Grandmother's House

I could only wonder: what would Grandmother think?
         The people flooded the house, laughing and gawking. They filled every room, every staircase, every dusty pantry. There were even flocks of them tramping up the stair – her stairs – into the attic room, the most sacred place of all. Nothing was safe from these never-ending strangers. Dirty hands brushed against the old cherry wood hutch in the dining room, defiling it. Picture albums, so carefully catalogued and labeled in her flowing, antique hand were carelessly rifled through, looted, and thrown aside. Delicate doilies knitted by her own dear hands disappeared. I never knew what happened to Grandfather’s violin, which had sat in nineteen years of accumulated glory on the mantle in the parlor. Rugs, mirrors, chairs, coffee tables… everything began to disappear as if the rich, nostalgic world that Grandmother had created around her were nothing but a dream.
         I hated those people from my dark corner in the kitchen. I watched them rifle through the drawers, and I wondered who they were and why they were here, and if they ever even knew her. Only a handful were actually related to her, and even they were the sort of relations who come around only for weddings… and funerals. Despicable people, blown in from every godforsaken corner of the globe. They desecrated the dear old house with their dirty hands (she always did make me wash thoroughly as soon as I entered the door) and filling the most secret of hallways with their coarse laughter.
         I touched nothing. I wanted nothing. My memory was full enough, and they could not touch that. I had treasures which far surpassed their stolen necklaces and lampstands. I had sunny afternoons in that kitchen, slicing apples for her special apple crumble which she always made for me. I had warm nights by the fire in the parlor, under thick knitted afghans with hot cocoa – always made from scratch, as everything she cooked was. I had quiet stolen glimpses of her, sitting in her straight-backed chair at her little desk in the attic. She always had her hair twisted along the back of her head, in a perfect swirl I never managed to imitate. She would sit there for hours, scratching out letters to every old friend whose name she kept penned in her little green notebook. I wondered if that notebook was still there, or if it were tucked in a pocketbook or chucked into a corner. I saw a heavyset woman with a too-tight skirt shuffle out with the high-backed chair, and the hair on my neck stood on end. That fat bottom would break it as soon as she got it home.
         I watched the hands slowly creep around on the old Dutch clock above the sink. Three, four, five hours dragged by, until some cretin with tobacco-stained fingers snatched it off the wall and stuffed it in a bag they carried. Then I just sat and stared at the empty wall. The shape of the clock was still there, bright mint green, with all the wallpaper around it faded and dull. I don’t know how much longer it went on. The scuffling feet, the bawdy voices, and the banging doors gradually faded away, and suddenly the house was empty. I could hear the crickets outside, chirruping.
         Then I got up and walked slowly through the house, not looking around. I could feel the emptiness. But it had been just as empty the day before – and the day before that. I thought back to the week before, when it seemed to be bursting with life, but the most quiet, serene, and placid life on earth. Grandmother was a small person, but her presence filled every room. I sniffed the air, but the faint gardenia scent that she always wore was gone. Instead, it smelled of tobacco, sweat, and a cheap perfume that seemed to be a mixture of every vile flower on the planet. I would have bet it came from the fat woman who took Grandmother’s chair.
         I gradually found my way up the attic stair, which I had climbed so many times before. I had always crept my quietest, determined not to let her hear me. But as soon as I reached the top stair, she always said in no more than a loud whisper, “Don’t you come through that door, young lady. I’m at the pen.” And I would stop, and sigh at my failure, and then peek through the door at her still figure.
         Now, when I reached the top stair, I waited. I don’t know why. I knew that no voice would stop me. I went through the door for the first time. The desk was still there, naked without the chair. I went to it. There were a few papers scattered across it, and two flowered stationary pads. Several of the papers had her flowery script dancing across it. These I folded carefully and put in my pocket. Sitting on the upper shelf of the desk was a small bottle of gardenia scent. I sprayed it into the air and breathed in deeply. I could nearly hear the rustle of her long skirts on the floor behind me. I found a cobwebbed chair in the corner of the room, which I dragged out and set in front of the desk. Then I sat, and stared at the desk and the wall above it. There were three small pictures hung there. One of Grandfather in his Navy suit, one of Grandmother’s childhood home in Wales, and one of me at the age of five, taken in the small garden in the front lawn of Grandmother’s house. They were still shining from Grandmother’s daily dustings. I closed my eyes for a very long time, smelling the faint gardenia and the musty attic. Then I stood up, touched the desktop, and then left the room. I went down the stairs and through the hall, and out the front door. The black ribbons were still hanging from the mailbox. I went down the sidewalk, and when I looked back, the house had faded into the others around it, just another building now.