We're the Closest We'll Ever Get

The bell rings and I grab my backpack noticing that my heart is suddenly not beating regularly. Something I cannot calculate is off, distressed, so I skip my plan of walking to town and decide to go straight home. I rush to the bus, relieved to find it still waiting, and sling my backpack onto the seat. As I walk up the street to my house, I notice the garage door is open. Mom is home from work, and sitting at the table with my sister, Caroline.

“Why did you come in that way?” mom asks.

“The garage door is open,” I respond.

“Oh. We have some news, Doina,” mom says. “Gram died today, her aid was by her side, and she went peacefully.” 

            “Oh, that is why the garage was open,” I nod to my mom and excuse myself to the bathroom.

The last moment she gasps, looking up at her aid, a woman who dedicates her days to sitting by her side, combing her hair, and assisting her in the bathroom. Gram smiles as freedom is near, an end to the numb apathy of her new life at our house, an end to her body now constantly in motion, an end to the burden that her failing body places on her seven grandchildren. The aid calls Mrs. Mary at work; the men arrive with a hearse, back into the garage, and load the frail frame of her body onto the stretcher. Her skin hangs loosely below where her bones once shaped her figure. Her breasts sag under her armpits, as her teeth chatter unknowingly to the bubbles in the cup by her sink.

 

I slide the bolt to the bathroom door across the door frame, and let the tears glide freely down my face. I run cold water from the tap and scoop it over my face, gaining composure before I reopen the door to find my mom and sister lingering in the hallway outside.

“Are you okay?” mom asks.

“Me, yeah, I am fine,” I reply. “What do you need me to do?”

 Mom and dad plan the wake and funeral so that we will only miss one day of school with the holiday weekend. I walk through the next day of school in a daze wondering if Gram is following me around. Mr. Sheehan must be an avid obituary reader because he is the only one to corner me.

 “Doina, come over here,” he calls me up to his desk. “Is that your grandmother I read about in the paper?” I know he must have picked up on her Irish maiden name; it is like a disease people have trying to connect with others of the same heritage, especially the Irish.

“Yes.” I reply, offering no elaboration.

“Were you close?” he responds, staring downward oddly as if trying to scoop my chin from the floor with his eyes.

“She lived with me” I reply. His eyes finally release me, and I slink back into my chair. “Were we close, Gram?” I wait patiently for a response, “Gram?”