by Jen Bryant
When we get the phone call, I go right
to the hall closet, turn on the light.
The black dress I’ve worn to every funeral
so far these past two years
still hangs there next to
Denise’s Grim Reaper Halloween costume,
which—considering all of our recent losses—
I’m beginning to think
might be more appropriate.
First there was Carolann’s cousin Tom,
shot down in Vietnam,
then Charley, Eddie, and Guy—
Denise’s friends from Willowbank High
(also killed in action)—
then our neighbor Mr. Metzger’s daughter,
overdosed at a rock concert.
And I guess I should count my mother
(who is hopefully not dead, but might as well be
for all we see of her).
Now Gramps is gone, too. His heart,
which had quit on him once before,
finally gave out.
Lately, I’ve been to so many funerals, I feel like
I can recite the preacher’s part
almost word for word,
and I have my phrases of sympathy for the family
so well practiced, I hardly
have to plan them anymore.
This time, though, Dad, Denise, and me
will be the grievers
and all our neighbors and friends in Willowbank
will be the sympathy-givers
and as I pull that plain black dress from the closet,
smooth the wrinkles,
check the buttons and the hem,
I am wondering what, exactly,
I should say back to them.
As a young man, my father’s father
joined the Navy
so he could see the world.
As it turns out, he did see most of it—
“I have set foot on every continent, Lyza,”
he used to tell me. “Except Antarctica,
which I don’t particularly need to see …
and I have traversed every ocean at least once—
most of them several times.”
When the Navy found out he was good at math,
they made Gramps a navigator,
put him in charge of all the maps and charts
on the ship. Even when he left the Navy,
he could not give them up.
Whenever we visited him in Tuckahoe, New Jersey,
where he and Grandma had lived for fifty years
and where they’d raised my father,
he’d be poring over his Rand-McNally World Atlas
or a set of sailing charts and maps,
balanced carefully on his lap.
And Dad, who inherited his father’s knack
for math but who is, in my opinion, allergic to risk,
would shake his head. “Pop, you’ll always be
a sailor,” he’d say before leaving the room
to find something more practical to do.
But I would always stay.
Gramps would take my hand, lead me
up to the attic, where he’d roll out across the table
a map of the South Pacific
or a nautical chart of the Caribbean Sea.
“Where shall we sail today, Lyza?” he’d ask,
and I’d reply, “Australia!” or “Jamaica!”
and, using a compass and a ruler,
we’d plot our course across the waters,
just me and him together,
a real adventure.
Once, Gramps showed me photos of when,
years earlier, he’d tried to sail
alone
from Florida to Maine,
with just his maps, a compass, a radio, and a two-week
supply of water and food.
He didn’t make it. The Coast Guard rescued him,
a big storm having blown his boat
onto the rocks of the Massachusetts coast.
“Weren’t you scared?” I asked him.
“Terrified—almost the whole time,” Gramps answered.
“But,” he added, “I’d never felt more alive.”
“Darn fool… nearly killed himself” was how
Dad explained it later on the drive
back to Willowbank.
So that’s how it was when we’d visit: the rest of them
downstairs
playing cards, making cookies, or watching TV;
me and Gramps in the attic,
sailing around the world.
But then Denise and I got older,
and Mom and Dad were fighting all the time.
We visited Gramps and Grandma
less and less… it was too hard, I guess.
Just once more, after Grandma died, we stood
all together on the shore
while Gramps scattered her ashes
in the waves.
Now Gramps is gone.
Mom, wherever she is, probably doesn’t know,
which isn’t fair to us, or to Gramps, who always treated her
like a daughter—
but of course since we have
no address, no telephone number, not even
a city or a state or a country
where we can try and find her,
there is no way to tell her, and that really stinks.
Anyway … Dad has decided that Gramps should be buried
in Willowbank Cemetery,
overlooking the Mullica River,
which flows slowly through South Jersey
before it empties into the sea.
Before Dad left for work,
he took a walk around the block—
four times.
I’m pretty sure I saw him crying.
Yesterday, in California,
Bobby Kennedy won the Democratic primary election.
Then he got shot
and died.
The night after Gramps’ funeral, I can’t sleep.
I lie on my side
and point my kaleidoscope toward the streetlights;
that kills ten minutes.
I count sheep, dogs, and cats. Still awake. I think
about Mom: if she’d
known about Gramps’ funeral, would she have come?
Maybe; maybe
not. (Maybe I should give up trying to figure her out.)
I go down-
stairs, drink a couple of Coca-Colas,
and watch
a rerun of The Ed Sullivan Show without the sound.
Today at the cemetery,
I didn’t cry much; but when Ed’s mouse puppet,
Topo Gigio,
appears in his little red and white nightie
and his cap
and kisses “Eddie” on the cheek, I start blubbering
like a baby.
Gramps used to love watching that part
of the show.
Back in bed, I lie awake just thinking, but then
my mind gets
interrupted by my bladder and I have to get up
and walk
down the hall to the bathroom.
On my way
back the last time, I spot something moving
in the yard:
it’s Harry Keating, tossing pebbles at
Denise’s window.
I hear her lift the sash, see her climb out onto
the half-roof
that covers our back door. Harry climbs up
the fire escape,
and the two of them sit there laughing, smoking,
and kissing
while my father sleeps in total ignorance
one floor below.
I stand at the small hall window awhile
and, for some
strange reason that I can’t explain, my natural
urge to
disturb them, make some noise, expos
e their
secret meeting,
for some strange reason that usual feeling
vanishes.
Instead, for a few brief seconds, I actually
admire Denise—
despite her annoying habits and her belief
that Janis Joplin
is one step down from God, she’s always ready
to take a chance,
just like Gramps. Maybe Mom felt that way, too.
Maybe that’s why
living in Willowbank just wasn’t quite
enough.
On Tuesday, when Denise slept over
at her friend Suzi’s place, I taped my blown-up photo
of the North Wildwood Beach
over Janis’s face.
You could still see the rest of her sticking out
underneath, but at least
I woke up to sand and surf and sun
instead of a screaming freak.
I could almost feel my brain cells regenerating.
Denise threw a fit when she came home.
She tore my photo
down,
tossed it onto my bed. “God, Lyza. You’re so square….
You should have been born two hundred years ago—
Janis is so way past you!”
I replied that would be just fine—
I’d love to live in a time
when parents of teenage girls had the right
to shoot any unwanted suitors they found slinking around
the house at night.
That shut her up for a while.
I don’t want to go.
Neither does Denise. It’s too soon. Too sad.
We both make excuses:
Denise: “Dad, I can’t… have to work double shift
at the diner. They’re short of help for the weekend.”
Me: “I promised I’d spend Saturday at the library with
Carolann. We have to study for history,
then we’re going to the movies.”
Dad sighs. His solution to raising two teenage daughters
alone
is to keep a full refrigerator
and teach as many college classes as possible
so he never has to be home.
He is not—has never been—
one for family conversations, or for handing out
discipline.
He runs his hand through his thick,
rapidly graying hair.
He looks at us both, square.
He speaks quietly, but firmly:
“Denise. Lyza. On Saturday morning I will be
in the car, out front, at exactly seven. I expect
both of you
to be already sitting in the backseat. I expect
you will come with me to Gramps’ place,
to help do
whatever needs doing, together,
and I expect it will take
most of the day.”
Dad stands up, walks away.
Denise and I sit there awhile, a little stunned
that our father,
who usually reserves most of his words
for his college students, has actually
spoken quite a few of them
to us.
6:40 Alarm rings. Get up. Wake Denise.
6:45 Brush teeth. Comb hair. Wake Denise.
6:50 Put on blue jeans, T-shirt, sandals. Wake Denise.
6:55 Pinch Denise’s foot. Run.
6:59 Slide into backseat of Dad’s Chevy; he’s already behind the
wheel.
7:00 Wait for Denise.
7:05 Dad, between clenched teeth: “Lyza, please go inside and
get your sister….”
7:09 Leave Willowbank. Denise, braless and shoeless, grumbling.
8:00 Arrive at Gramps’ place in Tuckahoe.
8:05 Wander around the house. Wait for appraiser.
8:40 The appraiser, Mr. Brewster (three-piece suit; fat), arrives.
8:45–10:15 Dad walks through the house with Brewster. I nap
in Gramps’ backyard hammock. Denise flirts, quite
successfully, with the neighbor’s teenage son.
10:30 Watch Dad sign forms allowing Brewster to sell
everything at public auction in mid-July.
10:45 Find an unopened jar of peanut butter and a package of
saltines in the pantry, which I share with Dad and Denise.
We eat in silence on the porch. Seagulls circle overhead,
chattering. I think of Carolann.
11:00 Dad gives us each a large box, assigns us to different parts
of the house. “Take whatever you want,” he says, “for
yourselves or for your children.” (Children?! Is he kidding?
Apparently not….)
11:05 Dad leaves to check out the garage and toolshed. I suggest
a trade with Denise: Grandma’s closet for the attic. She
agrees.
11:10–12:00 Go through the kitchen and small hallway
downstairs. I take a set of silverware and four unbroken
plates (we can use them now, back at our place). Clean
out the pantry, wipe the shelves. Wrap Grandma’s rosebud
vase and a photo of her and Gramps in a linen napkin,
place them carefully in my box.
12:05 Climb the steep, winding stairs to the third floor. The
door is warped shut. I put down my box, throw my weight
against the wood. It opens. I walk in.
Reaching up, I pull the chain to snap on
the one bare bulb hanging
from the low ceiling.
It looks and smells just like I remember:
the piles of books, the stacks of maps,
the long, slightly slanted table—
all just like I remember. I walk over to the chair
and sit where he sat so many times
with me on his lap.
I run my right hand slowly over the world map
he still has spread out,
and as it glides to the side it hits
the edge of a thick brown envelope,
which says, in Gramps’ unmistakable, neat script:
FOR LYZA ONLY.
… thank you very much.
First Mom takes off with no explanation.
Then my older sister (who’s a total pain,
but a pretty smart total pain who had plans for medical school)
barely graduates and decides
she’d rather wait tables and hang out
with Hairy Harry Keating,
who—as far as I can tell—
spends most of his time painting
posters to protest the war.
Then some of our neighbors come
back from Vietnam in coffins. Now my gramps is
gone and I didn’t even get to say good-bye.
No wonder I’m starting to get
an uneasy, queasy feeling
whenever I face something (like this envelope)
that I don’t expect. I sit stone-still a minute,
thinking about what might be in it:
Money? A diary from his Navy days? Pictures of
his solo sailing trip?
I sit there a long time,
wondering … thinking …
fingering the flap of the envelope.
Finally, I work up the courage to open it.
Inside, there are three maps, carefully folded
and stacked, bound together by a single
rubber band. On top is this note:
Dear Lyza,
Here is a little project I started a while back, which I’m leaving for you to finish. It has kept me going these last few years, when my eyes were dimming, when my body was failing, when I sensed my time here was nearly spent. But please don’t feel bad about any of that… it’s just what happens. I have lived a good long life.
They say we should grow �
�older and wiser” … mostly I just feel old. However, I do believe I’ve learned one thing: every life should have some risk. Among the hardships, disappointments, and losses, it’s the adventure of it all that has gotten me up each morning. I know you and I are alike in this way. Your father, whom I love very much, prefers certainty, so he never understood me. Your sister is smart, but she never showed the interest in maps and charts that you did, even when you were little. That’s why I’ve decided to leave this with you, and only
with you. Later, if there’s a right time to share it, I’m sure you’ll know.
I’m sorry we won’t have a chance to sail around the world together. I would have enjoyed that. I think you would have, too. I’m sorry I won’t have time to say good-bye. (I thought about driving to Willowbank for one last visit, but then… well… I decided I’d rather have you remember me in happier, healthier days.) If you choose to complete this project, I’ll be with you, in spirit, every step of the way.
With all my love,
Gramps
Like I said, there are three of them
in a stack.
I click on the brass reading lamp above me,
clear a space
on the table, unfold Map Number One:
a complete
street map of the town of Willowbank
with three
places marked A, B, C in red pen, but
no description
to tell me what the three letters mean.
I wonder
if Gramps wanted to move closer to us
and maybe
he was looking at houses in our town.
But when I
look again, I see that the letters don’t mark
homes:
A is in the elementary school yard, B is
in the park,
and C is in the woods behind the Willowbank
A.M.E. Church
(Malcolm says it stands for African Methodist
Episcopal),
where Mr. Dupree preaches on Sundays.
I fold up
the first map, take out Map Number Two,
which is smaller
and looks like a blueprint of the
Mullica River,
dated 1968, signed by some company
of land surveyors
and stamped with an official New Jersey
State seal.
