Chapter 5 #2
I no longer feel the chair I sit on or the floor under my feet. But I’m not floating. Just the opposite. My limbs drag like sandbags.
Conversations might as well be happening from down the street.
Which is good. I don’t want to hear any more words.
The electric chug of my Singer. The whir of the bobbin winder. They call me in.
I can feel them hum in my skull. Rhythmic. Steady. Soothing.
“Mmm…Mmmm…Mmmm…Mmmm…”
I’m. So. Tired.
So tired, I commit the mortal sin of putting my elbows on the table and then my head in my hands.
After I cover my ears, the protests from my mother and grandmother are just smears of sound.
“Mmm…Mmmm…Mmmm…Mmmm…”
When we went to Pfeiffer Beach on our trip to California, we watched the waves hurl themselves onto shore, smashing against the great black outcrops.
The rocks just glistened, shedding diamond chip droplets, cupping little tidepools in their crags, their great hulking bodies unbothered by the ceaseless Pacific.
I had envied them their peace. Their strength. Their rest.
I want to rest like a timeless rock on the California shore, baking in the sun and unmoved by the frantic tides for forty million years.
A buzz tickles my thigh.
Beach rocks don’t have thighs, so I ignore it.
I am a craggy, metamorphic rock, rooted in the sea. Humpback whales have sung to me for millennia. I have watched stars in the night sky wink out like spent Edison bulbs. Pterodactyls are now ospreys who nest in my outcrops. My friend, the wind, rips away the shrieks of gulls.
Buzz.
Another tickle.
Hmm.
My back has baked in the sun for eons. Maybe it would feel good under bare feet. Maybe someone with a medley of golden hair and rare amber eyes. He could stretch out on my smoothest flanks and soak up the heat I’ve held for so long.
Drink me into him.
It would feel good.
I allow my head to tilt downward in my hands. Just enough for my face to wake my phone’s screen.
Beck: Hell, yes, it’s a real date.
Beck: Just not quite the caliber you deserve.
Do beach rocks shiver with thrills?
I want to be a rock.
But maybe I want to be the person Beck is texting, too.
Making the effort to reach for my phone is harder than it should be. I deserve a medal.
Me: HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO JUST BE A ROCK??
The flow of conversation around the table lets me know my family has moved on, essentially pretending I’m not here.
Which is both a gift and a punishment at the same time.
Beck: A rock? I don’t think so. I’ve wanted to be a dog before. Does that count?
Me: WHY A DOG??
Our food arrives before Beck responds, and it’s not favoritism. Empirically, the best looking thing on my plate is the Sweet Potato Mash.
I pick up my fork and am just about to spear my first buttery bite when Mom starts saying grace.
“Oh, sorry,” I mutter, setting the fork down. Maybe a little too loudly. Because Mom flinches while she’s praying.
I have no problem with gratitude. Gratitude is a good thing. Feeling it is healthy. Expressing it is healthy. But if there really is a God, I doubt saying actual grace at mealtimes is high on his agenda. Our gratitude isn’t for him. Or her. Or them.
When I feel gratitude, it’s for me. It’s my heart rate that slows. My blood vessels that dilate. My immune system that enjoys a boost.
And right now, I’d feel genuine gratitude if I could just dive into this sweet potato mash.
Across the table, Margaret meets my eyes, and she’s smiling her trademark, sympathetic, Margaret-to-Harriet smile. One that’s meant to console me. A kind of wincing smile that, honestly, does the opposite of consoling.
My teeth clench.
Finally, Mom wraps it up, opens her eyes, and beams at all of us. “Bon appetit.”
I plunge my fork into the buttery heap of sweet potatoes and shut my eyes around the bliss of my first bite.
“Mmmmm. Oh God—”
“Harriet—”
“Honey—”
Margaret giggles.
It’s only then that I open my eyes, realizing my head is thrown back like a woman in the throes of ecstasy.
I mean, I am in the throes of ecstasy. But over buttery sweet potato mash. Not… carnal pleasures.
Except my darting gaze confirms that the lunch crush at a popular restaurant is not the proper place for the kind of sounds I just made.
I duck my head, incinerating on the spot.
Grandma Eloise’s low voice vibrates with cold rage. “Perhaps we can make it through lunch without any more vulgarities?”
Mom’s fanning herself with a napkin. She must be having a hot flash. Margaret is silently laughing. I know because her shoulders are shaking, her eyes watering, but she’s not making any sound.
And Grandma Eloise looks like a stink bug just crawled into her mouth.
I nod and console myself with another bite. Only this time, I’m ready for the savory sweetness, the deep, earthy candy of the sweet potato mash.
Between bites, I check my phone.
Beck: The carefree happiness. Being loved just for one’s goofiness and loyalty. They way they can fall asleep in no time flat.
It takes me a second to pick up the thread of our conversation. Why Beck sometimes wants to be a dog.
I like his reasons. Especially the part about being loved just for one’s goofiness.
Me: GOOD CALL. BEING A ROCK IS STILL MY FIRST CHOICE, BUT A DOG IS A CLOSE SECOND. ALSO, YOUR SWEET POTATOES ARE THE BEST THINGS I’VE EVER HAD AT BON TEMPS.
Maybe one day I’ll tell him about my orgasmic reaction to them.
Or maybe not.
Beck: Good to hear! But, Hattie, why a rock?
I sigh, eat a brussels sprout, but it’s not as good as the sweet potatoes, so I go back to that. I glance around the table before reaching for my phone again. Between the tablecloth and my lap, I might be doing a good job of hiding the texting, but I honestly can’t believe Mom hasn’t noticed yet.
Me: THEY ARE UNASSAILABLE. THEY ARE NOT EXPECTED TO BE MORE THAN THEY ARE. AND THEY DON’T HAVE TO GO ANYWHERE.
I finish off the sweet potatoes and move onto the grits.
Hell, yeah.
I’ve never met a cheesy carb I didn’t like.
“Must she continue to bob her head like that?” Grandma Eloise hisses at Mom.
I go still.
Honestly, I didn’t realize I was stimming. The grits are just really good. And I’m eating them. Even though I can feel Mom and Grandma Eloise watching me take every bite.
Which might be why I’m stimming.
“Eloise, I don’t think—”
Must you continue to be a cranky old twat?
Grandma’s gasp rips across the table.
“Hattie!” Mom looks horror-stricken.
Margaret’s eyes bug.
“Oh, shit. I said that out loud.”
And judging by the looks the other tables are giving us, I said it at my usual volume which, I’ve been told my whole life, is not an inside voice.
“I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I attempt to whisper.
Grandma’s expression is pinched, her neck all blotchy. She turns to Mom, dropping her napkin on the table.
“You had better let Randall know about this before I do. Excuse me.” She pushes to her feet, her chin held high, and strides across the restaurant toward the restrooms.
Mom snaps her focus back to me, mouth still hanging open. She doesn’t just look surprised. She looks… wounded.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I—”
“Harriet, how could you say that to your grandmother?”
I blink, stunned for a moment. I already explained that I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“How? It just came out.”
To me, the question she should be asking is how come this hasn’t happened before? Because this is surely not the first time I’ve thought of Grandma Eloise as a cranky old twat. Not even the first hundred times.
And I honestly don’t know why I said it aloud this time.
“Inexcusable. When your grandmother returns, you need to apologize to her.” Mom’s nostrils are flaring. They only flare when she’s really upset.
“Apologize for saying it out loud?”
Mom’s brows leap. “No, Harriet. Apologize for insulting her.”
Blinking, I frown. “But… she insults me all the time. Which is why I think she’s a cranky old twat.” I say, shaking my head. “I can apologize for letting it slip out, but I think that’s as far as I can go with a genuine apology.”
Mom’s mouth is open, but no sound is coming out. She just shakes her head. “Harriet—I don’t think you understa—”
“Please, Mom. Of course, I understand. It’s rude to insult people.” I shake my own head. “I’m not disagreeing with that. But if I owe Grandma Eloise an apology, she owes me like 293.”
“B-but she’s your grandmother.” Mom’s frown is somewhere between distress and confusion.
And now I’m confused too. “I know that. And I’m her granddaughter,” I say simply.
“She has a point,” Margaret murmurs, now wearing a sly smile.
I don’t understand why this point even needs to be pointed out. And I don’t understand why Mom seems confused.
“Are you saying… that she doesn’t need to apologize for rudeness, but I do? Because she’s a grandmother?”
Mom fretfully readjusts herself in her chair like she badly needs to pee. “I’m saying her position in the family deserves respect.”
I blink. “More than mine.” It both is and isn’t a question.
Mom’s gaze falls to the tablecloth. She picks up the hem of the fabric and fiddles with it.
“W-well, I’m not saying you don’t deserve respect. But she’s your elder. She’s my elder so—”
“So she gets to be rude to me, say whatever she’s thinking, and never apologize, but when my thoughts slip out, I can’t just apologize for the slip?” I wrinkle my nose. “I have to apologize for the thoughts too?”
This makes no fucking sense.
But Mom is nodding, still not looking at me. “If you want there to be peace in the family, yes, I think an unqualified apology is needed.”
I say nothing for a minute, parsing out each of her words. She’s not talking about what is right. What is fair.
She’s saying the opposite. That what is unfair is what I am expected to do. That what I’m expected to do is to be unfair to myself.
For peace in the family.
But how can I have peace if I am being unfair to myself? And aren’t I part of the family?
“I don’t think that would work,” I say, shaking my head.
Mom looks genuinely surprised. “Why not?”