by Laura Wiess
“So you’re not mad at me?” she said.
“No,” I said and laughed as she blurted, “Oh, yay!” and hugged me again.
That moment alone would have made the day perfect, but there were more, so many more…
Melanie, catching me before dinner, slipping a gift card into my hand and saying they’d won a drawing for a week’s free groceries but hoped I would take it and put it toward the ingredients for all those delicious Christmas cookies I baked every year.
The expression on Lon’s face when Wes offered him the chair at the head of the table, handed him the knife, and asked if he’d do the honor of carving the bird.
Hanna looking around, looking at me, and with a satisfied sigh, saying, Cool. Our whole family is here.
Wes asking if Saturday would be a good day for him to come and cut us some wood.
Hanna and I working side by side in the kitchen, her loading the dishwasher, me scraping the leftover turkey bits into a container to take back to the cats.
“So tell me about your boyfriend,” I said and grinned at her sudden blush. “Oh-ho, so you do have one, then, hmm? Come on, let’s hear it. I know: He’s an egghead named Waldo who collects bottle caps and wears itchy argyle socks, right? No? Then he’s one of those underfed goth boys who insists his name isn’t Harold but something intense like Storm-Ominous, with fake black hair and little porcelain fangs he puts in to creep out the cafeteria ladies.” I went on this way, making her laugh even as she protested that no, she didn’t have a boyfriend, but okay, okay, there was someone she was mad at right now but she still might like and he might like her, too, but he was already going out with someone.
This dilemma, according to her, would be resolved with time because he went out with a lot of different girls, seeing as how he was hurt bad by the first girl he ever loved and now he never wanted to love anyone again, so basically all she had to do was hang in there and sooner or later she would get her chance to show him how perfect they’d be together.
I asked her why she thought they’d be perfect together and she stopped, gave this look, part puzzled, mostly irritated, and said, Because I just know we would, leaving me certain he was a raging fool who didn’t deserve her but unable to say it because the happily ever after she was targeting was so far beyond anything I could give her.
And it was during dessert, while Melanie was serving the coffee and I was handing out huge slabs of pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream, that Hanna sat up straight and said, “Hey, Gran, I know! Tell the story about how you and Grandpa met.” She glanced at her mother. “Do you know it, Mom? Oh my God, it’s so romantic.”
I stared at her, stricken, and Lon went still, and the silence stretched and gradually the anticipation on Hanna’s face turned to bewilderment and then embarrassment and she said, “What?” and I didn’t know how to answer because no matter how frantically I searched my brain, I couldn’t remember what I’d told her, what fairy tale I’d made up years ago because the truth was too raw to put into words, and finally Lon cleared his throat and, looking paler than normal, forced a weak smile and said, “Helen’s busy serving the pie. Why don’t you tell it, Hanna?”
“No, that’s okay, forget it,” Hanna said, staring down at the table. “It’s not important.” She pushed her plate away. “I’m done. ’Scuse me.” She slid out of her chair and hurried from the room, pounding up the stairs and shutting her bedroom door behind her.
“Ah, the joys of a moody teenager,” Melanie said after a moment, and her awkward laugh hung in the huge silence. “Last week I humiliated her by telling Sammi she’d gone to bed early. It seems I should have said something cooler.” She shrugged. “She’ll get over it, Helen. No harm done.”
And I smiled and nodded, forced myself to hand Lon the slice of pie I’d been holding and swallow a few choking bites of my own, to make stilted small talk as if everything was fine while listening for the sound of a door that didn’t open and a footfall on the stair that didn’t come.
We left soon after that, with Melanie calling up to tell Hanna we were leaving and Hanna shouting back in a monotone, “Bye, Gran, bye, Grandpa. Happy Thanksgiving,” without even sticking her head out of her room.
“Helen, what the hell did you tell her?” Lon said as soon as we were shut safely in the car. “You didn’t tell her the truth—”
“No,” I said, clenching my hands in my lap to try and still their shaking.
“Jesus Christ,” he said on an exhale. “Then what did you say?”
“I don’t remember,” I said and burst into tears.
Chapter 7
Hanna
Wow.
I think Gran’s losing it.
It’s the only possible answer. How else could you ever forget the way you and your true love met?
No wonder she looked so freaked. I’d be freaked, too, if someday my granddaughter asked me how Grandpa Seth and I met, and I couldn’t even remember. And no wonder Grandpa Lon scolded me. I bet he was embarrassed for her.
Now I feel kind of bad.
I should have just told the story myself. It would have been perfect for today, with Gran being seventeen and going to that Thanksgiving dance at the church, and Grandpa being twenty-two and driving through town on his way somewhere else, getting a flat tire, and going into the dance to see if anyone had a jack, taking one look at her dancing to Moonlight Serenade in her red taffeta dress with the wide neckline, and falling head over heels in love. Asking her to dance—they did a thing back then called cutting in, where if you were dancing with one guy and someone else wanted to dance with you, all he had to do was tap on your partner’s shoulder and say, “May I cut in?” and if the guy you were dancing with was a gentleman, he had to let him.
I think that’s cool.
So Grandpa cut in and Gran said he was breathtaking, a handsome stranger with snowflakes melting in his hair and a strong, steady grip that felt like he was never going to let her go.
When their dance was over, he said, “I have some things to do but I’ll be back to see you home, so don’t leave without me.” And she said, “You don’t even know my name,” and he said, “I don’t know what it is now, but next year I’m hoping it will be Mrs. Lon Schoenmaker.”
Oh my God, that’s so romantic.
I wish there was some way to let Seth hear that story.
Maybe he would get the hint.
Right.
Chapter 8
Helen
There was a message from Hanna on the answering machine when we got home, saying she was sorry for putting me on the spot and that I shouldn’t worry if I didn’t remember how I met Grandpa because she’s pretty sure that memory loss happens to a lot of old people—
“Good Lord,” I said, hitting the pause button and staring at Lon, aghast. “She thinks I’m going senile!”
He stared back at me, lips twitching.
“No! I am not going to let that girl think I’m a doddering ancient who has to write her address in her underwear just so she can find her way home again,” I said, tossing my purse onto the chair and struggling out of my coat.
Lon reached past me and hit play on the machine.
“—and it’s totally natural, so I’m sorry I got all weird and I’ll see you guys soon,” Hanna said cheerfully and hung up.
I stood a moment, then reached up and yanked the clip-on earring from my dented, aching lobes. My hands were still shaking and the gold buttons rattled in my cupped palm. “Will you feed the cats for me, please? I’m going to bed.”
“It’s only seven thirty,” he said.
“Well, I’ve been up since five and I’m exhausted,” I said, pausing for a second to lean against him as I made my way past. My knees were trembling, my legs felt leaden, and I didn’t know how I was going to make it all the way upstairs.
“She didn’t mean anything by it,” he said, sliding his arm around me. “She was just looking for an answer to something she didn’t understand and that’s what she came up with
. Don’t take it to heart.”
“I won’t,” I said and, gripping the banister, crept up step by step, listening to the sounds of Lon going into the kitchen, putting away the food Melanie had sent home with us, and finally opening the back door and calling the cats into the porch to eat.
But I did take it to heart, to the deepest core of my heart while lying awake for hours watching my foot twitch under the cover and being unable to stop it.
I thought of the research I’d done and of the possible causes of this palsy.
None were very promising.
Most were terrifying.
Then I thought that since no one but Lon knows the real reason behind my refusal to go see a doctor you, Hanna, will someday be forced to make up a reason, to decide my reluctance was sheer pigheadedness or cheapness or, God forbid, that insulting catchall senility.
It made me angry and then sad because I’d always believed I’d have time to clear up the lies I’d told you, that someday when you were grown and married with a little one of your own we would sit on the porch in the afternoon sunlight, watching as your baby played with my newest batch of stray kittens, and you would understand when I explained why I’d buried the truth and woven you so many happily ever afters, because you had a daughter of your own now and would do anything to protect her.
You would understand my need to preserve your faith in me, to live up to that shine in your eyes that said I was your hero, and to fight the fierce sickness that filled my heart at the thought of ever letting you down.
You would understand me then, Hanna, and you would forgive me, oh God, I hoped you would, and your love wouldn’t lessen at hearing my terrible truths but remain as steady and strong as it was when you were little and you knew that Grandma Helen would rather die than ever let anything or anyone hurt you.
I thought we would have that time together, but now I see how badly I’d wanted to believe in fairy tales, too.
Chapter 9
Hanna
Black Friday and I definitely earned my salary today.
There was a long line of people who wanted their pets’ picture taken with Santa, mostly dog owners who never stopped cooing, “Sit down, Tiara, and stop that bad-girl barking or Mommy is going to take you right home!” or guys doing just the opposite, jerking their dogs’ choke collars and bellowing, “Knock it off!”
I felt bad for the dogs and worse for the cats in the carriers, hauled out and handed to a fat guy in a fuzzy suit while all around them dogs were going crazy.
What a mess.
Today is the first day of deer season.
The shooting is sporadic from dawn to dusk every day until the season pauses for Christmas, and then starts up again just in case there’s still anything left alive in the woods.
I’m being sarcastic because this is not my favorite time of year.
My mother doesn’t like it, either, and gets up at like 5 a.m. in the dark, lays out the fluorescent pink knit hats we’re supposed to wear from now on whenever we go outside just so no one mistakes us for deer and shoots us because, yes, it does happen.
I wore mine at breakfast and cracked her up.
My father says the hats are not pink; they’re Day-Glo orange, but just to tweak him, every time we see someone wearing one we say, Oh, what a cute little pink hat!
My father says someday our smart mouths are going to get him punched in the nose.
Our property is posted NO HUNTING and so is Gran’s, because we believe everything needs at least one place in the world where it can rest and be safe.
There’s nothing we can do about the guy who built the cabin next door, though. He shows up in his business suit late every Friday, changes into full-blown camo, and plays weekend warrior, building a blind to hide behind and putting out acorn blocks and other bait to keep the hungry deer around so he doesn’t actually have to get off his butt and work up a sweat trying to kill them. He doesn’t eat them, either. Just saws off the bucks’ heads for trophies and leaves the does there to rot.
Gran and I found one of the carcasses once when we were out walking her property line during an early spring thaw. The doe’s corpse was horrible—sunken, gnawed, and rotten—and heartbreaking, since it looked like she had been trying to get back to the safety of Gran’s woods and just couldn’t run fast enough.
She hates this guy for a lot of reasons but mostly because when the does are killed it means the fawns lose their mothers after having them for only maybe six months and are left to fend for themselves through winter, the harshest season.
She gets all freaked when she says it; her chin gets really firm, and she adds in a big voice (even though no one is arguing with her), “And since rut usually occurs before the season opens, the does they’re killing are pregnant. How do you gut a pregnant doe, for God’s sake?”
This is when my father and Grandpa turn green, mumble a lame excuse, and sidle out of the room so as not to attract any Amazonian woman outrage.
Sometimes before they leave, Grandpa will wink at me, then tiptoe over to Gran pretending like he’s scared of her and either swoop down and give her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek or pinch her butt, which drives her crazy, and then, laughing, hurry out of the room.
It’s really cute and always makes Gran blush.
I hope me and Seth are that cute someday.
It started snowing today. Me and Sammi were out in the courtyard along with half the student body and Seth came over to us. He smiled, reached out, fluffed the snowflakes from my hair, and said, “You look like a snow bunny with big chocolate cupcake eyes.”
While I stood there hopelessly melting, he added, “Merry Christmas if I don’t see you again before the end of the day,” and ambled away.
Oh, God.
Maybe I should just go back down to Crystal’s and let karate guy throw me around a little more. I know it would hurt less than this.
Chapter 10
Hanna
Christmas was small but good.
Gran cried when I gave her the five cases of cat food, then cried harder when we gave her the giant bags of cracked corn and the extra veterinary gift card my parents had bought before my father was laid off.
She got even more emotional when she gave us our gifts, a homemade cookbook of all her favorite recipes for my mom, a batch of homemade peanut butter fudge for my father, and an excellent pair of fat white crocheted mittens and a scarf for me.
“What?” I said, crouching in front of her and taking her trembling hands when she started crying. “I love them, they’re perfect, I swear. What?”
“I wanted to do so much more,” she said finally, gripping my hands hard.
“Oh, stop, come here,” I said, rising and giving her a hug because now I was starting to get all teary, and if I went, I knew my mother would, too, and then we’d all have a very soggy Christmas.
After we ate I went up and changed into the hot new black angora sweater dress Crystal left for me under our tree (I gave her the same dress in red) and my new pair of high-heeled black boots and headed down to her house.
When I got there she had her dress on, too, so we took pictures and were being so loud that her parents and her brother down in the family room yelled back, wanting to know what was up, so of course we planned an entrance, with her going downstairs first and me following her down the four carpeted stairs to her family room.
Except that when I stood at the top of the carpeted stairs, my boot sole slid over the edge of the step, my knees buckled, and I skied down on my shins, landing at the bottom in a humiliated heap.
Her mother ran to help me up, but Crystal, her brother, and her father were laughing so hard they were crying, and her mother kept trying not to laugh, but these moist giggles kept bursting out of her until finally she gave in and fell back against the wall, roaring.
Once I saw I was okay, I stood up, smoothed the dress, and started laughing, too. Crystal’s mom hugged me and I had just stopped dying of mortification when somebody knocked and C
rystal staggered over to let them in.
It was karate guy, who walked into the foyer without noticing me, shrugged off his leather jacket, and slung it over the coatrack. Shaking out his hair, he took one step into the room, spotted me, and went still.
I really liked that reaction.
“Whoa,” he said as a slow smile crept across his face. “So this is where Santa left my present.”
“Merry Christmas,” I said. “You missed a great show. I just fell down the stairs.”
But it was like he hadn’t even heard me. “Damn, woman.” He gave me a thorough up-and-down and shook his head. “Are you sure you’re only fifteen?”
“Fifteen and a half,” I said, laughing. “Want to teach me how to flip somebody again?”
His gaze met mine. “I’m pretty sure you already know.”
And that flustered me because he was still smiling but his eyes were all dark and velvety and serious, and the room was hot and my knees were starting to sting from their downhill run, and the rest of me was tingling, and everyone was watching and—
“Another one bites the dust,” Crystal’s father said and snorted. “Keep it in your pants, Jesse. She’s jailbait.”
“Dad!” Crystal said, whacking the back of his head. “Don’t be disgusting.”
“What’s disgusting about that?” he said, surprised. “I was young once, too, you know.”
“Mom, will you make him stop?” Crystal said. “He’s grossing me out.”
“Come on, handsome,” Crystal’s mom said, prodding her husband to his feet. “Let’s go into the kitchen and you can talk dirty to me while I spice the cider.”
They left, the guys left for a party, and I followed Crystal back upstairs, where I found out that karate guy’s full name was Jesse Yennet and his mom had been our fifth-grade art teacher.
