Chapter 70
From the Evergreen Mobile Home Park one last time
7/10/1994
Dear Frida,
Mom and Dad just left to take Franny to SeaTac, but I wanted to stay a little longer. We came here for the weekend to finally pack up Bumpa’s trailer. A couple bought it including the furniture, but we had to get his personal stuff. I knew it was going to hurt, but I didn’t know how much all the little things would wipe me out. It’s so hard to believe he’s never going to make another pot in his Mr. Coffee. Or putter around with a broken radio again.
We played gin at his old Formica table our first night, and it felt wrong being there like that without him. He should have said, “Night Shortcake, night Punkin,” when Franny and I went to bed in the little side room like when we were kids. When I woke up in the middle of the night, I should have had to tiptoe in the kitchen because he used to make Mom and Dad take his bedroom and he slept on the couch. I wandered around the living room for a while trying to memorize everything. The big Magnavox we used to watch The Flintstones on. The brass sextant he let Franny and me play with like it was any old toy and not an antique. How can such a small space hold so many memories? It’s weird to think about new people making memories here.
When I got to the front window, I saw something move outside. Mom was sitting on the porch. The moonlight was bright, and she was staring at the lilac bush. It looked so plain without its purple flowers. I remembered how Bumpa told me she used to wake up in the middle of the night. I bet she looked almost the same then as she does now. She’s still so young, and it hit me while I watched her. For the rest of her life she’ll never have a dad again. I can’t imagine that.
All that time I spent agonizing about how hurt or guilty Bumpa’s stroke made me feel. Frida, I never asked Mom how it made her feel. I mean I know she was sad. Of course she was. Who wouldn’t be, and especially his daughter? But she didn’t talk about it. Not in the way I thought you were supposed to talk about it. I can’t believe I almost let Sven convince me that if someone wasn’t talking about life in a Big Serious Way, they weren’t thinking about it the right way or maybe even thinking about it at all. How limited is that? I mean, have I ever said a word to Mom about any of the things I write in my letters to you? Like how disorienting life is off the boat. Or the bees buzzing under my skin. As far as she knows, my mind’s a jolly fairyland filled with rainbows and kittens.
I felt so ashamed of myself. I went outside and knelt in front of her chair so I could hug her. I said, “I’m sorry your dad died.” She shook, and I held her tighter. I’ve never held her like that before. She’s the one who holds me when I cry. I could feel the ridge of bones down her spine. She felt fragile, and I thought about how brave you were writing that letter to your mom. Apologizing for making assumptions about her. I wanted to apologize to Mom like that, but my throat started filling with cement. Then I heard you, Frida. As clear as if you were standing right there. You told me to tell her what was in my heart, and you promised me everything would be okay. I said, “I’m sorry I never asked you how Bumpa’s stroke made you feel.”
She looked up at me. I sat back, and she wiped her tears with her sleeve. She said, “I suppose your dad and I didn’t do a great job teaching you girls how to do that.” That caught me by surprise, and before I could ask what she meant, she told me how while she was cleaning out Bumpa’s desk, she was thinking about things she wished she’d tried to talk to him about. Like when he went to Chicago. She told me when she was growing up, she was Bumpa’s whole world, but she didn’t realize it. She was only eighteen when she got married and twenty when she had me. She and Dad were starting their own life, doing their own thing. She said, “We didn’t know how to ask your Bumpa how he felt when I moved out. We didn’t know about depression back then. People didn’t talk about things like that. When he came back from Chicago, I didn’t know what to say to him.”
She brushed a strand of hair off my cheek. I remembered how she did the same thing for Bumpa in the nursing home. I thought about how she was touching me with the same fingers that helped him put the puzzle pieces in the right places. I had so many questions, but her eyes were puffy from crying. She looked completely drained. I asked if she wanted to go to bed. She shook her head and said, “I want to keep talking, kiddo.” I love it when she calls me kiddo. I went inside and brewed one more last pot in Bumpa’s old coffee maker, and when I came back out, she pulled another chair right up to hers. I tucked my feet up on her lap and said, “It sure is nice to be awake with someone else when the rest of the world is asleep.” She smiled and whispered, “Oh, Bumpa.”
We talked, Frida. About everything. Old Sven. The boat. Neil Diamond. We were still talking when the sun came up.
Love,
Kate