The Last Storyteller
written by: Lisa H. Owens
@LisaHOwens
I want to tell you a story. I’m not going to lie; no matter how many times I tell this tale of regret, it still chokes me up a bit.
You know how sometimes your mind stumbles upon a memory so raw it takes your breath away? You revisit the memory from different angles, searching for a way to tweak a detail here or there. To change it enough to make it hurt less, wishing for a redo.
If only I could go back in time…
The former one-room schoolhouse, converted into the disjointed whimsical home in which my sister-in-law Marie and her family lived, was a whirlwind of activity the morning of the surprise party to commemorate my mother-in-law, Annie’s, 75th birthday. The celebration was the brainchild of her husband, Zeke, for he was ill, and his days were numbered. The relatives did not disappoint. Arriving from near and far via planes, trains and automobiles, we made it happen. Made it an unforgettable day for Annie and most importantly, a legendary last hurrah for Zeke. One for the books.
No one was exempt from performing a preparatory task while waiting for the guest of honor to arrive. The kids were outside setting up the croquet course for the brutal game that would later ensue, while the adults followed orders given by Marie, the organizer. I was tasked with putting lobster salad, a grotesque combination of delicate lobster and gobs of disgusting mayonnaise, into soft buns that looked suspiciously like hotdog rolls.
“What a waste of lobster,” I grumbled to aunts and uncles and cousins, as they scampered around in varying degrees of panic, and I snuck off to fix a margarita. Harried activity surrounded me as I quietly sipped my drink while creating a haphazard tower of lobster rolls on a melamine platter. I had just situated that final roll on the tray with a flourish, when whoever was assigned to man the upstairs window overlooking the driveway shouted, “THEY’RE HERE,” and that message was repeated throughout the house, carrying through to the backyard.
Hordes of relatives appeared out of the woodwork, it seemed, and gravitated towards the kitchen. We heard groaning and jostling in the front entryway and a frustrated relative murmured, “Christ,” as a folded wheelchair scraped through the narrow doorway. The clomp, clomp, clomp of Grandpa Zeke’s cane crutching up two steps to the landing, silenced the din of relatives’ bickering and the continual one-upmanship, at which this crowd of goofballs excelled. We clamored to grab celebratory paper horns that honked and unfurled—tongue like—when you blow into them. Then we waited.
A few more clomp, clomp, clomps and Grandpa Zeke was inside the door and seated in his wheelchair, rolling over centuries-old hardwood floors and purposefully placed area rugs on the short route to the hushed kitchen. The birthday girl rounded the corner, pushing Grandpa Zeke in the chair, and we all cried, “SURPRISE,” and the horns started tooting giving Nana Annie quite a scare, but then her eyes lit up and everyone was cheering as Grandpa Zeke, silently wept.
I think about my first introduction to the family of the man I was to marry.
It was Easter Sunday in 1985, a glorious sunny day, always a delight in Massachusetts, as spring could be a bit tricky with its mud and melting snow. The man I would someday marry held my hand as we walked into a house flooded with sunlight and open windows. The scrumptious smells of roasting meat hung in the air as a petite feisty woman stopped cooking long enough to greet the two of us, then was back at it, passing steaming dishes of food to teenagers, who in a sort of fireman’s brigade, shuttled them to the small formal dining room.
The table was set, and we jostled to fill the eight chairs, six matching and two oddball ones from the kitchen and there were introductions all around.
I felt like a celebrity as it was my future in-laws’ first time eating Easter Dinner (or any meal) with a person from the Deep South or with a flight attendant, so a flight attendant from the Deep South? Well, that was the motherlode, and the questions were coming fast and furious. It was as if we were from two different worlds. I struggled with their clipped phrases and frequent omissions of the letter r, and they struggled with my drawn-out syllables, often each word having more vowel sounds than any self-respecting word should ever have. They unabashedly stared at me in slack-jawed awe, asking me to repeat the parts they didn’t understand.
Throughout the meal, Zeke poked fun at the odd combination of regional dialects with which I spoke. My accent originated with the pure hillbilly twang of the Appalachian Mountains of Tennessee and took a swing through central North Carolina before being influenced to a slew of other places I had lived as a child. We ate and I answered questions while Zeke decided to make a game out of mocking my pronunciations. It irritated me, but my smile never wavered, and this interaction set the dynamics of our relationship. Zeke was sometimes crude and certainly rough around the edges but deep down a decent man, and the poking fun was his special way of connecting with me.
But that’s not what I remember. I remember the rawness of two shell-shocked families putting on a pretty good act of normal. Zeke recently lost his wife, and his children, their mother, to lung cancer. Annie recently lost her husband, and her children (the oldest my future husband), lost their father to pancreatic cancer. He was only 42 years old. Annie and Zeke bonded in their grief, marrying while the loss was still an open wound, and the blending of their respective families, seven teenagers between them, was rocky at best.
Zeke was truly a diamond in the rough and as time moved on and he mellowed with age and the arrival of grandchildren—one right after another, my daughter being the first—the diamond slowly emerged. I began to understand him, and we slipped into a comfortable dynamic. He transformed to become a loving father-in-law and a wonderful and gentle grandfather. Grandpa Zeke’s absence in the family is still glaring.
Sometimes I say goodbye in my dreams.
The memory sneaks up on me at the oddest times. Why didn’t I hold Zeke’s hand and tell him how much he meant to me when I had the perfect opportunity?
At one point during Annie’s birthday bash, we were alone in the living room, just the two of us, which was a miracle, because the house and yard were teeming with tipsy, festive relatives. But at that moment in time, everyone else was either swimming in the above ground pool or yelling obscenities at each other across the narrow croquet course in the side yard.
It was a thing we expected—the cruel heckling and violent discord with which my in-laws interacted in the course of a game. Any game. I got my taste early on in my introduction to this family’s competitive nature when a friendly little game of croquet turned cutthroat, them all turning against me because I made the mistake of taking the lead early on. It was beginner’s luck really, but my ball was repeatedly sent on a merciless downhill journey. Around the fourth send, I cried but then it forever awakened the beast within me.
Alone in the living room with Grandpa Zeke, it was so quiet I could hear his labored breathing, when from somewhere beyond the walls of the room in which we sat miles apart, separated by an expansive coffee table, a heated exchange ensued. Words drifted in through the open window, “Hey, Smart-Guy, you wicked cheatah. Move the ball back…” followed by shrill laughter and possibly the sharp crack of a mallet handle as it snapped in half over the offender’s knee.
“Dumbass…” someone cackled.
I looked beyond the coffee table. Looked over the top of beer cans in various stages of drink and margaritas in red solo cups, owners’ names penned in black sharpie (along with a few covert additions to one cup in particular—Smart-Guy), to see Grandpa Zeke, him in constant motion from the Parkinson’s that wracked and exhausted his frail body. We locked eyes and his mouth worked hard to form a crooked smile. I felt awkward in the moment, as a pool of drool formed in the corner of his mouth, snaking down his chin.
I looked away. Pretended not to notice, sparing his dignity I thought, but who was I kidding? Vulnerability made me sweat, and I was uncomfortable with his impending doom. I didn’t know how to manage my feelings, so I handled them in the same manner in which I handled everything. I ignored the great weeping sadness that wanted to escape and explode into a million pieces. I tamped that shit way down deep—where it belonged—and did what was natural to me. I made a joke. A snarky comment and laughed and Grandpa Zeke also wheezed what passed as his laugh in those final days and the moment passed.
If I could go back in time, I would change the course of the exchange, for I am a better person than I was back then. After grief counseling when my father died and marriage counseling when my marriage was flailing, I learned to feel my feelings and to not gloss over them with a witty retort.
Given another chance, I would do it differently.
If I could hop inside a time machine or a DeLorean or hitch a ride upon a shooting star, back in time—back to that Saturday in August of 2013—I would rise from my chair and bypass the red solo cup strewn coffee table to sit on the floor at his feet. I would lay my hands on his trembling knees, bringing them to rest. I would softly pull the tissue from his fist as he struggled to bring it to his lips to dab the drool from his crooked smile, then take his quaking hands in mine. I would say all the things I needed to say about his kindness and tell him how much I loved him, kiss his quivering cheek and say goodbye.
***
The Storyteller’s arm reached out, her index finger pushing a button outside the camera’s range, and a small click sounded before she flickered and faded away.
“Thank you for lending us your auditory sensors,” a robotic voice proclaimed, which prompted Group Ⅰ to rise and file out of the hall in an orderly fashion.
The halo of light surrounding the exhibit cubicle dimmed and a Klean-Bot swept in, myro-shining the exhibit area, paying close attention to the seating station and the semi-circle of Flexgläs—the viewing pane.
The Zeb Museum of Interstellar Oddities was lucky to have the only surviving copy of the hologram, “If I Could Go Back in Time,” narrated by The Storyteller, on temporary loan from the dismal planet known as Earth.
“Enter Group II,” the robotic voice instructed.
Swoosh, the barrier of Mainframe-Door-i sprang open, and Group II began to file in through the gaping hole that was the front entrance, and the barren wasteland beyond the walls of the Exhibit-A Structure revealed itself in the measured spaces between each student entering the hall. Then, once the last student was inside, the swoosh and click of the barrier sealing, echoed throughout the hollow structure. The students collectively shifted to form a group in the recessed seating area and waited.
“Please be seated,” a robotic voice prompted, and the students retracted their gangly crawlers and sank to the floor in perfect synchronization.
The dim halo of light surrounding the exhibit cubicle brightened to cast a golden glow throughout the seating station. The lighting prompted the students’ Orbital Ocular Units to periscope through the thin veils of striated tissue, located below misshapen brows, and a hundred beeps resounded as each O.O.U. paired with the viewing pane.
“Enjoy the story,” the robotic voice proclaimed.
The hologram of the elderly female Earthling known as The Storyteller materialized within the curvature of the viewing panel, alerting the students that the story was beginning, and the auditory sensors located beneath the aliens’ pulsating thoraxes darkened and fluttered with anticipation.
The Storyteller straightened, took a step back and swept a hand across her face to brush aside a wayward lock of silver hair, revealing mischievous hazel eyes and a tender smile. She took a deep breath, and her expression grew pensive. Then she began to speak, her words passing through the museum’s Interstellar Translator.
I want to tell you a story. I’m not going to lie; no matter how many times I tell this tale of regret, it still chokes me up a bit…
You know how sometimes your mind stumbles upon a memory so raw it takes your breath away?
The End
- The Last Storyteller - September 8, 2024
- Interview Q&A With Lisa H. Owens - July 16, 2024
- The Case of the Missing Brougham - May 26, 2024
