6 McKenna
McKenna
The smell of Hamburger Helper greets me as I step through the front door. My heart stutters when I find my grandmother in
the kitchen, standing at the stove where she’s jiggling a frying pan back and forth across a burner. It’s a motion I’ve seen
her do a thousand times before, but these days I worry about her in front of an open flame. She’s dressed in a gauzy floral
blouse and a pair of what she would call “smart” black trousers. And luckily, she seems to have everything under control.
“McKenna, finally,” she says when she sees me, a hint of exasperation in her voice as if I’m late. Her face is fully made-up,
with aggressive layers of rouge and eyeshadow. At age seventy-five she’s still slender and tall, and she looks good, ready
to head out for a night on the town. Minus the three rollers still set in her copper-colored hair.
I glance at the ancient wall clock above her head. It’s only four p.m., so I’m early, not late. Normally I don’t get back
until after five, but the club closed early for a wedding. I guess my schedule is just one more thing my grandma’s having
difficulty keeping straight lately.
“Hi, Glory.” I close the distance between us and lean in to kiss her cheek.
The rosewood and jasmine scents of her perfume are hard to miss.
It’s the same Nina Ricci perfume she’s worn for special occasions since I was a little girl.
“Do you have plans tonight?” I ask cautiously, picking up the spoon she rested on the counter.
“Oh, yes.” She looks up at the clock too. “I have to hurry.”
I snag a taste of the beef and tomato sauce simmering in the pan before she swats at my arm and says, “You’ll spoil your appetite.”
It’s the same thing she always says when I start snacking while she’s cooking, but now the normalcy of it feels heartbreaking.
Seeing her like her regular self only highlights how off her behavior’s been the last several months. Even so, if we’re both
acting normal now, I’m here for that, so I roll my eyes before handing her back the spoon. “You know my appetite is endless,
Glory. This morning’s practice burned through so many calories, I could eat an elephant and not feel full.” Still trying to
act casual, I ask, “So, um, where are you going tonight?”
“Ronald’s coming to get me in an hour, and I’ve got to finish my hair. I just wanted to leave dinner for you first.” She opens
a cabinet and takes out a painted casserole dish.
Ronald was her high school sweetheart, long before she met my grandpa, Fred. She’s told me stories over the years about how
her parents never liked Ronald, and she always wondered if they might have gone the distance under different circumstances.
How nice it would be if they actually got to explore that after all this time.
The only problem is that Ronald’s been dead for at least two decades.
“Oh, right,” I say as my mind races. The internet suggests that when an older person is confused like this, it can sometimes be kinder, and even more productive, to lie. “Therapeutic fibbing” is what they call it.
“I forgot to tell you,” I start cautiously. “Ronald left a message last night saying he needed to reschedule.” I’d like to
avoid watching her sit by the window in the front room all night, waiting for a car that will never show up. “But why don’t
you and I do something together instead? We can eat dinner on the deck and then play Scrabble.”
Glory looks at me in confusion, holding the wooden spoon up in midair.
“Reschedule?”
“He said he’d call you later in the week once he has a better sense of when he’s free.”
“Oh,” she says, the disappointment in her voice palpable. “If he can’t make it”—she looks at me feebly—“all right then.”
As I watch her walk back to her room to change out of her fancy clothes, I can’t deny what’s happening any longer. For at
least a year she’s been having these blips. It started with small things, like calling me by my mom’s name or forgetting to
take her blood pressure medication. When the mistakes got bigger, like the time she left the house in summer clothes on a
snowy December day, I told myself that it wasn’t a big deal, that all older people get senile. I made sure to visit her more
often last semester, helping however I could, keeping track of appointments or finding things for her around the house. I’d
been sure that if I kept at it, we’d get everything figured out while I was home over the summer.
Clearly, I was wrong. I’m ashamed that with all the nursing training I’ve had, I somehow let things drag on this way. I guess I just haven’t been able to face the idea of Glory changing, ceasing to be herself, not when she’s the only person left in my life who is truly mine.
I’m about to follow her into her bedroom when my phone buzzes. It’s Lark again. A bunch of the girls are watching Pitch Perfect tonight, and she wants me to join them. I don’t have the energy to be the upbeat team buddy she’s looking for though, and
I don’t want to leave Glory.
Heading to my room, I flop onto the floral comforter, kicking off my flip-flops and letting my eyes rove over the walls.
The room is still decorated the way I left it when I finished high school, with posters of Harry Styles and One Direction
taped to the walls. There are Polaroids of some high school friends on the corkboard above the desk, and a bigger picture
tacked to the center of the board showing Mom and me. My grandfather took the picture when I won Metropolitan Swimming’s big
meet for ten-and-unders. I’m in my wet swimsuit, goggles still on my head, and Mom’s got her arm around me as she gives the
camera her big toothy smile.
My eyes travel to the framed canvas next to the corkboard. It’s one of those motivational signs that’s printed with a meaningful
word like Friend or Sister and then filled with all sorts of positive affirmations. Mine says Nurse. Glory gave it to me as a graduation gift. She was so excited I’d finally be following my nursing dream when I started college
that fall. My attention catches on the first line, which reads, “A nurse focuses on the needs of others before their own.”
The words suddenly hit home in a new way, reminding me that this situation with Glory isn’t about me. I need to focus on her
needs first.
“McKenna?” Glory calls from her room. “Would you pull the carrots and cucumbers from the crisper? If we’ll both be here for dinner, we might as well get to work on a salad.”
I push myself off the bed and call out, “You got it, Morning Glory!”
Saturday mornings when I was a little kid, so young I hadn’t even started swimming yet, I’d wander out of bed to watch cartoons.
Glory would already be over at the house, sitting at the kitchen table while Mom worked pancakes on the stove. “Morning, Glory,”
I’d say. At some point, the name stuck.
That wasn’t long before Mom went into remission, the beginning of so many happy years before the cancer came back. I wonder
if Glory can remember any of that now. Maybe that shared experience is just one more piece of family I’ve lost to eternity.
Glory emerges from her room looking fresh and comfortable in a pair of tan chinos and a coral button-down she’s had forever.
“How were swim lessons today?” she asks, smiling as she walks past me to take a head of lettuce from the fridge. She seems
so lucid, so much like herself, but I need to accept that it’s only a matter of time before she loses her hold on reality
again. As I watch her move to the sink, where she starts rinsing the vegetables and gazing out the window the same way she
has so many times over the years, I force myself to acknowledge that dreaming a deceased man into existence and dressing up
to see him is hardly the worst that could happen to her if she doesn’t get proper care.
In a few months, I’ll be moving back to the dorms. If her delusions get worse, she’ll need round-the-clock attention.
I feel completely overwhelmed thinking about it, and so filled with anger about what’s being taken from us.
I’m overcome with an urge to smash something, anything that will give me an outlet for this pain.
I should start making calls in the morning, figuring out how to get her an aide who can move in when I head back to school.
I have no idea if we can afford that, but I don’t see another option.
My eyes catch on a couple of drinking glasses in the drying rack.
I want to grab them and throw them at the wall.
But that will only upset Glory and make another mess for me to clean up. I push the rage down, far away and back where it
belongs. Like the sign in my room says, I have to put Glory’s needs before my own. And I will, tomorrow. For now, I just want
to enjoy one more night with my grandmother, pretending everything is perfectly normal.