Chapter Seven
The Prius turned a sharp corner down the long, oyster-paved road to the Pine House. As Jack carefully drove down the bumpy road, Ophelia could see parts of her grandmother’s faded white house by the light of the moon through the dense pines.
The house was two stories with a wrap-around porch that was screened in at the back and open in the front.
On the front porch sat four rocking chairs and a porch swing hanging by rusted chains.
Even in the dark, Ophelia could tell that the house was in desperate need of a new coat of paint and potentially a termite inspection, but it was still stately.
Ophelia soaked in the warm summer night and the smell of pine.
Jack grabbed her weekend bag and carried it to the front door while Ophelia rang the doorbell.
He appeared as if he didn’t know if he wanted to stay or leave without saying hello.
He started to step backward toward the porch stairs, and Ophelia shot him a glare that pointedly conveyed that he better stay to say hello to his only living grandmother.
Mawmaw’s nurse aide, Lucille, answered the door and showed them into the dimly lit living room, where Mawmaw sat in her recliner, tapping on an iPad.
Ophelia took note of the same dark wood furniture and cheerful cherub trinkets that decorated all flat surfaces.
The room smelled and felt old. The pieces in there belonged to another person and time, and the inevitable feeling of mortality and loss swept through Ophelia.
She wanted to run over to her Mawmaw on her recliner and throw herself on top of her and beg the universe to keep her there forever with her.
“Well, well, well. Aren’t you both a sight for sore eyes,” Mawmaw said as she set her iPad on the side table.
She was dressed in a pressed, cobalt linen tunic with soft cream pants, and her long gray hair was braided to the side.
She was once a tall woman, but age had shrunk her stature.
Ophelia noted Mawmaw’s new walker at the side of her chair, an accessory to old age that Ophelia was sure Mawmaw hated.
Mawmaw’s nose was a family heirloom Ophelia had inherited, long and stately, and her smile was magnetic, perfectly upturned and wide, making her rosy lips appear fuller.
It was a smile surrounded by happy lifelines that required one to instantly return it.
“Darling Ophelia, you look like a model,” she said as Ophelia bent over to give her a hug. “Not too skinny, though,” she said and smacked Ophelia’s bum.
She blushed and rolled her eyes. “I’ve missed you. How are you?”
“I’m keepin’ busy…A whole lotta stuff to keep track of out there.” She pointed to the iPad with her knobby fingers. “Jack, so nice of you to stop by.” But she said it in Southern, dripping with sarcasm. Mawmaw opened her frail arms, gesturing for a hug.
He uncomfortably embraced her but turned on his own version of Southern charm. “Of course, Mawmaw. Is that a new hairstyle? Makes you look years younger.”
Mawmaw’s hair was the same way she had worn it for as long as Ophelia could remember. She wondered when the two of them had turned so sour toward each other.
“Don’t be such a suck-up, Jacky-boy. It makes you look squirrellier than you already are,” she shot back. Jack gave Ophelia a look like he couldn’t believe Ophelia had shamed him into coming in here. Ophelia realized then that Delphine’s funeral must have been torture for him.
After a quick visit over sweet tea, Jack left, promising to pick Ophelia up on Sunday after lunch.
Ophelia settled into the guest room upstairs while Lucille helped Mawmaw get ready for bed.
The guest room used to be Ophelia’s mother’s old room, and it looked out to the thick pine forest in the backyard.
After an appropriate amount of time to let Mawmaw get settled, Ophelia walked down the hallway to the master bedroom and knocked on the cracked door of her grandmother’s room.
“Can I come in?” she said, peering into the room lit by a bedside lamp.
“Come on in, hun.” Mawmaw patted the side of the bed. “Sit.”
“So when are you going to tell me about all this Traiteur stuff?” Ophelia asked impatiently.
“Well, tomorrow, of course. We can’t possibly discuss this now when I’m half asleep.”
“Fine, fine.” Ophelia sheepishly grinned and nodded as a million questions bubbled to the surface. “Why me, though? Why not my mother, Aunt Susan, or my sisters? And why now?”
Mawmaw nodded tiredly as if expecting these questions.
“It’s just a feeling I have about you, my Ophelia.
I’ve always been drawn to your feisty spirit and yours to mine.
You have my name, after all. And why now?
Well, this old bat is tired, and it’s time to pass the gift on.
” Mawmaw looked at her with pride, hope, and a sliver of bittersweet sadness.
“We’ll talk all about it tomorrow, I promise.
For now, though, I gotta get some rest.” Mawmaw patted Ophelia’s hand and kissed her on the cheek.
“Thank you, Mawmaw, for asking me. I love you. Sleep well.”
Ophelia left the room with her stomach growling uncomfortably.
She needed the keys to her Mawmaw’s car if she wanted to eat at all.
Her grandmother was no longer allowed to drive, so Ophelia asked Lucille, who was packing up to leave, where the car keys were hidden.
Ophelia chuckled when Lucille told her they were under the hallway bathroom sink behind a tampon box, another unused item.
Her grandmother’s 1982 beige Lincoln smelled of stale gasoline and leather.
She maneuvered the giant piece of metal toward the center of town, where she knew a pizza parlor would be open.
It was mediocre pizza, but that would do the trick.
As she walked into the restaurant, which was situated between a nail salon and a notary at the Sunshine Strip Center, Ophelia took in the pleather royal blue and red booths, the greasy burnt-orange tile floor, and the handful of patrons eating.
Sometimes, small towns like Oakdale made Ophelia depressed.
She wondered about the lives of the people who lived here. What did they do?
She stood in line at the counter to order and realized the woman in front of her, a box-dyed blonde lady dressed in a Kelly-green sundress, looked very familiar. Ophelia tapped her on the shoulder.
“Aunt Susan?”
“Oh, my goodness! Ophelia!” she screeched, wrapping Ophelia in her plump arms.
“Jack just dropped me off an hour ago. So funny running into you.”
“Oh my goodness. This is so embarrassing. I didn’t have time to cook today,” she said, shaking her bleached curls.
“I totally understand. I arrived past Mawmaw’s suppertime, so I’m fending for myself,” Ophelia said with a smile.
“By the way, how has Mawmaw been? Health-wise, I mean.” Aunt Susan was her caretaker when Lucille and the other nurses weren’t around, so she would know if anything was amiss, like Jack seemed to think.
“Can you believe it? She’ll be ninety in November.
She’s doing fine, darling. Spritely as ever.
Gotta watch that mouth of hers, though,” tsked Aunt Susan.
“She has the occasional cough that we have to keep an eye on to make sure it doesn’t turn into pneumonia, and her arthritis is just terrible, but that’s it, thank God. ”
Before Ophelia had a chance to press further, her aunt was summoned by the cashier for payment. After paying, she grabbed her giant box of pizza, kissed Ophelia on the cheek, and headed out in a hurry.
Ophelia couldn’t shake what Jack had said on the drive over.
Had Mawmaw really lost it? Had this whole Traiteur thing been an embarrassment for the family this entire time?
Something they all shook their heads at and chalked up to Mawmaw being a little crazy?
Her mother rarely spoke of her grandmother’s gift.
And why? Ophelia found it to be fascinating.
The whole family knew about it, but it wasn’t something that was brought up often. It just was.
If Mawmaw had really lost it, this trip would be very awkward for Ophelia.
She couldn’t enable her by going along with everything.
But these thoughts placed in her head by Jack just didn’t sit right.
She’d never doubted her grandmother’s abilities once.
Mawmaw had healed plenty of her scrapes as a child.
Her mother brought her to a regular doctor, of course, but she remembered times when her mother would ask Mawmaw to heal her headaches.
Jack’s story wasn’t matching up with her lived experiences.
She wondered if his more conservative beliefs made him more reticent to accept Mawmaw as a Traiteur.