Chapter 19
Macallan was at the kitchen table, separating the marshmallows in the Lucky Charms from the cereal, setting the colorful charms in a saucer. I encouraged this. I had a limited amount of time with my granddaughter. I wanted her to know, remember, that when she was with me, she could have whatever she wanted, any which way she intended. I had no aim of hiding it. When Lisa came back, Callie could obey established rules. With fond memories of my visit.
Di paraded into the kitchen. She wore Mary Jane pumps, navy pants, a white shirt, and red blazer as well as her signature headband. I wondered if her hair ever moved. Would it sway one bit in a windstorm? She said good morning to Callie and asked if I had boiled water for tea. “I drink coffee,” I said. Still, I filled the kettle. Di perched across from Callie, ignoring the kid, pecking at her phone, which was on speaker.
“Hello, Mrs. Peterson,” Di said, more cheerful than I’d ever heard her.
“Beautiful day. Bar none,” the woman said in a strong Bostonian accent.
“A great day to buy a new home. In fact, I’m reaching out because I can show the estate this afternoon. But I’m warning you that property is hot.” Di glanced at me. “Hotter than Florida in summer. You’ll need to offer above asking price, all cash. And forget about an inspection.”
“Higher than asking price?” Mrs. Peterson said.
“The real estate market is insane right now. You want it, overpay for it.”
“What happened to bargaining?”
“There are no bargains,” Di said. “Let’s meet at noon.”
The kettle whistled. I remained at the table with Callie. Di rose to prepare tea. She paced the kitchen, sipping every so often.
“What are you doing?” she asked Callie.
“Separating the marshmallows from the cereal.”
“Stop that right now,” Di said.
I perked up.
“It’s not bad enough you’re overfeeding her,” Di said to me. “Now you’re allowing her to play with her breakfast. That child will catch diabetes before you leave here.”
Catch? I advanced on the Lucky Charms, snatched a blue marshmallow. Slowly, deliberately, I popped it into my mouth.
Callie slung her heavy backpack over a shoulder. “Got to go,” she said, clearly blissful to escape. I didn’t blame her.
“Remember,” I said, “it’s a short day today. Then let’s go shop until we drop.”
“Great,” Callie said, punching the air.
“Are you going to Walmart?” Di chimed in. “Can you do me a favor? I need half a dozen bottles of an exceptional chardonnay.”
Later, at the store, a stout employee pushed over a cart and welcomed us to Walmart. We wheeled about until Callie pointed to some T-shirts on display: W ORLD ’ S B EST N ANA , G RANDEST G RANDMA OF A LL .
“You deserve one of these tops,” Callie said. “I’m telling Mom we should buy one for you.”
I disliked T-shirts with schmaltzy slogans, but in this case, I could make an exception.
Next to us, an elderly woman thumbed through sizes, chose the top in pink and a purple sweatshirt with a similar message. “I love best-grandma souvenirs,” she said to Callie.
“Then you must love your nana,” Callie responded.
“I buy these for myself. I wear them when my grandkids come over. To remind them.”
In the children’s department, Callie chose shirts, underwear, much-needed pajamas, a unicorn headband with a matching bracelet. We moved on to toys, where the Christmas specials were already hyped. Talk about rushing. My life was going fast enough. Please, Walmart, let me celebrate Halloween or swallow Thanksgiving dinner first. I told Callie to choose something she’d like. She browsed for a bit, mostly in the board games aisle, until a little way off, she saw bicycles. Unfortunately, when I told her to pick something, I meant a toy, not a means of transportation.
“What about this bicycle?” she said, pointing to a dark-purple model with white tires, larger than the one she currently had.
“No. A bicycle is more of a birthday or a Chanukah present.”
She made a face. “But, Grandma, my only Chanukah gifts come in the mail from you.”
“Your mom doesn’t give you presents?”
“On Christmas Eve, I leave gluten-free cookies and soy milk for Santa. I get what he leaves in my sock.”
I felt a pang in my heart. No Chanukah? No Chanukah at all for my only granddaughter. Not one gift. Not even a dreidel to spin? She received only what I sent from Amazon? I suddenly wondered, Did Lisa light a menorah ? Chanukah was celebrated by more Jewish people than any other holiday. Light candles, eat latkes , open presents. Easy stuff—unless you invited the whole extended family for a dinner of brisket and potato pancakes.
My phone rang. Jake.
“Bad news,” he said.
Oh, no. Not more. “What happened?” I asked, immediately conjuring worst-case scenarios.
“Aunt Eleanor passed away.”
Eleanor was the youngest sister of my husband’s late mother.
Tears crowded my eyes. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, Jake.”
“Do you realize Eleanor was the last living relative from our parents’ generation?”
He was right. Our parents were gone. Our aunts and uncles. Gone. I thought about them often, wondered what I was doing in a world without a generation of relatives I had adored. All the memories.
Sometimes I’d ask Jake, “Did your mom call?” forgetting she’d been gone for years. I’d ask if he spoke to his dad, Ivan, whom he had eventually reconciled with regarding the mattress business. I missed my parents the most. I had phoned my mother frequently. I missed those calls. I remembered that she liked to ask, “What are you wearing?” It was as though she wanted to imagine me, her only daughter, fully dressed for work.
“Jake—you know what I’m thinking about? The Chanukah party Aunt El threw every year. What? Fifty people—almost all family?”
“Her potato pancakes were hockey pucks,” Jake said.
“Why don’t you say that in the eulogy?”
He laughed, which meant I had cheered him up. “We’re the last line of defense now,” he said sadly. “Next ones to go. Sad but true.”
“Thanks for the death sentence.”
“Do you think they’re all up there together?” Jake said.
“Unlikely. Don’t you remember how a bunch of them had to be separated from each other when we planned the table seating for our wedding?”
“Jodi, I was starting to mend, then this news. I’m telling you; we must make the best of the time we have left.”
“I’m not looking at that house.”
I scanned the aisle for Callie. She stood coveting the purple bicycle with streamers on the handles. She placed a stuffed bear in the wicker basket. She honked the horn. She sat on the seat and pretended she was hauling herself up a steep hill. Realizing I could be the next person to die in my family, I said goodbye to Jake and said, “Callie, ride that bicycle. It’s your early, very early, Chanukah gift.”
“Thank you, thank you!” she said as she hugged me. “I will never forget this Chanukah!”
I pointed to helmets. “We don’t want you to hurt your kepalah .”
“My head, right?” she said as she tried one on.
“Your brilliant head.”
Before we checked out, we wheeled to the liquor section. I had no idea what Di considered an exceptional wine. I chose to ask a young woman nearby because she looked overdressed for shopping in a box store. In other words, her pants had a zipper.
When we returned, Di was negotiating with a competitor on the phone. After she hung up, I said I had her wine, checking the Walmart receipt for the price of the bottles. I rounded the cost down to the nearest dollar—and told her what she owed me.
“Oh, that wine isn’t for me. It’s for the whole house.”
So what? Was the house going to pay for it? I couldn’t bring myself to hassle with her. We were so obviously on different wavelengths—maybe different galaxies.
Di put her paws on two bottles of wine, and, when Annie entered the house with a friend, Di sprinted up the stairs to avoid interacting with her. Annie’s gangly friend wore pointy leopard ankle boots and a pretty calico prairie dress. I wondered why Annie hadn’t buzzed her for help first, before me, when Milton cheated. No difference now.
“I love your dress,” I said to the friend.
“Annie made it.”’
I was surprised to hear this. “You did? Amazing, Annie.”
“No biggie. I love to sew. It’s the one useful thing I learned from my mother. This year, on my birthday, I received a new sewing machine from Milton.”
I wondered whether she had kissed and made up with the philandering Milton.
“I made a button-down vest for him. He wears it when he plays piano at Bar None. I designed a dress for Mac. If you wanted, I could create one for you. Sewing is simple. Do you sew?”
“Let’s see. In seventh grade, I made baby doll pajamas in home economics.”
“Baby doll?” the friend said.
“You never see them anymore—a loose yoked top over a short bottom. I stitched the legs together—a career ender.”
Annie pointed to the chardonnay on the table. “Oh, awesome, wine.”
“In a bottle, not a box,” the friend said cheerfully.
“Do you mind if I take a bottle?” Annie asked.
I handed her a chardonnay. She passed it to the friend.
“Hey, it has a cork,” the friend said.
“Thanks for the wine, Jodi. You’re the best. I stopped by to tell you that before she left, Lisa mentioned she had asked you to chaperone the nature walk with Callie. Unnecessary. Stay home and veg. I’m on it. Glad to do the favor.”
Hard to believe I had to fight off both Di and Annie to take a school trip. Perhaps there was some misconception and they thought it was a cruise on the Mediterranean. “It’s okay, Annie. I’m going.”
“Oh, no. It’s way too much for you.”
She was right. I had no strength left from dealing with the battling bubbes . But I was the grandma on duty, Lisa had asked me to chaperone, and I would walk through nature with my granddaughter. Even if I had to call in the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize to negotiate it.
“I’ve got it, Annie.”
“It’s better if I go. I know all the mothers.”
“I can handle it,” I said, grinding my teeth, as Annie turned to leave. “Annie, how’s Milton?”
“Great. Isn’t love grand? We patched everything up.”