26

For nearly two weeks my visits with Grandma Jacobson consisted of me bringing food that I knew she wouldn’t eat and asking her questions about how she was that I knew she wouldn’t answer. In fact, she rarely said more than “hi” and “good-bye” to me.

“Take your oma with you,” Bernie had said after I told him about it. “They’ve been through the same kind of loss. Your oma will know how to help.”

So, the next time it was my turn to drive out to Grandma’s house, I took Oma along. She’d brought with her a pot of homemade soup and a loaf of fresh-baked bread. Grandma was too polite to tell her that she wasn’t going to eat. She even let us wipe the dust off the dining room table and set it with her pretty plates and bowls. When I brought out the linen napkins, she didn’t put up the slightest fight.

It had ended up being a stroke of genius, bringing Oma along.

“Would you like me to say the blessing?” Oma asked, reaching for our hands on either side of her.

I took hers and watched as Grandma contemplated it. After hesitating, she gave in, just letting Oma have the tips of her fingers. But she didn’t reach for my hand. I tried not to take it personally.

“Dear God,” Oma began, her eyes closed tight. “We come to Thee to thank Thee for Thy many blessings and to ask for Thy forgiveness for our many sins.”

I lifted one eyelid to look at Grandma, whose forehead wrinkled at the last sentence. Her Methodist roots had often been at odds with Oma’s Reformed background.

“Remind us of our errors,” Oma continued. “And remind us that, without Thee, we are but dust. We can do no good thing apart from Thee. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

“Amen,” Grandma repeated, her eyes on the napkin she was busy spreading on her lap.

Oma served Grandma, ladling the steaming soup into her bowl and cutting off a chunk of bread to go with it. I passed the butter to Grandma, and she took a good-sized pat.

Her veiny hands still possessed their gentle grace, and she held her knife properly as she smoothed the butter onto the bread. She’d always been a lady. Even in grief, she still was.

“This is good,” she said after swallowing a spoonful of soup. “Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it.” Oma blew over her bowl, sending steam rising in a beam of light. “It’s one my mother made often. We call it erwtensoep.”

“How interesting.” Grandma took another bite. “My mother made it too. She called it split pea with ham.”

Both ladies smiled, Oma with a sparkle in her eye. “Perhaps our mothers had the same recipe book. Ours must have been the Dutch translation.”

“Maybe.” Grandma was still smiling when she bit into her bread.

“When did Great-Grandma come from England?” I asked.

“Right before the turn of the century,” Grandma said. She turned to Oma. “She and my father eloped.”

“They did?” I put my spoon down. “I didn’t know that.”

“You never asked before.” Grandma blinked at me. “They were young. Sixteen or seventeen, if memory serves. She found herself in a family way. You know what that means, don’t you?”

She raised her eyebrows at me, and I nodded.

“I’m glad. I’d hate to be the one to have to tell you about all that.” She shrugged. “Her father threatened to kill them both. From what I’ve heard, he wasn’t a kind and understanding man.”

“I should say not,” Oma said.

“The two of them stole money from their respective parents and bought tickets to America.” Grandma lifted her hands as if to say what-can-you-do before taking a drink from her water glass. “Of course, that baby was my elder brother Alfred. I was born within wedlock.”

“Did they ever speak to their parents again?” I asked, putting my hands in my lap.

“Why would they have?” Grandma shook her head. “They had a new life. There was no use going back to a family that didn’t want them.”

We finished our soup and bread, Oma and Grandma sharing stories about the different meals their mothers prepared. I couldn’t follow their conversation, my mind wandered too much for that. All I could think of was my great-grandparents sneaking off together and boarding a boat to put an ocean’s distance between them and their families.

Grandma hadn’t said anything about what her grandmother had been like. I wondered if she’d been as mean as her husband or if she felt powerless to resist him. On a normal day, I might have asked Grandma about it. But Grandma hadn’t had a normal day in too long.

There was one thing I learned from the story, though.

Ours was a history of running away.

Stacking the bowls and plates, I cleared the table and insisted that I could do the dishes by myself. Neither lady argued and I was glad. It seemed Grandma enjoyed visiting with Oma. I guessed it was just what she’d needed.

It didn’t take long to wash and dry the dishes and wipe down the counters, so I took a rag to the windowsills and the hutch, the crystal glasses and the shelf of cookbooks. My last chore was to bundle the trash and take it to the garbage can in the garage.

Outside, I listened to the neighbor kids playing in the yard next door to Grandma’s house. One of them was counting “One-Mississippi-Two-Mississippi.” Hide and go seek, I was sure. Trash in hand, I opened the garage door and stepped inside to lift the lid off the garbage can.

The small windows let in just a few squares of orange sunlight. It was enough, though, for me to see Grandpa’s tools still laid out the way he’d left them on the night he’d last wandered off.

Letting go of the trash, I stepped in farther, lifting my hand as if I could catch the dust motes as they danced in the beams of sunshine. Breathing in the smell of gasoline fumes and rubbery tires, I remembered being small, barely able to see over the workbench.

Grandpa had lifted me to sit beside his screwdrivers and wrenches and drill bits, warning me not to get them mixed up.

“You don’t want to confuse me, do you?” he’d asked, a sparkle in his eyes.

I’d giggled in a way that only he could conjure out of me.

“What are you doing?” I’d asked him.

“Mikey and I are going to change the oil,” he’d answered. “That all right with you?”

I’d nodded and watched the two of them lie on their backs and shimmy up under the car’s engine. He’d told Mike different names for the parts of the car, but I hadn’t been listening. I’d just sat on the workbench, watching the two of them. All I could see was their legs, knees bent into peaks.

Before I left the garage I arranged his tools in the way he would have liked them, trying with all of my might to remember where they should have gone. Wishing that he was there to tell me if I was right.

I didn’t have it right. I knew I didn’t. So, I stepped out of the garage, shutting the door behind me. The kid next door was still counting, and I wondered how many times he’d lost track.

Grandma’s voice was more hushed than usual from the other side of the kitchen door. I pushed it open and saw that she and Oma still sat at the dining room table.

“I don’t know that I have much choice,” Grandma said.

“Of course you do,” Oma answered. “You must make the decision for yourself.”

“It’s no good, me living here alone.” Grandma shifted in her seat. “I’m not sleeping well. This old place makes too many noises at night. And, darn it all, I’m lonely.”

“Would you feel welcome at your daughter’s house?”

I eased the door closed again, still listening.

“I suppose so.” Grandma’s voice was higher than usual, more uncertain, I thought. “Rose has always been good to me in her way.”

“Do you want to be with her?” Oma asked. “Do you think that can bring you joy?”

“I think I do.”

Leaning back against the kitchen wall, I tried to imagine Grandma gone too. All I could think of, though, was that the hole was just getting wider and deeper.

“I’ll miss the kids, though,” Grandma went on. “Gloria has done a good job with them.”

“She certainly has.”

“I want to thank you for being a good grandmother to them. I couldn’t always be, I don’t think. Especially not when Rocky was sick.”

“You did your best, Mabel.”

They were quiet for longer than a minute, and I pushed the door open so I could see them again. Grandma had her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking from silent mourning. Oma had her hand resting on Grandma’s shoulder.

“We built this life,” Grandma managed to say between gulping breaths. “It took us so many years. And now it’s all gone.”

“No,” Oma said. “No. It is not gone. It remains. Believe me, I know. It is not gone.”

Grandma lowered her hands and looked into Oma’s eyes.

“And if you do go,” Oma went on, “all will be well. They have many who care for them here. So many who have watched them grow and who love them. And you can love them from wherever you go. That will never change.”

“How will I tell them?” Grandma asked. “They’ve needed us for so long. How can I tell them I’m leaving? Especially after Frank . . .”

She didn’t finish.

“You are not responsible for what Frank has or has not done for them.” Oma glanced at the door and nodded, letting me know I should come in. “They will understand if you need to go. They will want what is best for you.”

I knelt next to Grandma’s chair and she put her hands on my face, using a thumb to wipe a tear off my cheek.

“Your aunt Rose has invited me to live with her in Grand Rapids,” she said.

“It’s all right, Grandma,” I answered. “We’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure?”

I wasn’t. But I told her I was anyway.

Fort Sam
Texas

Dear Y’all (as they’d say down in these here parts),

You know, a fella lives his whole life without much excitement. Then he goes off and joins the Army and his family has all kinds of switch-ups and changes without him. I can’t believe Grandma’s moving away. That will be hard for her, I’m sure.

Send her my love, will you? Please. And tell her how much I miss her.

Tell her that I promise I’ll come to see her at Aunt Rose’s while I’m home.

Speaking of which, I’ll be home October 10 for a whole week of fun. Mom, buy some extra groceries. Joel, clean the room. Annie, dust off your camera. We’ll want to preserve all the memories we can before I ship out for at least a year of adventure in the far-off land of Vietnam.

That’s right, folks. I got my orders. I guess I didn’t hit the stay-at-home jackpot after all.

Sorry this is a short one. There’s not too much to say.

I’ll see you soon.

Love,
Mike

Dear Mike,

Sorry I didn’t write you back before. It’s been busy, getting Grandma’s house ready to sell and all. She’s being a bit crabby about the whole thing, which makes matters much worse. She did, though, ask me to tell you that she looks forward to seeing you in a few weeks.

Just a few more weeks! We’re all jazzed for you to come home.

Mom wanted me to ask if you would like us to at least try to have Frank come see you. No promises that he will or that he’ll even call or write us back. But it’s worth the try, right? Or not right? You let me know what you want.

Either way is fine by all of us.

Joel told me to write that he’s in a real rock ’n’ roll band with a few guys from school. They’re all right for a bunch of eighth graders. Mom is looking for a place for them to practice that isn’t our living room. So far, no luck.

If we are all still able to hear by the time you get home, it will be a miracle of the highest order.

Love you, brother.

Annie

PS: We’re all praying that Uncle Sam realizes that he doesn’t really need you in Vietnam after all. Oma keeps insisting on praying for God’s will. Let’s just hope that God’s will and the Army’s agree with letting you stay in America. Wouldn’t that be something?