Pieces of Her
written by: LT Parrish
Sixteen-year-old Jane shuffled down the hallway and peeked into the spare room to reassure herself Nanna still lived. If lumpy bed covers moved up and down, Jane tugged at rumpled sheets in search of a pair of rheumy blue eyes. On a good day, they blinked back at Jane, corners crinkling in familiarity. On a bad day, they widened as Nanna asked, who was Jane?
To combat the agitation associated with her worsening dementia, the doctors emphasized criticality of routine. Nanna’s grooming required more effort than Mom, who preferred the casual outfit of a t-shirt, jeans and a face without makeup.
With an outreached hand, Jane assisted her grandmother toward the bathroom.
“Where’s Fred?” Nanna asked, hair askew with pillow crease markings across her cheeks.
“He’s not here,” Jane replied, rubbing the bony forearm, blue veined and cool. Nanna forgot that her husband of fifty-two years died three years ago, and Jane realized Nanna wouldn’t understand another explanation.
“Well, he will be.” Nanna patted Jane’s arm. “And I need to get ready.”
Jane brushed her grandmother’s silvery curls and sprayed Chanel No 5 on her wrists and neck. With a dramatic flourish, she snapped her wrists and laid a string of pearls around her grandmother’s neck.
“My husband bought these for me and I wear them every day,” Nanna cooed.
Jane didn’t tell Nanna she heard this story over and over, but instead enjoyed the bloom on her grandmother’s face. And this morning was no different when Nanna asked for her lipstick, Revlon’s Fire and Ice, a bold shade of red, “Hand that to me, please.”
“Here you go.” Jane gazed into the mirror as Nanna glided the cream across her dry lips with a practiced stroke. Growing up, Nanna had been the most beautiful of grandmothers. Her high cheekbones flushed delicate beneath strokes of powdered blush and blue eyes that sparkled, their ocean color heightened by the cat eye glasses decorated with twinkling gemstones.
Jane positioned her grandmother in her overstuffed chair, while Mom swirled up a bowl of flavored oatmeal for breakfast. Despite Mom’s best efforts to flavor the instant goop, Nanna usually picked out the chunky apple parts and left the rest.
On the side table, Nanna gazed at the image of a striking man in uniform, a soft look in her eyes, yet downturned corners of her mouth. In her own way, she knew.
When she was very young, seduced by the sounds of swing, Jane poked her head behind her mothers’ skirt and gaped at her glamorous grandmother dancing around the living room. Grandaddy twirled her in his arms as her cheeks glowed and head thrown back, forever laughing. That was the image Jane would hold on to forever, not this shadow of Nanna whose mind waxed and waned as the sun shifted across the sky.
Blotting her lips with a tissue, Nanna asked, “What do you think?”
“I think you’re beautiful, no matter what,” Jane said.
“Oh, you’re so sweet. Now, what’s your name again?”
***
“Mom, this is Jane. Remember Jane?” Mom said, as she handed Nanna the bowl of oatmeal.
Instead of listening to another round robin of who was who, Jane winced as if physically in pain, and hustled back down the hall to her bedroom. No reason for Nanna to see her tears. Elbows propped on the windowpane, Jane stared out at the neighbors walking their dogs, playing hopscotch or mowing the lawn. Ordinary people living ordinary lives, with family members who knew their names. At the site of the postman up the sidewalk, Jane’s mouth dried up and her stomach flipped.
It was when Nanna forgot the postman they had to consider it was more than age related forgetfulness. Jane and Nanna were baking bread, when the doorbell rang, and a uniformed man stood at the front door with a brown package.
“Jane, why is this man bothering me? Tell him to go away!”
“Nanna. It’s Mr. Brindle, the postman.”
“Oh. I knew that.” Nanna had snapped, her mouth tight and cheeks flushed, as she tugged a silver gray curl. “Don’t look at me like that!” In her typical straightforward manner, Nanna had reminded Jane whose house they were in. Back then, Jane had not understood why Nanna could not recall a man who had not only delivered her mail for years, but also received cookies from her every Christmas.
“Jane.” Mom opened her bedroom door. “I know you’re upset.” She rubbed Jane’s shoulder.
“I’m okay.” Jane stood up. Mom had enough to deal with.
“I’ve got to head to the store. Can you watch your grandmother?”
“Sure.”
Watch her grandmother. Even after last year’s incident.
Mom told her she wasn’t to blame, but still, a niggling of doubt remained. Resigned to an afternoon where Nanna would gaze outside the window asking for Grandaddy or watching TV with Jane like a neighbor popping in for a visit, she settled herself on the living room couch, its fabric as frayed as the nerves of the family.
“What are you going to do while I’m out?” Mom asked.
“I’m going to read Gone With The Wind to her. It’s her favorite.”
“You remember when she used to read that to you?” Mom asked, a smirk on her face.
“I do.”
As a child, Jane cozied up next to Nanna, fascinated by the tale of Scarlett and Rhett, yet her mother had felt differently about the situation.
“Mom! What are you reading to her?” Mom had asked, eyes the size of quarters.
“Oh, stop. Love stories are for everyone.”
“But that one? It’s a bit risqué for a child.”
“Hush. I’ll edit the saucy parts,” and then Nanna continued on, adding fiddle-de-dees or whatever flair best bolstered the personality of her heroine. Safe and secure in Nanna’s arms, Jane locked a chubby finger onto the nubby row of iridescent gems, sliding her knuckle back and forth, mesmerized by the timbre of Nanna’s voice.
For years, they were kindred spirits who escaped to the welcoming surroundings of Nanna’s overstuffed armchairs in a snug reading room warmed by soft lighting and the lingering scent of Chanel No 5.
While the rest of the family huddled on the burnt orange La-Z-Boy couch anticipating predictable endings to The Love Boat, Jane escaped to the pages of a romance novel, where heroines spilled out of bodices and bare-chested men waved sabers, both figurative and literal. And Nanna did the same, whispering names like Scarlett, Rhett, Anna and Yuri as she flipped the pages of well-loved books, page by page.
Then one weekend, everything changed.
***
With a book in her hand, and an eye on Nanna, Jane remained in close vicinity while Mom snagged her car keys. Provided the chance to escape and catch up on her own life, she suspected Mom would go to more places than just to the store. Since that weekend, her mother’s life had become one of doctor appointments; constant vigilance, to ensure Nanna did not leave on stove tops or hot water; and reassurance that she was safe and loved in an unfamiliar environment. Daily lives gone topsy-turvy.
It happened almost a year ago when Nanna still lived independently in her home, a bungalow nestled among the live oaks of a historical neighborhood.
“Mom, you and Dad go to the game. I’ll be okay with Nanna.” Jane had said. She was thrilled since she got her driver’s license the week prior. Exactly on her sixteenth birthday.
Jane was looking forward to spending the entire weekend with Nanna, reading and chatting, and thought nothing of the increasing forgetfulness. Older people forgot stuff and the postman a regrettable lapse in memory.
Her parents away, Jane drove to Nanna’s house, unprepared for what awaited her. Upon entering, an acrid stench assaulted her nostrils. She rushed to the source where an unattended iron sat atop a day dress, wisps of smoke curling toward the ceiling. The dress had been burned more than once. With rapid motions, Jane snuffed out the flickering embers on the cloth.
“Nanna!”
“Jane? What are you doing here?” Nanna had asked.
“Nanna, I told you I was coming.”
Her grandmother refused to admit any wrongdoing, convinced it was Monday, not Saturday. She argued she had not plugged the iron in.
“Do we need to come home?” Her mother had asked.
Jane twisted the phone cord until the twirly coil snaked her wrist, threatening to cut off her blood supply. She heard the plummeting hope in her mother’s voice. The last vestige of optimism of a weekend away with her father.
“No, Mom. I’m good. I’ll keep a close eye on her.”
After the events of the next morning, there was no turning back. Jane had padded out to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, but not before she stopped by to check on her grandmother. She was shocked to find an empty bed, the chenille bedspread scrunched in layers and pillows scattered upon the floor.
The house was not that big, and when awake, Nanna’s leather slippers scraped the wooden floor, announcing her comings and goings.
“Nanna?” When there was no answer, the question became more insistent.
“Nanna?”
A loud rap on the front disrupted the eerie silence of the house. Jane raced toward the front door, palms sweating and her stomach tied up in knots. In one swift motion, she whipped open the door, ignoring the blast of cold air and sighing in relief at the sight on Nanna before her. But relief quickly changed to mortification as a policeman guided Nanna through the front door. Who was this person with her lipstick smeared, hair askew and clothed only in her nightgown? Jane glanced up and down at her grandmother’s body, feet covered in frayed leather slippers and shoulders huddled beneath a blue uniform jacket.
“We found her wandering up the street. “The policeman spoke without preamble. “A neighbor called us. She was found six blocks away in the middle of the street.”
“Oh my God!”
“There was little traffic. But she may not be so lucky next time.”
Lucky was never a word Nanna would have used with the situation. Within the day she was moved out of her bungalow and into the spare bedroom of Jane’s house, among all our mishmash furniture that didn’t fit anywhere else.
***
Jane flipped the page and continued to read. Mom had phoned to say she had a few more errands. No surprise there. Besides, Jane’s would turn seventeen in a few weeks and had asked for a typewriter. Maybe her mother was out shopping for that. One could only hope.
“Scarlett has got some sass,” Nanna seemed relaxed, eyelids half-lowered with the corners of her mouth relaxed. A far better situation than agitation.
“She sure does.”
“Keep reading, Jane,” Nanna smiled.
At the mention of her name, a stream of light cracked through the dark skies of dementia, and Jane basked in the rare moment of its warmth. As her Nanna spoke those words, Jane’s heart fluttered, and she reverted to the days of snuggling in her grandmother’s lap, where they’d read about the adventures of Madeline, or another Nancy Drew mystery. In speaking her name, Nanna evoked memories of squishy hugs, imprinted lipstick kisses on cheeks and waltzes around the kitchen. Jane wiped a tear, grateful that Nanna remembered her for another day. Another memory.
“I love you Nanna.” Jane wrapped gentle arms around her frail grandmother, thinner from a loss of appetite. When Nanna pulled away, a familiar smile spread across the red painted lips.
“And I love you.”
While Nanna dozed off in her favorite overstuffed chair, Jane cuddled up with a steamy romance, keen to listen to changes in her grandmother’s breathing. A snore and cough indicated she had woken.
“What are you reading?” Nanna asked.
Embarrassed to be caught at the point of the story where the hero thrusted and groaned, Jane hunkered down. She hoped to disappear into the cushions. Her cheeks flamed as if she were caught in flagrante delicto herself.
“Um, nothing.”
“I don’t know. Seems pretty good from where I’m sitting.”
“Want to listen to some music?” Anything was better than discussing the topic of her book.
“That would be nice.”
Vinyl albums shuffled off and on the record player until the corners of Nanna’s mouth turned up in a playful grin.
“Oooh, I like that.”
“The band is called Queen.” Jane explained, displaying the album cover of four British men, their heads touching in a circle.
“Bunch of strange looking women,” Nanna commented.
***
Nanna looked lovely. At least that’s what everyone said, but Jane didn’t agree. The lady in the casket was not her grandmother. Jane flipped open her wallet and gazed at the sepia photo of a confident woman, staring back at her, eyes challenging the world. Now that was Nanna.
Jane gazed upon the pale face, powdered in death. At least Nanna would have approved of the meticulously applied Fire and Ice lipstick, a final send off, Scarlett O’Hara style.
***
Jane scuttled a book and scrunched beneath a fluffy pink blanket, daydreaming about misadventures with a roguish sea captain.
“Jane?”
“Mom!”
“Good book?”
“Mom, please don’t.” Jane dared to float in her teenage bubble of romantic improbabilities and didn’t want her mother sticking a pin it.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to intrude, but I have something to show you.”
“What?”
“My mother wanted you to have these.” Her mother placed Nanna’s pearls into her fingers, the beaded rope slippery and heavy.
“Oh, Mom.”
“And this.”
In her lap Mom laid a romance novel, the cover art dated with faded coloring and the spine bent and cracked from repeated readings.
“I don’t know this author. Whose Scarlett Chere?” Jane asked.
“That’s your grandmother’s pen name.”
“Nanna wrote romance novels!” Nanna tantalized readers with plunging necklines and bulging crotches?
“Yes she did, but she didn’t want me to tell you. Until afterward.”
“When did she say that?”
“Years ago. Before she got sick,” her mother replied.
“How come?”
“Each story is a piece of her. Private and personal.” With the brush of her fingertips, Mom tucked a stray hair behind Jane’s ear.
In response, Jane touched the yellowed pages spread before her.
“Do you think Nanna knew? That I liked this stuff?”
“A woman who wore pearls and red lipstick every day?”
Jane’s mother kissed her cheek and chuckled.
“You bet she did.”
As the bedroom door shut, Jane snuggled back into her pillows, Nanna’s pearl necklace secure around her neck and Scarlett’s Chere story tucked into her hands. She was both eager and grateful to learn about an amazing woman in a way she had never known before. Her amazing Nanna.
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