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The Grandmother; or, Arguments by Selective Observation

Micah White

    The grandmother decided to wear her Sunday best even though it was only Tuesday. She squeezed into a breezy and sleeveless yellow summer number and on tiptoes plucked a violet sun hat from the dusty top shelf of the closet. Around her neck she clasped a string of pearls that came to rest in a lustrous arc above the faded lace of the dress’s neckline. She examined her form in the mirror, smoothing and adjusting herself here and there, plucking unraveling threads in the airless room. Knowing the day would warm, she ignored the morning chill. The grandmother left the house happy, her eyes and silver curls shaded by the hat’s wide brim. Main Street, she thought, had never been brighter.
    The doctor couldn’t see her because she arrived before her appointment and he had other patients to look after. She thumbed through well-worn glossies until she was too shocked by immodesty to continue. Once in the doctor’s office, she sat patiently as he inspected her. The doctor was a gaunt man, as if born from an age of austerity and want, with a mantelshelf brow and a skeptical pout. The grandmother worried about him. She thought he was too concerned with life, too rapt with the consequence of skin and cells.
    “It appears to be gone,” he said, stretching and poking the skin of the grandmother’s upper arm. He leaned back on his stool and stroked his chin. “Odder things have happened, I guess. Let’s be cautiously optimistic for now.”
    “Didn’t I tell you, doc?” the grandmother asked. “Eczema one day, a sundress the next! Looks like my guardian angel dropped by just before the heat turns fierce.”
    “Well there’s still the issue of the cancer,” the doctor said.
    “Don’t you go pooh-poohing on my miracle, now!” the grandmother said, smiling and shaking her head and jabbing the air in front of the doctor’s chest. Her pearls sashayed and glinted under the brilliant light of the examination room.
    The doctor sighed and closed his eyes. At this signal, the grandmother snatched a lollipop from the front pocket of the doctor’s white coat, patted him on the shoulder, and headed for the exit.
    The grandmother observed the effects of summer as she pranced down Main Street. Shops advertised their icy offerings. Window units above the sidewalk cast moisture onto the heads of unsuspecting ramblers. On side streets children in colorful bathing suits dashed and leaped through the forceful jets of fire hydrants. As she walked she remembered the doctor’s concern but decided that the day was much too magnificent and wondrous to be bothered by such a petty and earthly affair. She’d think on that tomorrow, she decided, or perhaps on the following day.
    In front of the tailor’s shop, the grandmother stopped and peered through the glass. He sat with his back to her, hunched over his machine, his halo of white hair stark beneath the shop’s fluorescent lights. Two industrial fans framed the old man and his work. The grandmother tapped on the glass with her finger, wanting to show off her hat, the bow of which the tailor had just last week repaired. The old man worked on a garment the grandmother could not see. She tapped again, this time with her knuckle. She determined that the fans must be loud and went on her way.
    The cool of the bank brought relief from the day’s ballooning warmth. Being a weekday, the grandmother didn’t have to wait long. After some minutes, she heard her name and looked up to find the advisor beckoning her over. They made small talk—the weather, the shaky onset of the new composting program, the coming Innovation Fair—before settling on the day’s business.
    “It’s not looking good,” the advisor said. She kept her eyes focused on the open file in front of her. A recent émigré from the City, the advisor was young and lean with straight chestnut hair and a graduate degree and the knowledge that men other than her husband hoped to sleep with her.
    “Give it to me straight, now,” the grandmother said. She unsheathed the lollipop.
    “You have six months,” the advisor said. “That’s the best I could do. I’m sorry, but that’s it. I’d get you more if I could. Really I would. But this is it.”
    “My oh my,” the grandmother said.
    “You’ll need to be out by then I’m afraid,” the advisor said. “Completely out. All your personal items, too, if you want them. They’ll auction whatever you leave behind. But look. You don’t need to pay anymore, and you won’t owe a cent. We’re prepared to take the loss. You have family nearby? A place you can go?”
    “What’s that?” the grandmother asked. “You’re telling me I don’t have to pay? That I don’t owe anything at all? Is that what you’re telling me, dear?”
    “That’s right,” the advisor said as the grandmother started to smile and clap and laugh. “But listen, please. The date is firm. It’s been sold, but I’ve negotiated six months for you find a new arrangement.”
    “Well wouldn’t you know it!” the grandmother said. “Just this very last week I was asking the ladies at the First Baptist luncheon for their prayers because I’ve been in a tight spot since Martin passed, bless him, and well, you know, the money doesn’t last forever. And now you’re telling me I don’t need to pay at all?”
    The advisor looked at her in astonishment, taking her time in composing her response until she had no time left.
    “Just this very last week!” the grandmother said. “Wait until I tell the ladies.”
    She shuffled around the desk and hugged and kissed the advisor. In the still of the bank her cries of gratitude echoed. On her way out the grandmother sang:
    When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
    When sorrows like sea billows roll;
    Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
    It is well, it is well, with my soul.
    It is well, with my soul,
    It is well, with my soul,
    It is well, it is well, with my soul.
    Outside, heat punished the town. Hat in hand, the grandmother stood in front of the bank, dabbing the sweat from her brow and temples. She dried her glistening jowls and considered her options. Earlier in the day, before the sun had risen, she had planned on visiting her grandson, but she now wondered if the walk to the detention center was more than she could bear under such conditions. She retraced her route, taking shaded paths when she could.
    The grandmother trudged up the steps to her house. Once inside, she opened the windows and turned on as many fans as she could find. Her dress was heavy and damp, and she chose to cool off in her slip and brassiere. In the refrigerator she found lemonade and a piece of stale cake left over from last week’s luncheon. She served herself and sat on the couch, her weary legs steadied by an ottoman, her bare and swollen stomach cooled by the bottom of the glass of lemonade. She turned on the television.
    An off-screen host described the faraway scene in otherworldly terms and phrases—category 5, irreversible damage, millions displaced and fatalities rising, homes submerged at best and washed away at worst, poor luck for an already poor nation—and the grandmother watched as a windblown mother cried and screamed in a foreign tongue and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. The camera cut to a brown baby found still and face down in the mud.
    My oh my, she thought, what a world we have here.
    A breeze swept through the room. The grandmother decided that the cake tasted just as good as the day it was made.

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