonight.

Marking her campsite, Mia swam to her baby blue beach towel and wrapped it close around her body. The temperature had dropped considerably within the gloaming hour. The fire needed stoking but the embers were ripe for cooking. After quickly throwing on her same-old faded black jeans and navy blue hoody with a hole in the armpit, Mia took out the turkey sausages she had purchased earlier that morning. The cast iron skillet was ready for cooking and the sausages browned the instant they hit its hot surface; dinner would be done in no time at all, the benefit of cooking for one.

Mia pulled a bottle of white wine from the cooler and poured some into her tin camp mug. Remembering she had shared the first half of the bottle with her grandmother on New Years, Mia quickly poured the contents of her mug onto the river sand. It was their bottle. She laughed as she murmured “One for my homie.” Slowly, a tear bulged at her lower lid, and her lower lip tugged itself into a pout. Mia breathed deeply and let the moment pass. She poured the last mug for herself and sipped it while her sausage simmered. It had gone off and tasted like their refrigerator and smelled like a Thanksgiving day sponge after all the dishes have been scrubbed. She drank it anyway, finding it bittersweet.

Dinner was exactly what she wanted. Hearty and warm – perfect after swimming. With the boombox still spinning, Mia brought out the James Agee novel her grandmother gave her for her last birthday. Finding her grandmother’s taste if not bad when it comes to literature but morbid to the most possible extent, Mia laughed at the realization of the title, A Death in the Family, which meant nothing at the time of her birthday, made an outpour of tears surface from what felt like the depths of her feet. It was the first time she had cried in years, and it was a remarkable release.

Her sobs were quickly interrupted however by the shuffling of two fat, gray field mice who found their way to the warmth of her fire. They were cute and friendly, running around the fire pit and over her exposed red-painted toenails in her sandals, looking for crumbs and investigating their new neighbor. Mia was glad to have their company.

The combination of tears, libations and swimming inspired Mia to ready herself for bed. After brushing her teeth and washing her face with cold water she zipped herself inside her tent and into her sleeping bag, then switched her tent lantern on for her regular bedtime reading. Agee quickly lulled her into a deep sleep where she dreamed of her grandmother.

We’re on a bus to the Saturday farmer’s market in Pioneer Square and grandmother, who always loved bubblegum, pulled out a fresh bag of Big Chew bubblegum and put it quickly in her mouth as though it were dip. Grandma continued to do this, never offering me any, until she had the entire bag of Big Chew in her mouth. Grandma couldn’t talk, in fact she couldn’t even blow a bubble her mouth had no room for air! She just sat there on the bus in her normal gray housedress and blue cardigan, little rivers of pink juice dribbling and gurgling out of the corners of her mouth as she chewed and chewed and chewed! And suddenly she looks at me over her glasses, the light from the bus windows making her eyes an ice blue and I knew she was about to laugh but couldn’t open her mouth to do so, so the tears of her contained laughter started streaming down her wrinkled cheeks!

Mia woke herself up laughing. She was laughing so hard she had to roll herself into fetal position to ease the pain in her sides. She laughed herself out of her tent and up a nearby hill where she watched the sunrise. The sky was the same hew of bubblegum pink and ice blue, celandine and violets rolled over the surrounding hills, preparing to open up to the sun. The Morning air nipped at her bare skin as she pulled the navy blue hood over her head; her freckled white face and ice blue eyes peering out onto the green expanse in front of her. Peace settled over her, all around her, and over the rest of her day as she drove back to their house to start her new life, to the blue house on Olive Street, with the yellow shutters, and lavender-lined sidewalk.