The End Of May

(3) Window

Up and down, up and down. The light of the dull sky reflecting in her once black eyes made them seem colourless, dead. If it were not for the constant moving of said organ, at last. Grandmother stood frozen in front of her house about to put out a cigarette. She was studying her apparent grandson intensely. Up and down, up and up and up and- oh. She was fainting.

I should have seen this coming sooner, should have realized it as soon as she stopped breathing. But I had not ever considered grandmother doing something as human as losing conscience. Too many surprises these days.

I watched mother run to her side and just barely being fast enough to soften her fall. Harry kneeled next to mother on the ground, but did not seem to know what to do. Percy stood next to me; in most out-of-the-order situations she tended to imitate my reactions. Smart girl. Sometimes, I mean.

Her daughter was caressing grandmothers wrinkly but soft cheek, while calling her name in a low voice. "Mimi, Mimi!" Not her real name, of course. I had never cared to ask why grandmothers children referred to her as "Mimi" instead of "Mama" as it was traditional in this region. It probably had an awfully sentimental reason.

"As if that will help." I announced while bowing down to pick up the cigarette butt, which lay discarded next to grandmother's pinkie. I stepped over her body, threw the fag into the ashtray and took the cigarette package sitting next to it. Mother turned her head only when she heard the click of a lighter being used. A sound she was very familiar with.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?!" Ignoring her I inhaled the smoke of the cigarette and went back to the body lying on the ground. Percy just stared at me in pure horror, I deciphered. It was the same expression she wore as an exactly three-year-old when she saw her biological father engage in coitus with a woman unknown to her. It was his secretary. Cliché.

While holding grandmother's wrist, I secretly took her pulse (nobody had to know) and blew the smoke directly in her face. Her colourless eyes instantly blinked back at mine.

"Give me the damn cigarette, young lady." Were her first words back online.

"When you stop being dramatic." I stood back up, perfectly straight. "Dramatic?" Asked Harry, whom I had completely disregarded. I took another drag. "She had been awake for almost a minute now, but basked in the attention. She would not have opened her eyes until she got a bit more attention."

I knew it could not have been something life endangering, her heart was beating 80 times per minute, which was a normal heart rate. Other than that I had noticed, her eyes were flattering a bit, which she did not do at first. I would have believed it, if someone told me she was faking the whole thing. She was the type for those kind of jokes. Her eyes were the sign, that she really had been unconscious. Even if it was not for long.

The windows to the soul, she had once told me. They always tell the truth.

"Hello to you too, ever-so-caring-Maeve." Grandmother grinned and held her hand out for the cigarette. I gave it to her.

Instead of being affronted by the revelation, the fake grandson reached his hand out for her, bowing a little down in the process. "May I help?" Polite. English.

Grandmother nodded. Slowly he pushed his hands under both her armpits and with mother's help she was on her own feet again.

Mother who I had been tuning out the whole time: "If you ever touch a cigarette again... blah."

"Let's go inside, shall we?" Grandmother was smiling, as if nothing had happened. She threw the half-finished cigarette on the icy ground, the tip instantly burning out.

*

"Thanks." Grandmother said when mother sat down her cup of coffee on the table. She did not even bother looking at her, too focused on Harry.