Between Octobers

October 27th

October 27th

I was on a roll; eagerly charging into my future. Anxious for serious change. That meant getting rid of old stuff. Actually, I was taking the older, but still good furniture from the family room and swapping it out for the nice, lesser used furnishings in the formal living room. And then I was going to buy a new set of couches and end tables for the front of the house.

It seemed as good a day as any to start over. Besides, the Women and Children's Shelter downtown was in dire need of furnishings.

Caleb ran out the front door. I leapt from the back of the donation truck in time to catch hold of his shirt.   

"Gramma!" He pointed at the street.

At the end of the driveway, Maria was parking what I guessed was a borrowed pick-up. The chosen spot—directly in front of the donation truck—indicated she had no intention of staying. That was good news. I had hoped she'd send someone else to pick up the chair. I was in far too good a mood to fight with her.

"Good morning, Maria," I called, as she walked slowly up the drive with a subtle limp. "Are you alright?"

"I'm old."  

Stalking towards me, her arms opened wide. As her hands fell outside my peripheral vision, nerves welled in my stomach. I shifted to follow, wondering what might have set her off this time. But her hands weren't closed like I assumed. They were softly open. To my utter amazement, both of them were moving hesitantly, almost kindly, towards me. My posture remained unyielding as she drew close and hugged me for the first time in . . . For the very first time. 

At her best, Maria had only ever been politely indifferent. At worst, well, there was a reason I wanted to keep an eye on her hands. I managed to return the unexpected affection with an awkward pat of her shoulder.

Caleb grinned as Maria greeted him, patting his back and head. "Why don't you get your Abuelita some of the tea she likes?"

"The diet ones, right Gramma?" He asked, making sure she knew that he remembered she was diabetic.

She smiled down at him and nodded. He skipped merrily into the house as she continued talking, curiously kind. "You look good. Lily tells me you are seeing someone?" 

"He's inside." I left out the fact that he was sleeping off another loss. He really stunk at quarters.

"That's nice for you, then." Her accent was still prominent after all these years, probably because she spoke Spanish more often than English.

Noah was taking his time loading sofa cushions into the truck to keep an eye on our exchange. He hopped down from the truck bed and started toward us.

"Maria, what's going on? You're speaking to me, complimenting, and hugging?"

The creases around her lips stretched out smooth when she smiled, adding to my unease. "I'm sorry for the way I've treated you. I want to be with the children this weekend."

Noah kissed his grandmother's cheek in greeting and walked inside the house to get his dad's recliner. I had decided to get rid of it and Maria was the one who bought it for him, so it was only right that she got it back.

"Can I stay here with them? You can find someplace to go, right? You and Lily will go to see that fight together." She took my hand. The skin on hers felt paper thin.

There was a boxing match in Vegas that weekend. Lily had mentioned it a few times. She and I used to make a yearly trek up there, at Solomon's bidding, to watch whatever fight he wanted to see and do a little gambling. This season's match-up was a heavyweight bout. A highly anticipated re-match between two champs. I'd never be able to get tickets on such short notice.