Her (Episode 1/3)

grandma sylvie

IN THE MORNING, I'm disoriented and haywire from the dream. I'm tipsy with anxiety, feel it running through me like prickly currents of vibration. Everything seems topsy-turvy. The walls look strange, the furniture, too. I feel odd in my skin and out of my body. It is like I am not really me at all and I see myself as if watching a person in a film.

The woman stumbles out of bed, holding her hands to her head. She blinks blindly and rushes to the adjoined bathroom where she splashes her face with tap water. She looks into the mirror at her morphed-looking reflection. Squeezes her crusty eyes and opens them. They are bloodshot. She drowns them with synthetic tears from a tiny bottle shipped from Japan. A special brand of eye drops they don't make here in Canada. Ones that make her feel as though her eyes are cool cups of peppermint ice tea. Her vision manifests much clearer now. But she's still out of sorts.

She heads into the hallway which is gloomy, quiet, and stuffy with thick rugs. Slipping down the stairs, she wobbles and yawns. She feels her stomach churning and places a hand to her abdomen as she reaches the landing. There is too much going on inside her. She presses a hand against the centerpiece table where a vaguely familiar stranger stares at her out of a picture frame. She wants to scream.

Inside, she's like a bee's nest. She doesn't know why, but a rush of emotions, so tangled up together that she cannot distinguish them, grabs her up tightly - no air now - then releases her into a dark ocean of feelings. She drops to the floor, weightless, spineless, only wisps of hay-like hair on her scalp. Crumbles onto the burnished floorboards, small and frail. A woman in a child's body. She howls her pain. She howls in mourning, for things she does not know.

Someone flies down the stairs. It is her father. His worn face is as gray as his nightshirt. "Honey, are you okay? What happened? Want me to call the ambulance?"

"NO!" says the woman hotly. She screams and screams. He's now on the floor with her, holding her. Holding me. Daddy holds me. As he cradles me in his arms, I feel his love like a bulletproof fortress around me. I sob at length, but I'm back. I'm back. I'm back.

"I'm here," sobs Daddy. My head is at his chest and he strokes the ruined skin on my face. Daddy doesn't care. To Daddy I'll always be beautiful. His sunshine. "I'm here," he sobs some more.

I stop crying so I can be there for him. "I know, Daddy. I love you."

He shudders, releasing another tear. "Oh, I love you, honey. Everything will be okay. I'll make certain of it, if it's the last thing I do."

***

Grandma looks cold and beautiful. An ice queen. She's really the most tender-hearted person I know, though. Gently waving, snow-white hair falls to her shoulders, but she appears hard and unsmiling, a stone woman who is impervious to all the assaults of the world. Heartbreak, loss, anxiety, any struggles at all.

I try to divine her thoughts whilst looking at her, but can never pierce her calm, composed, intelligent demeanor. Everything she does amazes me. Even now as she pours salted potato chips into a bowl and then adds dribbles of vinegar, she amazes me. She makes the act of adding vinegar to chips seem cool. So cool that I have to try it when I get home. So cool that it's now my thing, too. I try some with her and we sit on the couch opposite a brick mantelpiece and widescreen TV, eating.

I rest my head against her shoulder as we watch a chick flick, giggling. She's one of the only people I feel safe around, safe enough to make physical contact and not be hyper aware of her presence. It's peaceful being around her. We watch old films of me giggling as a baby, of me running in the sunshine as a toddler, my hair as pale as sand. But, pulling away from her, I ask why every film is muted. I recall the ones I've seen of Mariah, Selena, and Franny. They all are filled with the rich noise of a life of joy once lived. I noted this sometime before, but now I find it even more peculiar—mines are always silent. "And why aren't I in any tapes with Mariah? She was there then."