“Excuse me,” Grandma said, not meaning to startle me. “How do you get to the street?”
She stood in the doorway halfway between the hallway and my room. Even if she did get outside, she would need the clicker to open the gate. But she’d forgotten.
“I need to find my mother,” Grandma said, sincerely.
“Your mother’s not here, Grandma,” I said.
“Where is she?” Her tone was of an agitated sort.
“Your mother’s no longer with us,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to say that her mother had been dead for a long time now, since I was a baby--I think. Vaguely I remember my own mother saying I met my great-grandmother--Mama King, everyone called her--once when I was a baby. But I didn’t remember her. From the stories I heard she had been an amazing cook and everyone loved her.
“Well--” Grandma paused, her mind conjuring up something that might better explain what she was thinking. She didn’t seem to know what to say or how to form the words. “--well, the woman who acts like my mother, where's she?
Lonnie was who I assumed she meant, the woman who comes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to help. She does more than help. She provides. And not just for my grandmother, my grandfather too; though the old man’s not so quick to admit it.
“Lonnie will be here tomorrow, Grandma.” Impatience lining my voice.
“Maybe she can help me get home.”
We’d been through this routine before.
She was silent, thinking. Where am I? Where is my mother? Is my name--?
“One-two-three-zero-five,” I said. The address of the house where she'd raised her children, and where she lived currently with my grandfather and me. I’d hoped these numbers would trigger something, even one faded memory. Sometimes it worked. Mostly it didn’t.
“One-two-three-zero-five, Lincoln Avenue,” I tried once more.
She didn’t seem to hear me--or she thought I was full of shit and flat-out ignored me. That wouldn’t have surprised me. She had a lot of spunk and an excellent sense of humor. My very own Sophia Petrillo. Right at home.
I hadn’t met my great-grandfather either. All I knew was he had come from a small village in Mexico. No one knew what village.
“Just you. And your husband and your children.”
“Well, they’re all grown now.”
“Mm-hm.” I turned back to my laptop, the screen too bright. My contacts were dry. I should take them out tonight, I thought. I turned the brightness down, and when I stopped clicking the keys, I heard a great and sorrowful whimper from the doorway.
Grandma. I hoped she was okay. Because she forgot frequently Grandma had to relive bad memories again and again. I turned again toward my grandmother in the doorway; and she was already turning away. and walked back toward the dining room.
As she moved she shuffled, her feet sliding against the hardwood floor. Sherp, sherp, sherp, sherp. I counted twelve seconds, and at last she'd turned one-hundred eighty degrees, and started back toward the dining room. I watched her: so cute in her big, clumsy slippers and matching spotted wildcat pajamas.
Her hands behind her back sagaciously the way some elderly Korean people do. Her back hunched, and she rocked as she shuffle-walked away. Ever. So. Slowly. Sherp, sherp, sherp, sherp, sherp, sniffel, sherp...
And she disappeared from my sight, behind the wall.
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