rivers_bend

With moving and everything that happened around that, I've not been able to write in what feels like months, even though it's more accurately weeks. I set myself an assignment out of one of my writing books. This is the result. Beta'd by skyblue_reverie but fiddled with a fair amount since, so any errors are all mine.

Coming to Grandma. 1079 words. General rated.


I wanted to take the words back as soon as I realized what I’d said. I didn’t even mean them and now it’s too late. Cheryl’s stubborn, like her mother, only she hasn’t had as many years as I have to learn that sometimes it’s more important to forgive than to be right. Cheryl’s father, James - a man of infinite patience who stayed married to me for thirty-six years - always said that. I didn’t really understand what he meant until after he died.

I should have said ‘Congratulations!’ or, ‘Darling, that’s wonderful.’ For some reason, I went back thirty years to a time when these things mattered, and said, ‘But you’re not married.’

‘No. We’re not.’ I didn’t notice in time that Cheryl had set her jaw and stiffened her shoulders.

‘Are you getting married before the baby’s born?’

She was suddenly standing up, reaching for her purse. ‘I thought you’d be excited. I’m sorry I was wrong.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, putting down my coffee and trying to stand, ‘I don’t know why I said that.’ And I didn’t. I know lots of couples who are spending their money on houses or vacations instead of weddings these days. The recliners in my apartment are new, with stiff mechanisms. By the time I got the leg-rest down, Cheryl was already at the front door.

I was never one of those mothers clamoring for grandchildren, jealous of my peers who had a screaming child to dandle on their knee. ‘The good thing about them is you can give them back,’ they always said. I just wondered, don’t they make you feel old? I guess that’s what it comes down to. The idea makes me feel old, and when I feel old I act old-fashioned.

There was only the receding click of Cheryl’s heels down the stairs to explain to.

Under normal circumstances, Glen and Cheryl’s phone rings seven times before the voicemail kicks in, Cheryl’s cell rings eight. I knew for sure Cheryl didn’t want to speak to me when her phone went to voicemail after three rings. I could see her mascara-spiked lashes dip as she glanced at the caller ID, and her perfectly shaped and painted nail stab at the decline button when she saw it was me. I said my piece after the robot lady prompted me with a beep.

It wasn’t enough.

Since I retired last June, Cheryl and I have met for lunch every Friday. There’s a Chinese restaurant next to her office. I go early to get a table and she meets me at 12:15, just as the rush is hitting its peak. She’d been ignoring my calls for five days, but that first Friday I still hoped she’d turn up as usual. In the end, I ate my hot and sour soup and sweet and sour chicken in solitude, quickly, so the people waiting could have my table. Her secretary said Cheryl was in a meeting when I called.

As November slipped into December, I started to want that grandbaby in my life more than I’ve wanted anything in a long time. All my calls went unanswered, my messages unreturned, and I started to worry that I’d alienated my daughter for good. Had I hit a nerve; was she longing to get married but Glen wouldn’t ask her? Had they planned a wedding that was ruined now because maternal curves don’t fit into Cheryl’s dream dress? For all the time we spend talking, when she’s speaking to me at least, there is so much my daughter doesn’t tell me. I know where her hairdresser went on her last vacation and who designed her shoes, but I don’t remember when I last asked if she’s happy.

The fifteenth of December came, the anniversary of the day we lost her dad. I was feeding the cat when the doorbell rang. Glen and Cheryl stood on the doorstep, coats buttoned tight against the cold.

‘Come in, please, come in.’ I couldn’t keep the begging out of my voice.

Glen tried to usher Cheryl in ahead of him, but she hung back, waiting for him to lead the way. ‘Mom,’ he said. Cheryl was quiet. I hugged the man I’d known for sixteen years, since he came over to study for a biology final with Cheryl when they were sophomores in high school. He’d never been anything but good to my daughter.

When Glen stepped back I waited for Cheryl to step forward, wary of crowding her. She’d unbuttoned her coat, and I noticed that it framed a stomach no longer a taut plain between her hipbones.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

Glen put a hand on the small of her back. She turned to him and the words were clear in her silence. This was your idea, don’t expect me to fall in line. Her dad must have seen that same expression on my face a thousand times.

I tried again. ‘I can’t wait to be a grandmother.’ My arms were stiff with wanting to hug her.

‘Cheryl, for the love of Mike, will you just hug the woman?’ Glen rarely raised his voice but he’d clearly had enough.

‘It’s ok, I don’t want her to if she doesn’t want to.’ I could feel my jaw setting in the same line as Cheryl’s.

‘See?’ she said, the first word I’d heard from her in over a month.

I heard James remind me to forgive and forget. I wondered if Glen had tried to tell Cheryl the same thing. No matter what he’d said to her, it was my job to do whatever needed to be done to make this right.

I grabbed her and kissed her cheek, holding her tight the way I used to when she was five years old and thought she was too grown up for a goodnight kiss. For a second it was like kissing a statue, then she hugged me back, arms tight enough to crack my ribs, cheek wet with tears against my neck. Over Cheryl’s shoulder I saw Glen go out to the kitchen. His smile said, my work here is done.

By the time he came back with the coffee, Cheryl was showing me pictures of her first ultrasound and telling me how it made her feel to see that little baby’s heart beating. I’m gonna be a grandma. And I don’t feel old. I feel like I’ve got a second chance to be a mother too.