The Truth About Luck: What I Learned on My Road Trip with Grandma

by Iain Reid

  I hand one menu to Grandma. We’ve reversed our roles from lunch. Since I’ve been to this restaurant and Grandma hasn’t, I’m helping her make a decision. I don’t often eat at restaurants, but this is one of the busiest in Kingston. They specialize in gourmet pizza but have an inclusive menu of chicken, fish, salads, even wild boar.

  “We could always just split a couple of things, that could be good.”

  “Yes, of course,” she says.

  “They have good pizza here. Could you eat some pizza?”

  “Of course.” She puts down her menu. “Whatever you think.”

  “Okay, and what about sharing an appetizer to go with it?”

  “Of course.”

  “These sound good.” I reach over and retrieve her menu, planting my index finger next to the blackened chicken spring rolls with feta. Grandma squints at the selection. It’s not just noisy in here but dark, too. The candles on the tables are the main source of light. I read the description to her.

  “Yup, sounds good,” she says. “I absolutely love feta.”

  After we place our order, I sip my wine. Grandma does the same with her ice water. I’m aware that people are intrigued by us, almost goggling. Grandma is also au courant with their looks. “It’s my white hair.” She winks. “They’re all surprised to see me out so late.”

  Grandma and I have been together for about eight or nine hours. We’ve shared two meals. We’ve drunk some coffee, some sherry, and some wine. Nothing disastrous has happened. We still have four more days of this trip to endure. I have no idea what else we can do. What else can we do?

  Seriously. Showing a ninety-two-year-old a good time, or a mediocre time, or just a time, is going to be harder than I thought. I fear an imminent lack of interest, of fun. Just a few days ago I called a friend to see if he had any ideas for me, tips on how to inject some carefree mirth into the trip. He reminded me that I wasn’t really the fun or adventurous one in our group. He didn’t really think that was my nature. He thought it best for me to be myself. When pushed for which one in the group I was, he used the word egghead and asked what the opposite of an adrenaline junkie was. I wonder if I can offer Grandma a sherry first thing tomorrow morning?

  Since picking her up today, I’ve been thinking more about my own earlier life. It’s a reaction I wasn’t anticipating. Her reminiscences have made me introspective, more even than usual. I’ve been in Kingston, this small town, and living in my apartment for a couple of years now. I don’t spend much time reminiscing or chatting or telling old stories or sharing memories of earlier years. I mostly work from home. I don’t know many people in Kingston. I’m often alone. I imagine Grandma’s life at the same age was much different.

  It’s raining now. It must have just started, but puddles are starting to form. Grandma is nibbling her first bite of pizza contentedly. She eats like a bird, with tiny, careful bites. She nods to show she likes it. I take a bite and look out the window again. Even though it wasn’t forecast and I didn’t want to admit it, I knew it was coming. Everything about today had rain written all over it.

  TUESDAY

  8:14 a.m.

  IT’S HARD TO wake up. It’s always a challenge for me to shake the fog of sleep. Today is especially onerous. I’m lying on my side in a makeshift fetal position, using one pillow between my knees as the filling of a leg sandwich. A second pillow has fallen to the floor somewhere (my left arm is substituting unsuccessfully for it). I’m squinting at the wall, listening to the alarm’s abhorrent beeping. I don’t always set an alarm. I make my own work hours. Sometimes I work late at night. My typical morning commute is the several feet over to my desk.

  But I’m currently responsible for a ninety-two-year-old. This week is an alarm week.

  It’s stayed so pleasantly dark in my room this morning; cave-like, in a good way. It’s how I prefer it. What normally feels too small and cramped during the day is currently a snuggery. I left my window open, only an inch. It’s filled my room with a tepid briskness only available in this part of early spring. And it’s acting as a natural sedative. With the help of a sheet and blanket, we (the room and I) have hit the optimal sleeping conditions.

  I roll over and reach to switch off the alarm, and then fall onto my back with my arms and legs spread. There’s more, higher-pitched beeping. Somewhere in the world, a large truck is reversing. People have started their day. People are eating breakfast and taking their kids to school. People are interacting. People are working and contributing to society. People are driving trucks in reverse. I should get up.

  I swing my legs out and scratch the back of my head. I stand and stretch, pushing my fists into my lower spine. Without my quilt I feel cold. I feel naked. I see my reflection in the mirror to my left. I am naked.

  The room has suddenly swapped its Spring Freshness for Fucking Coldness. I collapse inward like a folding lawn chair, bringing my arms into my core. My first job is to locate my robe and my shorts. I do so triumphantly, and grab some socks off the floor, and sit down at my desk.

  I scribbled a few notes last night describing some stories Grandma told me. She was in a reminiscent mood throughout supper and dessert. I hadn’t heard them before, and although spotty, they were captivating. I find it easy to forget how long she’s actually lived. I tried to get more details from her, but those are the areas that seem to have crumbled first. Like a Victorian stone wall, it’s the in-between fastening material, the concrete that starts to fragment, while the stones stay moderately in place. There’s a lot she remembers. There’s a lot she forgets. I’m hoping there’s still more she’ll tell me.

  While my notebook was out, I also started a journal of ideas regarding what Grandma and I can do today. I review it now while my computer and I warm up. I read it once and turn it over, hoping to find more ideas on the back of the page. It’s blank. There’s nothing on this list for a rainy day. There are a few points about walking around downtown or driving west to the town of Picton. I’ve reminded myself in terrible penmanship that Picton has some lovely vineyards; we could sample some wine. There’s also a beach in Picton. The last line of my list: We could go for a short walk ON THE SAND!!

  I rip out this useless page of notes, crumple it, and drop it into my wastebasket like an orange peel. My penmanship really is alarming. I always just assumed it would get better, the way I knew I would grow taller. But it never happened. Now I’m a tall man with the handwriting of an eight-year-old boy.

  Of course I still don’t have any hot water. I tracked down the appropriate fellow on the phone yesterday before leaving to pick up Grandma. The earliest he can come is tomorrow. Not to worry — if Grandma really needs a wash, I’m sure she won’t mind soup-ladling some lukewarm kettle water over herself while leaning over the bathtub. Either that or we could both just stand outside under the rain in our bathing suits and hand a bar of soap back and forth.

  That would also give us something to do today. It would kill at least twenty minutes.

  Then again, maybe the rain will stop by the afternoon and we’ll have time to drive to Picton and those vineyards, to the beach and the sand. For now, I can hear the rain falling relentlessly on the driveway outside my window. It sounds unending and remorseless. It sounds bored.

  *

  I’VE BEEN KNOCKING about the kitchen for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, the way I always am, putting dishes away, grinding coffee beans, when Grandma shuffles in. She’s wearing her thin pink slippers. This is what I was most concerned about: the mornings. For people who live on their own, every form of human interaction is amplified in the morning.

  I’ve noticed that Grandma enters rooms almost silently. After spending a day or two with most people, I can recognize their blunt footsteps as easily as their face or voice. And it irritates me. Most drag their feet or drop them inattentively. Grandma doesn’t step so much as glide around. She skates. She floats.

  I’m
clad in my customary basketball shorts, undershirt, and housecoat. Grandma’s already meticulously dressed. You’d think she was expecting company. She has that same brooch clipped to a voguish charcoal sweater. Her hair is neatly combed (of course). I look down at my frayed housecoat. The last time a comb or brush of any kind made contact with my hair, people were still smoking on airplanes.

  The only evidence of recent slumber is her hardly-puffy eyes. Everything about my fish-eyed, bloated reflection in the metal kettle — the stubble, the dark circles under my eyes, the morning horns — screams that I just woke up.

  “Good morning, Grandma!” I finally say, pushing the start button on the coffee maker. I’ve waited until she was present. I want her to know it’s a fresh batch. I’m trying to sound as friendly and warm and awake and welcoming and cheery and dashing and happy and excited and all-American-grandsony as possible. I’m not used to employing my vocal cords first thing.

  “Well, good morning!” she answers. Like her face, Grandma’s voice carries none of the baggage of sleep the way mine does. “Still looks a little wet out there today, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Bit of a shame, really,” I say, clearing my throat for the third or fourth time.

  “And how did you sleep?”

  “Pretty good, I guess. Not bad. How about you?”

  “Do you even have to ask?” she answers. “I always sleep well, no matter what. I’m lucky that way.”

  I smile. She smiles back. It’s true. I’ve never once heard Grandma complain of a bad night’s sleep, regardless of churning thoughts, environmental conditions, or sleeping quarters. Ever. My sleeping habits have improved in recent years but are still erratic. When I lived in Toronto and was working a variety of part-time jobs, I’d go weeks without having a full night’s sleep. I was tired but wasn’t clear how I fit into the city and felt adventively confined. On the worst nights, I’d get out of bed, leave my apartment, and go for long walks through the city, up and down Parliament Street or along Queen, regardless of weather or time of night. I don’t take too many late-night walks anymore. Now when I can’t sleep, I make a snack or read, or just stay lying in the dark, thinking. Even the most vapid, petty cognitional involution makes sleep unviable. Grandma moves over to the sink. She must want a glass of water! I instinctively step in front of her like a bouncer. This (understandably) startles her.

  “Oh, sorry, Grandma. Do you want some water or something?” I’ve adapted my voice again now, to try and sound soft and hospitable. “I can get that for you, just take a seat.” It’s coming out sounding higher-pitched and vaguely feminine. I am a tired Canadian Truman Capote.

  “Oh, well.” She points at the tap, within arm’s reach. “I mean, I can get it.”

  I wrestle my lips into another smile. “No, no, I’ll do that. You just sit down.”

  “Okay, sure. Thanks. Well, aren’t I lucky?”

  She seats herself at the table. It’s not just me. She’s not used to this either, trying to construct canny discourse first thing in the morning. She’s also not accustomed to people waiting on her. I’m certainly not used to waiting on people. We are two familiar people interacting capriciously. Grandma picks up the Kingston Whig-Standard I’ve brought in from the front stoop. The coffee maker drips and hisses.

  “I just love the Kingston paper,” she says. “I like reading about where I am.”

  “Yeah, they do have lots of local coverage, don’t they?” I look up and to the left, nodding. I want her to think I’m really, really, really considering all the local coverage.

  Grandma’s also brought her own paper, the Globe and Mail, from home. She sets it down on the table and removes her glasses from their soft leather case. It must be yesterday’s paper. She wouldn’t have had the chance to read it. I think I remember her telling me once that she never likes to miss the paper, not even for a day. She likes to know what’s going on.

  Once the water is pleasantly cold, I lean down and drink a mouthful straight from the tap. Then I fill her cup. Grandma accepts it and takes a wee pull. “Good water,” she says, nodding her approval. But she curls her lips around her teeth the way you do when it’s too cold. Grandma takes another sip, bigger this time. “Yes, quite tasty.”

  “It really is good water, isn’t it?” I thought everybody liked water ice cold?

  “It certainly is.”

  “It’s funny,” I say, laughing a little louder than I need to, “I’ve always thought that about Kingston city water. It’s quality water. I’m glad you think so, too. Although I hear they have a bit of a blue-green algae issue. Nasty stuff, that.”

  Blue-green algae?

  The kitchen is quiet again, apart from the screeching coffee maker. I smile. Why isn’t it done yet? It never takes this long, does it? I look at the digital clock on the oven. We’ve been together now for nearly twenty-four hours. The longest stretch I’ve ever been one-on-one with my grandma. Surely I have more to say to her than my endorsement of city-regulated tap water and the “good” stories in our newspaper.

  “Mmmmm,” she says. “Delicious.”

  More quiet.

  “So,” I blurt, eyeing the newspaper, jumping into it like a conversational lifeboat, “what’s going on in the world, Grandma?”

  “I’m not sure, dear.” She picks it up. “Let’s see.”

  I stand again, neurotically, to check on the coffee. She must have been only a few sentences into the top story before resting the paper back down. “You know what happens more, now that I’m old?” she says. “I see things at night, in bed. It happened again last night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I see things when I close my eyes. It’s never for long, because I always fall asleep so quickly. But for a little while I just see things, colours. I’m not sure how else to explain it. It’s just images and colours and movement.”

  “That sounds odd.”

  “I love it,” she says.

  “I’ve never experienced that, even though I frequently dream.”

  “Did you dream at all last night?” she asks.

  I can’t recall the last time I’ve fallen asleep quickly or the last time I’ve been asked about my dreams. People aren’t usually interested in the dreams of others. I walk over, handing her a cup of coffee as I answer. Now she has something cold and something hot. One for each hand. “Yeah, I think so, I usually do. But I don’t remember about what. I wish I could. I almost never can remember. Did you?”

  “I did dream, yes, all night. Mostly boring stuff you wouldn’t care about.”

  “Really?” My first sip is life-restoringly good.

  “One was very strange. I think I’ve had only about three nightmares in my entire life. But last night was very close to a nightmare.” I collect my mug, pull out my chair, and sit down at the table with her again. I take a sip before answering. I do make great coffee. I wonder if she can perceive the quality of the coffee I produce?

  “That sucks, Grandma. What kind of nightmare are we talking about?”

  “It was very odd. I just remember falling. I was falling and it just seemed to go on and on. I don’t even remember the story, or plot, or what have you. I don’t even know what the point was or why my mind was set on this image of just falling and falling. It’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “Sounds awful.” Unlike this perfectly brewed coffee, which is outstanding.

  “It wasn’t as bad as I’m making it sound. It was still just a dream, and I always enjoyed dreaming. I still do. Even when it’s not a nice dream. I think it’s still good for me to be dreaming.”

  As we chain-sip, I wonder if dreaming, like most things, is dulled by age. Do dreams, like taste buds, lose some of their authority over time? Do our dreaming legs atrophy? Is that why an especially vivid dream, like last night’s, really resonates with Grandma? It seems logical.

  She continues, “Even i
f I’m just falling, or it’s a weird dream, or nonsense, I really do still believe it’s good for me. It must be good for us.”

  When you get closer to death, do dreams change? I wonder if dreaming about falling is in some way a metaphor for encroaching death? Is Grandma worried about dying, or is that too obvious? Or, I don’t know, maybe dreams sharpen with age. Maybe they grow more vivid and carry more emotional weight. Maybe because our bodies age and break down, dreams are more prevailing and, in this sense, theoretically freeing. Maybe dreams are more like a blue cheese that sharpens with age. Speaking of cheese . . .

  “How about a little breakfast?” I ask. “Maybe some food will help us remember a bit more of our dreams.”

  “Whenever you want it, dear.” She picks up the paper again but looks straight ahead, past it. “It really was strange though, just falling without stop,” she says. “I wonder what it all means.”

  IT’S MEANT TO be a sliced loaf, and was at an earlier time. It’s managed to freeze itself back into an unsliced loaf. Regardless, it’s our best option for breakfast this morning. Toasted, with some form of condiment. I have to use a butter knife to pry the hard pieces apart. It’s been in my freezer for a couple of weeks, a month at most. “Shouldn’t be much longer, Grandma,” I call from the freezer. “We’re almost ready.”

  “Okay, dear.”

  I drop the slices into the toaster and secure the knob of cheddar from yesterday’s stolen cargo. I bring it over to the table with a dollop of firm butter and a jar of peanut butter.

  “This’ll do, eh, Grandma?” I pat her jockishly on the back.

  She looks at the food and then at me and grins. “Looks great. I just love cheese. I often don’t eat any breakfast at all, so this’ll be a treat. Now, what can I do to help?”