Evening Phone Calls of the Past

"Jon!" my mom yelled from the kitchen. "Telephone."

I came down the hall.

"It's Pop Pop," she whispered handing me the phone.

"Jonny," he said eagerly. I could tell he was excited about something--as excited as an eighty-two year old man can sound.

"There's a show on Discovery," he'd start. "There going over how the continents were formed, looking into the tectonic plates. Channel twenty-six."

Pop Pop often did this, every time he came across an interesting show on evolution, dinosaurs, space, or how the earth and solar system formed. His first reaction, it seemed, was to call me. Most of the time when he called, I went right to the channel and was soon glued to the TV.

When I was over their house, the only shows Pop Pop and I would watch would be science documentaries or the Yankees game.

The W's, Continued 2...

Like the time I stood on top of Foley Drive and stared down into the distant valley tucked before Southington mountain, Twenty-Seven Autumn Drive tucked somewhere in the blanket of ragged crests and green brushy tops of the trees below, I knew about where I was. I knew that somewhere, past the twin power line towers at the end of my street, and the tall pines further away, sat Grandma's house. And roads led their--I didn't know the route, or which way was faster, all I knew is that if we drove for the right amount of time, and navigated through the dark, shadowy maze of traveling underneath the trees, we got their.

Of course the way above the timber looks better, faster. I wondered how long it would take one of the black crows that sat head-bobbing on the street post across the street would take to get their. To fly through the clear, fresh, open air, avoiding all the turns and trees and rights angles on the roads below. The roads seemed like a much more primitive way to get around.

We can't fly through live. Don't we all know this? Life only builds roads under the tree line, sometimes only thick, jungle-beaten paths that test our will and self control. Only those who can navigate the fights and deaths and drugs and manipulation come out on the other side, in the Edenic valley of patience and peace of mind. Knowing your living your own life, doing the right thing, and not worrying about the other people, good or bad, getting lost in the forest roads of their own journey is the key to reaching your destination, whether it takes years or just a few minutes across town.

The W's, Continued...

When we grow up, enter the world as conscious beings, we drop the 'why's' and embrace the 'where.' If there's no hope of finding answers as to why we are here, at least we can spend our time trying to figure out where we are.

Science can tell us something about that. We're in a solar system of course, hurtling at twenty-seven thousand miles per hour around our sun. That solar system plays a role in a much larger picture, symbolizing the illumination of one tiny spec that, with a hundred billion other stars, makes up just one galaxy in our titanic universe.

Who can comprehend such beauty and vastness, immensity and structure? I wish to, but can't. Who can? Maybe some who understand the mathematics and physics behind algorithms and equations? But that's the universe on paper, not the real thing. No, to understand our reality, our universe, our world, I think we have to start small, exploring the hills in our backyards, the gardens full of vegetables, Grandma's closets, Grandpa's workshop, the scary bedrooms and cozy cooby holes.

From there the neighborhood is the next frontier. What lies beyond those woods? Or to what street belongs the dim orange streetlight glowing through distant trees? Where can my bike take me, or my eyes see around me?

The W's

When we first enter the world as wet little bundles of flesh, we don't know anything. Not the why, the where, the when, or the how. We don't need to--not yet. All we have, as our big dumb head fall back and forth observing the new world around us, are instructions, buried deep and safely behind our foreheads in the essentially useless matter that makes up our tiny brains. Instructions, with any luck, that will allow us to slowly emerge into the world, develop into beings, that with more luck, can search for answers to those very questions. Like a bending and stretching caterpillar one day hoping to become a butterfly, that useless matter will flower into a mind that is capable of the strongest anger and deepest happiness, the most delicate tenderness and love, and the patience and drive to explore all the mysteries of life.

We are our parent's investment to ourselves. We didn't ask for life, we just got it and knew what to do with it. Maybe our parents didn't want to be alone, maybe they always wanted kids and loved the idea of a family, maybe it was our biology forcing us to find attraction in the opposite sex, maybe we're a mistake. None of that matters, life has no prejudices. Life doesn't judge. One day we'll wake up--graduating high school, entering college, starting a job, getting in an argument, mowing the lawn, moving. Some people never really wake up.

I think the W's can be tricky. The what and where go hand in hand, the why and where, though, are different. We spend our whole childhood asking why: Daddy, why is the sky blue? Mommy, why do you where makeup? Why do I have to where a helmet? Why are people stupid? When we emerge from our childhood chrysalis, the more interesting 'why's' get us nowhere: Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does it always happen to me? Why can't I feel God's presence? Why is life unfair? It's like trying to squeeze juice from a prune, you might get something, but it's never enough, never satisfying.

...

Nancie's Chance, Continued 2...

"Your mom told me about Nancie," My Uncle Ernie said as we walked out the front door. It had just stopped raining and thick clouds of steam floated up from the pavement in the orange glow from the street light across the street. The evening air was humid and warm. Drops fell from the awning above our heads.

"And about all the money she left to Ken's name?" I began. "It's ridiculous. Especially because Grandma and Steffie don't see it."

He shook his head in agreement. "How's your mom doing?" he asked. The wind blew and shook the thick oak boughs to life, sending giant drops of moisture showering into the lawn below.

I told him she was doing okay, and it occurred to me then why he would ask that question. "Aunt Steffie's been talking your ear off I guess," I asked with a smile.

"Yeah," he answered. "I'm not sure they're in tune with what's going on."

Knowing my Aunt Steffie, it wasn't surprising to find out she had been talking about Nancie, relaying all Nancie's lies that she believed: That Ken was beating her, that her friends forced her to do drugs, that she was trying to get clean--and stay clean this time. No really, this time for sure.

Norcie and Ernie--fresh pairs of ears--were doomed to hear the stories like a dry sponge sucking up water. When Aunt Steffie had something on her mind, she was sure to let people know. And when something bothered her, watch out. That, along with her forgetfulness, made hearing the same things over and over again (and in every possible way) somewhat mind numbing. I felt bad for my Aunt Norcie, who, caught in the crossfire of Grandma's and Aunt Steffie's conversations, would hear the stories more than anyone in the next week.

"Drive safe," my Uncle Ernie said with his hand on my shoulder. As I left, he shook my hand firmly with a five dollar bill in his palm. I thanked him. It was refreshing to see someone not buying into Nancies lies or Steffie's ideas. He asked how my mom was, not because he was a part of the drama, but because he wasn't. He had integrity, was down to earth, and always polite. I had always loved that about him. He gave a wave from the front steps as I backed out. It was a sad day for the air force the day he retired, I thought to myself as I drove away.

The next day Nancie got out. Again, when my mom tried to question the situation, she got nothing out of Grandma or Steffie. Not what happened to the fifteen day plan, who her contact person was, or how she got picked up. The only thing Grandma said was that Nancie was ready to come home, and ready to live a clean life.

"Yeah right," my mom said when she found out. "This was her chance to get clean. She probably manipulated everyone to get out of there as fast as she could." I believed it.

I could picture the way she manipulated the doctors: carefree, head back laughing, done with the enthusiasm of an actor discovering a new role."Oh sometimes I just let myself go, take that one step too far and then regret it the next day. I say all these silly suicide things for attention and it's fun while it lasts, you know, like any privileged housewife does after too long couped up inside." 

She'd laugh arrogantly with the doctors, as if they knew too, that she doesn't need to be there. Not her. The whole thing is just a misunderstanding! What happened is fair--she gets that, it's all part of the civilized society in which she is aptly accustomed to, but now it's time to go--someone else needs to take her spot, someone that needs it more she does.

The truth of it was, Nancie had a burning passion to leave that place and was desperately trying to get out, probably from the very moment she was sober enough to remember who she was and coherent enough to plan her next move. She needed to get out to get her next fix, forge her next prescriptions, or pop the rest of the pills she already had.

She DID need to be there, more so than the other addicts in the rooms beside her. They couldn't control their emotions, if they needed their drugs, it was as simple as that--either they got them or there was a meltdown. Nancie, though, was better than that, smarter and more manipulative. If she just toughed out three days, proved to everyone that she was okay and ready to leave, she would get her fix faster than the other idiot patients that couldn't control themselves. She put up a shining facade of success and optimism, the perfect success story for any psychiatric/ alcohol abuse unit. But in actuality, she was rotting on the inside with adrenaline filled fires fueled by heavy pangs of addiction and the claustrophobic nervousness of withdrawal.

Nancie's Chance, Continued 1...

Two days into Nancie's lock down treatment she began calling Grandma, asking her to call in as a contact person to get her out, and to verify she was being released to someone. So, if the worst came to pass, and she got out and hung herself, it wouldn't be the hospital's fault.

Again, when my mom prodded, she got nothing out of Grandma other than denials and contradictions. Did you talk to Nancie or not? What did she say? How long are they making her stay? Grandma knew nothing. Neither did Steffie.

We were there when Nancie called the next day, sitting around the dining room table. My mom, brothers and I were playing UNO with Grandma, and my Aunt Norcie and Uncle Ernie--who were visiting that week. My Uncle was leaving the next day to go back to his golf tournaments in Mountaintop, Pennsylvania, and, as usually, was planning to come back a week later to pick her up. The last few years they came, on the days we were all around, it was somewhat of a tradition to play UNO. Pop Pop never played, but occasionally chimed in from the couch when someone won or really started to complain about all the cards they had in their hand. Aunt Steffie never played either, but usually sat at the kitchen island watching, taking occasional sips from her coffee. As uneventful as UNO might sound to some, we had a blast playing. Especially when Nick, it always seemed to be Nick, had the small pleasure of dropping down the draw-four card for Uncle Ernie, and sighing triumphantly.

"What the"— Uncle Ernie would start, staring back at Nick with his stone serious expression, waiting for the situation to get a bit awkward before looking back at his cards. We usually weren't satisfied until the cards in his hand took on the appearance of a peacock's tail. Nick seemed to get the most pleasure out of it--it was no surprise he always ended up sitting next to him.

When the phone rang, Grandma got up, "Hello," she answered, and soon went quiet.

The card game halted, and we all, out of basic curiosity, turned our attention towards the phone call. I knew, and I'm sure my mom did too, that it was either Aunt Steffie or Nancie, and seeing as how Steffie had just left, and the way Grandma was hunched over and whispered into the phone, we were pretty sure it was Nancie. My mom got up and made her way to the phone.

"If that's Nancie you better hang up the phone," my mom said quietly. Her stern comments always sounded delicate when she spoke to Grandma, much different than when she was upset with me. "Mom?"

Grandma did nothing but turn away and utter some words to the person on the other line. "I have to go," she said, and hung up the phone. It was Nancie, my mom later told me. We all sat back down and played a few more games before leaving. Having my own car, I stayed for a bit longer before following my mom and brothers across town and back home.

Nancie's Chance

Later that summer my mom got a phone call while we were on vacation in New Hampshire. I saw my mom's normal distracted expression change to a more focused look, listening intently to the words my Aunt Darlene was saying--I knew it was my Aunt Darlene pretty quickly, no one could mistake her high, resonating voice squeaking through a phone's speaker. I sat across from my mom on a moss covered picnic table right outside our little cabin. The water down below shimmered with the sun's rays, marking the way to where the sun would soon set. My mom crushed the end of her cigarette into the damp table.

"Nancie's gettin into more trouble," I heard Darlene say. "She called the cops saying that Ken was beating her and that she found him cheating on her--all kinds of crap."

My mom moaned and asked questions as Darlene went on for the next half hour. I heard more words like slit wrists, bruises, and ambulance, but couldn't put the story together until my mom explained it after she hung up the phone.

"Nancie's a jerk," she sighed. "She called the police while she was all wound-up on something--drunk, drugs, who knows."

When the cops showed up to Nancie's house, more to investigate a crazed woman who had nothing better to do than call the police, my mom explained, Nancie told them that she caught Ken cheating on her with another women in her bed when she got home at three o'clock that day. Later she told them that Ken didn't get home until five, then changed her mine when the cops began asking questions on the timing. They soon got a picture of what was going on. Next was Nancie's display of her 'bruises,' ones she got from Ken earlier in the day. After the cops told Nancie the bruises were days old, and couldn't possible come from earlier that afternoon, Nancie began grasping at anything she could, how Ken never comes home, he works late other nights, hunts on some weekends. The cops, at that point, had a pretty good idea of what was going on. They told her not to waste their time again, that they had more important things to worry about than dealing with her drug induced lies.

"That's when Nancie got belligerent," my mom continued. "At that point I guess she went crazy, and the cops called for an ambulance to bring her down to the ER."

After she was checked in she called Darlene to come get her. There, thought, the doctors talked to Darlene and got tried to get what information they could: is she mentally unstable, does she have a history with drugs and alcohol, is she suicidal? Yes was the answer to all, and that was all they needed to hear. With Darlene's approval, they sent Nancie to the Psychiatric lock-down ward at the hospital a few towns over.

"So that's where Nancie is headed now. She'll be there for a minimum of three days." My mom dug into her purse and pulled out her cigarettes. "I guess to be evaluated for her crazy behavior and addictions."

"Are you kidding me?" I said, taking in the situation. It didn't completely surprise me with her recent arrest and suicide talks with my mom and Darlene.

"Nope, from there she could do anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months in rehab."

"You know she won't be able to stand that rehab place," I said, turning to watch the setting sun begin to silhouette wavering trees on the top of a nearby mountain.

A puff of smoke floated passed me as my mom spoke, "I doubt she'll last a week. She's probably trying to talk her way out of it right now. But that's where she needs to be"

Aunt Norcie, Uncle Ernie Intro

About twice a year my Aunt Norcie and Uncle Ernie would visit from Pennsylvania. I counted down the days until they arrived. They were much younger than my grandparents, and their energy always seemed to add a bit of life to 27 Autumn Drive. My Uncle Ernie was tall, his body straight, probably from the [] years he had spent in the United States Air Force. His bald head and expressionless face almost intimidated me. Sure, now he was even tempered and nice, but I wondered how mean-looking he may have looked in his service days. Like Norcie, he was always in a good mood, free from the clutches of work life. My Aunt Norcie was the daughter of my Great Aunt Annie, Grandma's older sister, who died long before I was born. She was a short, heavy-set woman with short hair and a contagious smile. She wore glasses and laughed often. My Aunt Norcie and Uncle Ernie were the picturesque retired couple. They were living their life to the fullest.

In the summer, my Uncle Ernie would come for one day and drop off Norcie, and make the three hour trip back home, where he couldn't miss his important commitments: a golf league during the week and the occasional tournament. A week later he would return to pick up Aunt Norcie and stay for one, sometimes two days before driving back to Pennslyvania.

When they finally arrived, the rituals would begin: dinners at restaurants with my Aunt Steffie, special trips to the casino, shopping for the women. Pop pop and Uncle Ernie would rock back and forth in the loving room chairs and watch the biggest football and baseball games together and talk about current events in local politics and around the world.

Part of those rituals was a sleepover or two, depending on how many of their visiting days fell on weekends. Grandma, Aunt Norcie and I would play rummy until all hours of the night, long after Pop Pop had gone up to bed. We would sit in the dimmed dining room and play, filling up small notebooks with the adding and sometimes subtracting of scores. I was always disappointed when I saw my aunt's eyelids slowly dropping over her eyes, her chin resting in her hand. Bedtime was near, and I was never ready for it.

Time Spent Thinking

I wondered if things hadn't changed for the worse, if their health hadn't failed them, and my grandparents were still around, what they would be doing. How they would be living their lives at any given moment. Grandma dozing in the rocker, arms folded on her lap over a half croqueted blanket. Pop Pop at his workbench in the basement, grabbing duct tape to tape up the draft coming in under the air conditioner, or fixing the folding mechanism on the big umbrella for the outside table.

I wondered if at some point in the future, some other grandson would look upon the house with the same reverence and nostalgic longing as I did now, if I was just one part of a much broader picture. Now, though, I was left behind, left behind as someone that had a hope of saving the house, at an age where buying the house was just out of reach. Sometimes watching a disaster (the kind of natural disasters Pop Pop would watch on the Discovery Channel) is worse than actually being involved it in. Being removed from the destruction, observing from a safe distance allows time to take in all the details, compute the magnitude and ramifications of such a powerful force. To watch people disappear under giant waves or getting ripped from their homes and tossed into the churning furry of a tornado.

I watched my little brothers stare around at the empty house, wondering what it would be like never to set foot in there again. Wondering with me if life really was this unfair. It gave me time to think about what it meant to the family, to lose the very thing my great grandparents had come to America for, to lose the house I grew up in, the house Pop Pop and I kept up in the short few years we had together.

Years Later

All I knew was that 27 Autumn Drive was occupied by strangers, unwelcome intruders that knew nothing of their crime. I overheard my mom mention something about a single mom and her two kids moving in but it didn't matter to me, I didn't want to know. I didn't care who it was, how many, or what their intentions were, the house was in someone else's hands, and the place was sure to change.

With my grandparents gone, the true owners of 27 Autumn Drive were now all but memories, ghosts from the past on their way to being forgotten by anyone who didn't know them as family. All the work they put in, all the time spent cleaning, sleeping, talking, and living--what did that amount to?

I thought about someone else's feet walking across the kitchen's faded linoleum, someone else running their fingers down the hallway wall, leaning on their tip toes to get a better view out of the back window. It felt like the perfect injustice, and the universe sat back and watched, indifferent.

I knew that the following months and years might ease the pain, but secretly hoped they wouldn't, for the sake of my grandparents. That somehow if the pain receded it would mean my memories of them did too. But my worries were unfounded. No expanse of time lightened the weight across my chest, closed the empty pit that had fallen in my stomach.

The Pharmacy, Continued...

I held the folded bills tightly in my fist as the dog's outline seemed to grow in my peripheral. He needed my help. Silly, I thought, but the feeling was real. I looked over at Pop Pop. He was sitting at the end of the aisle, waiting for the prescription.

I had never just asked for money. Usually, if I needed some, I asked Grandma or Aunt Steffie if they had any jobs for me to do, and sure enough they always did. I couldn't figure out how much I needed exactly, but I figured another seventy-five cents would do the trick--it seemed better than asking for a whole dollar, anybody can give away some change.

My heart began to pound. Any second Pop Pop would get the medicine and peer down the aisle, calling me out the back door and to the car, I had to make my mind up quick. Every second I wasted was one second closer to letting my chance slip away. I turned and made my way towards the back of the store and Pop Pop. I knew he wouldn't say no--unless he didn't have the money--but the thought of just outright asking made me feel uneasy. I knew it was rude, but the thought of the stuffed animal sitting alone in the dusty store when the lights went out pushed me to continue.

Other people were waiting too, standing, arms folded, looking either at the floor or some curious spot on the ceiling--avoiding eye contact with anyone else. Most of them were younger, my mom's age, picking up prescriptions, cough drops, or Tylenol for their older parents, I guessed.

I walked up to Pop Pop. He was sitting in a chair at the end of the aisle. Others chairs were set out near the counter, apparently for the old people that came in and had to wait. The two white robed figures in the back walked in and out of sight, occasionally bringing a brown paper bag to the counter, folded shut and stapled with the receipt.

"Pop Pop," I said, getting his attention; he turned to his left, then to his right and down to me. "Can I have seventy-five cents?"

"Seventy-five cents," he repeated, assessing the question.

"I want to get something but I'm a little short," I said innocently, trying to sound as grown up as possible.

"Okay," he said, already digging into his pocket. He pulled out a handful of coins and displayed them on his soft hand, poking them back and forth with his finger.

"Thank you."

I took the coins and hopped my way to the front, picked up the little husky, and dropped it on the counter. The young guy behind the register saw me coming but barely swiveled around to acknowledge my presence. I dropped the money with one motion, making my intentions clear. He finally moved and picked up the dog, checked the price tag, and punched in the amount. He grabbed the pile of money next, counted it, then stopped. His eyes met mine. His blank expression puzzled me. I looked down at my feet.

"Uhmm," he groaned a few seconds later. I glanced up to the same vacant look: short black hair, pimpled forehead, straight lips, and dark eyes burning through me. My heart began to pound as the awkwardness of the situation grew. He just stared at me. What was he waiting for? My eyes wandered again.

He finally opened his thin lips, "Ahh, it's $9.99."

My eyes wandered up to the orange tag behind the dogs ear. It read $9.99. I had seen the wrong price.

"Oh," I said, now wanting to shrivel up and disappear. "N-never mind."

I swept my money off the counter and back into my pocket, then grabbed the dog, the whole time trying to ignore the one-way staring contest going on behind the counter. I dropped the husky back on the shelf and stiffly walked back down the aisle towards the back of the store.
When we got back in the Buick I gave Pop Pop his seventy-five cents back.

"Didn't need it?" he asked, sounding a bit surprised.

"No," I answered quickly, "I didn't get anything."

The Pharmacy, Continued...

Near the front windows beside the counter, sitting on the bottom shelf of one of the isle's endcaps, was a stuffed animal, a little husky dog with black ears, silver fur, and splotches of brown on it's back and stomach.

I stared at the little dog's face. It's black button nose and blue marble eyes begged to be picked up. The fur was soft, softer than the fur on my mom's mink coat. I put it down and continued to stare at it. I though about walking away.

It seemed no different to me than watching the little puppies in a pet store unknowlingly beg for people to take them home, most of them standing or laying in their own crap, the only thing going for them their pathetic and vulnerable looks, staring with big, charming eyes, hoping that one of the spectators has a place for them at their home. Those dogs, though, were expensive. My mom always told me 'no' when I asked for a dog, that I didn't know how much work went into owning one.

The stuffed husky in front of me was different. I could get this dog, save it not from a cage, but from its prison sitting on a tiny shelf in a small corner of some tiny store that no one looking for stuffed animals would ever go to. And stuffed animals were easy to take care of--they didn't need anything. I had made up my mind: if the heart shaped tag pinned to the dog's right ear showed a price I could afford with the money I had on me, I would get it.

I picked it back up and checked the price tag: $4.99. Cheap enough, I thought, and plunged my hand into my pocket, digging out the dollars and cents Grandma had given me to get a soda. Four dollars, four twenty-five, four fifty-five--it was all I had. I looked at the four bills, two quarters and a nickel in my hand.

The Pharmacy

When I was about six, I went to the downtown pharmacy with my grandfather. It could have been before or after a hair cut, but I do not remember. He was there to pick up medication for him and Grandma like he did every week, waiting in line until the old guy and younger woman in white jackets behind the counter filled the prescription. I wandered off and explored the little store behind the counter.

Short rows of non prescription items filled shelves up to the front of the store. One small register sat on a thin counter in the corner of where the wall met the front windows. A young guy sat motionless on a stool beside the glass. Down further a hole opened up in the wall and a 'bridge,' I called it, led to another part of the store, a place that reminded me of a gift shop. The bridge angled upward from the floor of the store and leveled out through the wall opening. The gift shop floor was lower than the rest of the store, and from my position on the bridge, I looked out over the little store with a good vantage point, I thought. Gift cards lined the back and side walls. Trinkets and colored glass wind chimes hung all around the area to my right, among the rotating magnet and sunglasses holder. The bridge continued for a short way across the store to the gift card wall.

Cars filtered their was through the three way intersection outside. It seemed more people came though the back door, the one Pop Pop and I came in through, than from the sidewalk out front. I though for a minute why the front of the store didn't face the parking lot in the back, where most of the customers came in. That's when I saw it.

The Wake

The soft hum of whispered conversations broke the silence of the placid funeral home. People shuffled in at the entrance to the room and waited their turn to kneel before my grandfather and tell us how sorry they were at his passing.

"At least he's not suffering anymore," they all said.

My mom dabbed her eyes now and then along with my Aunt Mary Kanyock and Aunt Steffie. Nancie sobbed loudly and moaned sporadically into her tissues. I sat next to my brothers and remained quiet, watching people's solemn expressions as they walked in.

When my Aunt Norcie and Uncle Ernie came in, it was an all too familiar sight, the forth time I've seen them that way in the last year. My uncle in his navy blue suit, my aunt in a flowered patterned shirt and ironed blue pants. It was nice to see them, but we knew our meeting wasn't for an uplifting reason.

"He really had it bad the last few years," my Uncle Ernie said as we stood in the back. "That was no quality of life."

I agreed, and looked at the man in the casket. It was true, two years living in a rancid nursing home, fighting blindness, confusion, and long days of loneliness broken up only by lunch, dinner, and trips to the bathroom was no way to live.

Nancie again bawled, dropping her head suddenly into her arms, drowning out the quietness of the soft murmurs.

A few of my aunts, the ones that lived out of state, or ones who weren't completely repulsed by Nancie in general, probably appealing to the kinder part of their nature, walked up and hugged her, sharing comforting thoughts and reassuring back rubs.

"I cant stand her," my Uncle Ernie said, looking back to me. "She's such a phony."

My uncle was right, the word phony made the perfect description, it was created for such a person. I told him it was the right word choice.

He leaned slightly toward me, "I can't bring myself to even go near her."

"I know," I said, shaking my head in agreement.

Primo Pauletti, Pop Pop, Continued...

At the funeral home my grandfather's casket sat on the opposite wall from where my grandmother's did the year before. The chairs were all turned the other way but everything else was different: the bouquets surrounding the casket, the mints and tissue boxes on every side table, the soft bulbs reflecting off the cranberry rug, flushing everything in a soft pink hugh.

My mom, Nancie, and Pop Pop's sister Mary Kanyock sat in the first three seats against the side wall. My brothers and I, along with Aunt Steffie, my father, and my Uncle George (my Aunt Mary's son) sat in the remaining seats that L-ed out parallel to the casket. Behind us, some of the rows of padded wooden chairs were filled with family and close friends that had payed their respects and sat conversing amongst each other.

The first people to come through was an old couple.

"Your father was a good friend," the little man said to my mom. "And a good person. I'm sorry."

He made his way down the line shaking hands; his wife did the same repeating her condolences. The old guy's white collared shirt was tucked into his chest far above his belly button. His short white hair thinned at the back of his head but grew thicker where his big square glasses clung snuggly around his ears.

As he got close, some distant memory faught it's way forward. I recognized the hunched old timer, it was Mr. Serafino, the barber, twelve years later, twelve years older. He came up to me and told me he was sorry. Before I could say anything, Mr. Serafino and his wife, without hesitation, continued on, out of the room, and out the door. I don't know if he knew who I was, or even remembered that he had given me haircuts, either way I was upset with myself for not saying something in time. There was a good chance I would never see him again.

Primo Pauletti, Pop Pop

In July I was headed home from work in the passenger seat of my boss' truck when my mom called, "Are you almost home?" she asked.

I told her I was.

"I don't want you to be the last one to know," she continued, wasting little time. "Pop Pop passed away today." She was crying by the time she finished.

I put my head down and let the words sink in. I sucked in a giant breath and my heart began to race, pounding heavily in my chest. The rest of the way home I remained quiet.

It was only a week before my mom brought up that Pop Pop's doctor was going to try some new kind of medication for his...., one that would put him at a much higher risk for infection. She reminded me of the DNR (Do not resuscitate) in Pop Pop's will, and said she had talked to the nurses about giving him . I had heard bad news like this many times with nothing coming of it. Changes in medication and new treatments were the norm.

After suffering in a nursing home for the last two years, blind, confused, and alone, it wasn't a complete surprise to hear the news. Though no amount of preparing could ever dull the pain of hearing, and then believing, someone is gone.

I thought back on his life. My grandfather was known by a lot of names: Dad, Pop Pop, Primo, Pete, Uncle Pre, Scrappy. I thought that alone was a good measure of the quality of one's life. He was a husband, brother, father, grandfather, and friend to many people.

To me, though, he was more than any one name or any one label, to me he was a teacher. When I was young, Pop Pop would show me just the right way to tie up the tomato plants, or plant rose bushes for Grandma on the side of the house, mow the lawn or oil his .22. He told me time and again, always with a smile and within earshot of Grandma, "Never get married Jonny, never get married." And he warned me, against my will, not to start shaving until I absolutely had to.

He told me about his sister Mary in Pennsyvania, laughed when he recited stories about him and Uncle Chet.

My grandfather taught me about bravery and the true meaning of integrity. He loved nothing more than watching my face squint with bewilderment or light up in awe when he shared his stories from WWII. His face lit up, he sat up straight, and used his hands to orchestrate the story and show me how big something was. From the time he spent a month aboard ship heading to the other side of the world, helping the chef in the kitchen, sleeping in narrow bunk beds, watching, somehow, everybody else aboard ship get seasick except for him, to the time he and his company dynamited an old stump in the oppressive jungles of Burma and sent a fifteen-foot python sailing though the air and into the ethereal world of his stories.

The more time I spent thinking, the more paths opening up. Never again will we sit on the swing in the backyard and share stories, sit in the living room with Uncle Ernie and talk about politics, football, or the Yankees. Never again will I get phone calls in the late evenings about interesting shows on the Discovery Channel on dinosaurs or the history or our solar system, enthusiastically explaining to me over the phone the newest fossil findings or the latest scientific opinions on how our moon was formed.

And now there it was, just like that. An unassuming call on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon changed everything. A new chapter in my life was beginning, in my brother's lives, in my Mom's life.

Both of the only grandparents I ever really knew were now dead. When I was young, and this very moment seemed so far away, the voice inside my head told me this would happen. Anyone, I think, when they reach a certain age can't help but extrapolate the future and what it might be like. But every time I thought of losing my grandparents, I secretely, somewhere deep down, was always skeptical. That somehow all of it was not true. How could it be? It always seemed too far away ever to worry about.

Now reality was checking up on me, as it did on occasion, and reminding me once again I was wrong, that my love was useless, that life moves on and people die. Its shock followed my adrenaline down my body and into the ends of my fingers and toes.

The bond I had with Pop Pop was different than the one I shared with Grandma. This didn't hurt more, only differently. They both taught me things and gave advice on life, but Pop Pop showed me how to mow the lawn, talked to me about WWII, guy things. And I was a guy--or at least some day I was going to be. Our bond was different in an equal and opposite way. I realized then that all the stories, all the advice and suggestions Pop Pop shared weren't just passing the time or makng interesting conversation. He was teaching me what he knew after living a full life and preparing me for my own life, one that he wouldn't be around for every time I needed help or a bit of advice. I had only known him for a small portion of his life. The pictures and trinkets he shared with me from his past were only the surface of a much deeper sea, one that held a lifelong compilation of living, learning and experience. Whether we knew it or not, he was sharing with me the invaluable knowledge of life, earning by living his own, in the precious time we had together on the back swing or living room couch. And now I was on my own, left behind. It was time to start my own journey through life, and learn as much as I could not just for me, but for anyone that would be willing to listen at any point in the future.

My grandfather not only taught me how to do the right thing--everybody knows how to do somehting right--but why doing it was so important. That doing the right thing, working hard, and staying honest with ourselves and others was the key to having good friends and living a good life. To always help when you can, lie only when you have to, and never take advantage of anybody.

Haircut, Continued 2...

If Pop Pop didn't get a haircut with me, he sat in the corner near the fake ..plant and flipped through National Geographic magazines or that day's paper, looking up every once in a while to see how I was doing.

The barber stared intently at my head as he worked, closing his fingers on my hair with one hand and snipping off the ends with the other.

He said nothing until he made his final cuts and took a step back, "There you go son."

I turned my head from side to side as I inspected my new due.

"All set?" Pop Pop asked as I jumped down from the chair.

"All set."

Sometimes Pop Pop would get caught up in a conversation about baseball or the recent news stories he had seen the night before. I never had to wait long before we made our way back to the car.

"Okay," Pop Pop said turning the key. "Let's get some ice cream." We got ice cream every time he took me for a hair cut when it wasn't winter.

I pressed my face up to the freezer glass and inspected the flavors. I could never decide. I usually picked mint chocolate chip, not because I liked mint or chocolate (which I did) but because green was my favorite color.

"Thanks Pop Pop," I said, trying to hold the glob of freezing ice cream in my mouth.

Haircut, Continued...

"Hey Paul," Pop Pop said when we went in. "How ya doin?"

The inside of the barber shop was warm, even in the summer with air conditioning, always a few degrees away from being uncomfortable. Three chairs sat against the left side of the shop, in front of big mirrors, opposite the same amount of windows that overlooked thick vegetation and the stream somewhere below.

"Give him a bowl cut," Pop Pop announced as the barber grabbed a booster seat from under the counter. I jumped up mom one fluid motion and was ready.

"Let me grab a bowl from the back," the barber said, adjusting the giant bib's collar around my neck. The smurk in the corner of his mouth gave him away.

The barber was ten or so years younger than Pop Pop, still an old guy by my account. He wore big, almost square glasses against his small, silver topped head. Every time I saw him he wore the same white barber coat, sometimes with a towel draped around his neck.

Haircut

When my hair began to grow passed my ears, it was time for a hair cut. Pop Pop usually took me. We jumped into his maroon Buick LaSabre and made our way to the barber shop near downtown Southington, the same place he had been going to get his hair cut for the past twenty years. Pop Pop didn't get many haircuts anymore, but every once in a while, sitting side by side, we both had our 'ears lowered' together.

The barber shop wasn't far.

"All these buildings here," Pop Pop explained after we parked, leaning forward and peering out the windshield. "They all used to be manufacturing businesses. Big time operations."

Now, all the two-story brick buildings were empty, they had been for years, a relic of the not-too-distant past of Connecticut's industry and manufacturing era.

The barber shop stood across the street from the weathered bricks and boarded up windows of the old buildings. A small brook dumped out under the road beside the shop, in the middle of the quiet street, centered between a liqueur store on one end of the road and a butcher shop on the other, both in sight from the sidewalk where Pop Pop parked.

Wash Room

As I grew, so did my curiosity.

"Pop Pop," I asked, pointing to the rubber hose that fed from the
washer, along the shelf, and out the window. "Why'd you do that."

He turned from searching for string in the white metal cabinets on the
other side of the window. The washroom, which was an area between the
door from the garage and the base of the steps leading to the kitchen,
always seemed to be dimly lit. Opposite the washer and dryer were more
white cabinets filled with snacks, usually chips, Oreos, or coconut
cookies. Next to that sat a tall metal tank that Pop Pop called the
'water heater.' Only one light bulb hung on the open joists at the
ceiling with a small string pull chain hanging down above the ironing
board below the window. Usually Nancie's drying cloths hung on the rod
that separated most of the wash room from the rest of the garage
level. The whole area was about the size of the upstairs bathroom.

"That's so the water from the washer doesn't go down the drain," he
said, stepping over and adjusting the duct tape spread across the base
of the window, sealing the rubber hose between the sill and glass.
"That way all that water doesn't go into the septic tank."

I had always wondered about the black hose that ran from the window,
across the back sidewalk, and down into the yard behind the garden. I
hadn't seen that at any other house I'd ever been to.

When the washer drained, and I saw the arched gush of soapy water
spring up from the grass in the backyard, I would always run over to
it and run my hand through its warm stream. White soap residue and
little bits of lint outlined the discharge area with fan-shaped
patches of pushed grass. Sometimes the soap would bubble and build up
into small cloud-like blobs--which I quickly smacked or kicked away
into hundreds of smaller bubbles, floating and disappearing across the
lawn.

More Crap

Aunt Steffie's garage smelled just like it always did, Windex and leather.

"You know, poor Nancie is sick again," she said to me, lifting a shopping bag out of her trunk.

I grabbed another bag out of the back, "Aunt Steffie, Nancie lies to make you feel bad. There's no way she could be sick as often as she says."

My aunt's eyes squinted and her lips drew together. I continued, "She does drugs and that's where the money goes."

"You can't tell me what I can do with my money," she shot.

"You're right," I said, puzzled. As much money as I could save her, I would never try and tell someone what they should do with their own money. "She's taken thousands of dollars from you guys. In the last year alone she's racked up seventy grand in debt. Where do you think that all goes?"

I tried to control my growing anger but the suppression made my heart palpitate deeper into my chest.

"Boy your mother has you buffaloed," she said, staring

"Aunt Steffie," my voice cracked. "That's so ridiculous to say. I don't even get it."

"All your mother thinks about is money," she continued. "She's jealous."

"Nancie takes all that money and my mom is the jealous one?" the question was more to myself. "I gotta go." I placed the grocery bag inside the door and walked back through the garage and down the hill in the backyard.

I had to do something, things were getting ridiculous.

A Cycle, Continued...

...

Looking back, I don't know if I can find blame.

At fifteen Nancie ran away after her self induced 'rough childhood' of never listening, screaming and throwing tantrums, not trying in school, and always bringing home every stray cat and dog in the neighborhood. She took up hitchhiking and eventually made her way to California. There, she met a guy who probably killed people, and was introduced to the Hell's Angels gang. Throughout those years she had money sent to her to help her and her friends keep up their drug addictions, where she contracted Hepatitis C from sharing heroin needles.

At twenty seven she came to Connecticut where she moved back into twenty-seven Autumn Drive--with Art, a Hell's Angel gang member that no one was comfortable around. They were both treated like royalty: free food catered to Nancie's door, free utilities and full use of the washer and drier, (and most of the time Grandma did it for them.)

For several decades she drained them of what money they had in their retirement--forcing them to live more conservatively and with less amenities--to the tune of thousands and thousands of dollars, all for the continuation of Nancie's addictions, credit cards, car payments, and insurance bills. The whole time my grandparents turned a blind eye, blatantly denying the truth, or believing the next fairy tale of 'quitting drugs and starting a new life.' In and amongst those monthly, sometimes weekly bills, Nancie got my grandparents to pay for her wedding with Ken and her time at Tunxis Community College--hiding all this information from my mom--the one who started working at a young age, never asked for anything, and did what she could on her own, because she was the 'greedy' one after all.

In three years alone--the three before Pop Pop got sick--she took them for thirty thousand dollars. That reveal led to the discovery of more money lost, hundreds of thousands of dollars from both my grandparents and Steffie, a reverse mortgage, and the extent of the enabling that had been going on Nancie's entire life, all a vision of what a virus can turn into when its not only left alone, but allowed, fed, and encouraged to spread and reach its toxic seeds into every crevice of the family.

Nancie changed her last name to her birth name, Nancie McKenna, and like a virus that consumes all it can of its host, moved on. She washed her hands of the family that took her in, loved her, took care of her, leaving what it was and what it could have been in the ruins of what is: with no money, the bank owning the majority of the house, and my inability to buy it at the only chance I had. All because Nancie needed her fix.

When we tried to warn of its danger, Pop Pop denied it, Grandma lied about it, Aunt Steffie flared into bursts of anger and spite.The perfect cycle of a virus, a parasite, took its course, right under our very eyes and lowered guards.

Can someone blame a virus? It doesn't have the mental capacity to understand what it was made to do.

I can.

A Cycle

Now I'm in the calm after the storm--and it's worse than the calm before the storm because this quiescence is final. No matter how hard I try, how passionate I feel, there is no going back.

The epoch of Nancie is over, its cycle complete, all too hideous and bitter to take. When Grandma took her home for that first month, she made a decision to keep her against the doctor's warning. What other loving, caring, selfless person would do otherwise? The mother instinct kicked in and that was that, she was adopted, because my grandmother had a good heart.

Smoking

Just before Nick and Jay were born I had managed to get my mom to stop smoking--or maybe Nick and Jay managed to do it, without even trying. School had taught me how harmful cigarettes could be: cancer causing, bad for your teeth, tar build up on your lungs. I didn't want that for my mom, it was my job to let her know the dangers of what she was doing. But for some reason she persisted for the longest time. Science shows and evening news statistics helped prove my point again and again. She didn't smoke a pack a day like some people--the ones on the tobacco videos in school--but any amount of smoking wasn't worth the risk, not to me.

Like my father and beer, I didn't understand the connection, or the appeal. How could someone get enjoyment out of inhaling smoke? When I breathed smoke from a campfire or charcoal grill, all it ever did was forcep a sharp pain up my nose and to the back of my throat, sending me coughing and sneezing.

Some of my mom's friends from work smoked, and I guessed she smoked there too, not just on the back deck at our house. One time I saw my Aunt Nancie smoking at a family party--legs crossed, wrist bent holding the cigarette, chatting with one of my older cousins who held a cigarette of her own.

My mom never disagreed when I told her it was unhealthy, "I know it's bad, I know."

Again I didn't get it. She knew it was wrong but didn't mind? I didn't care whether or not it was my new baby brothers that made her stop--and not my long standing campaign, I was just glad she quit.

Nancie's Back Bedroom

When Nancie was at Grandma's, my brothers and I always went up to see her. Her room, filled with pictures of foreign landscapes, dream catchers, Steven King books, and bizarre beaded jewelry hanging off every lamp, doorknob, and drawer handle, made the room slightly more exciting than the rest of the house. MTV was usually on, or a recent movie--and never a game show. Like our own rooms, her's was messy, and her carefree attitude made us feel like she was one of us. We got our fill when she was around.

She liked it when we were around, "That picture there," she laughed, looking at an old wrinkled up fellow on a horse drawn carriage. "That was in Ireland. We rode with him for a while before I asked if I could take his picture."

Ireland wasn't the only place she went to, her and Uncle Ken also went to Holland and ... Every time she came back she had new stories to tell.

Nick and Jay stood around and followed their Aunt Nancie's movements with their big heads, barely balancing them on their little frames.

"How do you read so much?" Jason asked in his three year old accent, noticing a three inch thick book marked with a bookmark in the center.

Nancie told him that it was easy when you like reading. Jason did have a valid point, Nancie's room was filled with books, under the bed, a book shelf near the window, stacks beside her bed. She always had a book, and it wasn't just easy reading, it seemed as if she went through a book every other day.

When she wasn't around Grandma and Pop Pop didn't want anyone going in Nancie's room when she wasn't around--and we agreed, for the most part, because of how spiritually active it was. Nick and Jay snuck in one or two times before they were old enough to care about 'foot of the bed ghosts' or Bloody Mary, and were quickly led out of the room.

"You don't want to mess anything up in there," Grandma would say. "Your Aunt Nancie will get mad."

I never saw my Aunt Nancie get mad, except maybe when she relayed one of her stories of karate chopping some guy in the neck or arguing with patients at work.

It Starts, Continued...

...

By the time we got to Curtis Street it was completely dark. Ken's vehicle wasn't in the driveway. Hands on the glass, I peered into the garage door window and could only see Nancie's car inside.

"Nancie said something about Ken not being home all day," my mom said, making her way to the front walkway. "Who knows, maybe he talked to Nancie at some point and made up his mind he wasn't coming home right away."

The lights in the living room and back bedroom were on, the television was too, reflecting repeated off the top of the casement window frames. We rang the doorbell and quickly got an answer from the dogs.

"Shutup!" a shrill voice echoed from behind the door.

A second later a shadow took up space in the tall decorative window beside the door.

"Oh, what are you guys doing here?" Nancie slurred as she opened the door.

My mom moved passed her and made her way up the steps, "We want to know what's going on."

"Why'd bring Jonathan?" I think she said, looking down at her own outfit. She was wearing lose fitting sweatpants and a stained white tee shirt hanging off one shoulder. "Don't him to see me like this."

"Don't worry about it," I smiled at her. The situation was more awkward than I thought it would be. Her hair was down and stood up in spots like spider webs bending in a light breeze. Her eyelids drooped and opened half way when she attempted to blink, revealing her beady, bloodshot eyes.

Nancie looked up to me with veneration, quickly blinking and nodding her head. Her lips quivered but remained silent. Unsure how to react, I turned and made my way up the steps.

"My god, Nancie," my mom said, with the same shocked tone she would give to show her disappointment when she discovered I ran through mud with my new shoes or broke a fifty dollar wine glass because it had to be used as part of a Lego tower.

Nancie came up the steps without shutting the door, "Jonathan, you're so handsome. Just loo at you." She continued her stare.

What could I say to her? What could I do? Did my mom want me to say something? She was more of an adult than I was, she knew Nancie far longer than I did. I wasn't even that comfortable around my godmother, especially after her midnight phone calls, definitely not now.

For the next twenty minutes my mom and I (mostly my mom) attempted to talk with Nancie--all to no avail. After a short while it was clear we were getting nowhere. Not only could she not comprehend our pleas to find out why she was depressed and threatening suicide, she stopped attempting to talk with us and got easily caught up with imaginary friends (it seemed) and mumbled conversations with herself.

My mom sighed and whispered to me, "Let's go, she's too far gone. She just wanted attention."

She told Nancie goodbye and went down the steps to the front door. I stayed behind and took another look at my godmother, mouth open, lightly moaning. I touched her arms and hugged her, "Maybe you should try and lay down or something, go to sleep."

Nancie looked up at me with the same dumb look of reverence she had moments before. I left her frozen in her pose and walked out the front door, closing it behind me.

It Starts

In the spring of 2007 my Mom got a phone call from Nancie.

"Hello," she answered, opening the back door to the deck, her favorite spot to retreat to when she talked on the phone. I followed her outside and into the abnormally warm evening. The sun, through the trees to the west, floated on the crest of Southington Mountain, casting an orange plasma-like glow through the trees.

"Nancie?" my Mom said, half asking a question. I saw her curious expression turn quizzical. "What's wrong with you?"

A few more questions were asked with no apparent answers. I turned from the setting sun and leaned on the white-washed deck railing, now listening intently to the conversation taking place on the lower half of the deck.

My Mom turned and stared through me, as if letting me know something was up. "Don't talk like that."

I didn't know what to expect, except maybe one of Nancie's 'drunk or drugged up' phone calls, the kind I got in the middle of the night a few years prior.

"Nancie," my Mom sighed heavily. "What's going on?"

My Mom's questioning wasn't getting her anywhere. Long silences were broken up by asking Nancie if she was still on the other line. My Mom sighed again when she lowered the phone from her ear. My eyebrows rose in anticipation.

"Nancie's wacked out," she said, staring down at the phone. "I couldn't understand half the stuff she was trying to stay. She said something about slitting her wrists and how depressed she is."

"Really?" I asked in a monotone voice, concerned and not totally surprised.

"Who knows what kind of shit she's on right now," my Mom said, glancing at her watch. After a short silence she continued. "I don't know what to do."

The sun had now completely set and the blue sky above the horizon was quickly fading into vivid pastels of pink and red. Night time had already fallen on the woods behind the house, only the dark branches and their new foliage stood out against the dimming sky.

Finally she spoke, "If I go over there, would you come with me?"

"It's that bad?" I could hear it in my Mom's voice, it was.

"I don't know," she exhaled. "What if I don't go and something does happen?"

Now I paused. "Good point, I'll go if you really think it's a good idea...if it sounds that bad, we should."

"I think we should, and you coming might make her think twice about what's she's doing."

The thought was logical, especially trying to prevent anything from happening. I could think of nothing worse than the regret of not doing anything. The pros outweighed the cons. We left a few minutes later for the other side of town.

...

Paint

After Pop Pop went to live in the nursing home up the road, and it was clear he would not be coming back, my Mom made the last minute decision to go to an elder attorney. The Summit, the fine nursing home facility--complete with rancid hallways, sad pruned faces, and palpable depression--wanted the money that was due to them for the initial three months he spent there while he tried to recuperate. With little knowledge of the law in cases like these, the decision to seek help proved critically helpful. Grandma had to spend what she could, the attorney advised, bringing down the amount of money she had to her name. This helped with getting Pop Pop on state insurance.

I got a job out of the deal: painting the house. The new color had a hint more purple than the old slate gray that had clung so long to the cedar shingles that were finally starting to peel and chip, especially on the North side of the house, where the summer tomatoes sucked up most of the day's sun. I started the job on the opposite side, the South side, the smallest side. It wasn't half way into the first day that I realized the job would take a lot longer than I originally guessed. The job took even longer than my second estimate, and finally finished three weeks later.

Months later, when Grandma passed away, I got sick at the fact that the new paint job helped in selling the house. I felt like I had contributed in some way, unknowingly betrayed myself at a cost far greater than the price of the house. These emotions were the first thing that came to mind, and, right or wrong, I felt them. 

Knowledge of the Past Continued...

...

My Mom later told me about another incident, one that finally explained to me why my Aunt Norcie and Uncle Ernie were closer with my grandparents than with most of the other people in the family, or at least explain why they always stayed at their house when they came to town.

"It was not too long after they had been married there was a family get-together in one of the legion halls in town," she explained. "I don't know what it was for, maybe a birthday or Forth of July. Anyway, Norcie and Ernie were there, and because of the big deal Aunt Sophie made about the whole thing, nobody said more than a few words to them."

Her tone changed slightly as she continued, signaling the important part of the story, "Everyone was sitting at tables and made no effort to make room for them."

Everyone acted as if the giant elephant in the room wasn't there, my Mom explained. It reminded me of middle school, during quiet time in the cafeteria after we had finished eating. Everyone wanted to talk, strained not too, only able to shoot odd stares and anxious glances at one another under the carful watch of the faculty. Everybody had something to say, but nobody dare speak up.

"Grandma was the only one in the family that went up to them and told them to sit at their table," my Mom nodded her head slightly as she spoke. "She was the only one. Everyone else in the family was weird like that."

The story made me feel good, it's what anybody should do in a situation like that. Besides, who wouldn't want to converse with Norcie? She was the nicest person I ever met, smiled all the time, and never possessed anything resembling a bad mood for as long as I have known her. Ernie too, he was the type of guy people admired. Intelligent, serving in the air force, well-cultured and down to earth. He traveled the world. He had integrity. They weren't--or shouldn't have been--outcasts, they were jewels in the family.

"I'll never forget that story, " she said. "Grandma was the only one who did the right thing. I don't really have a memory of the whole thing, but that's what Grandma told me."

Knowledge of the Past

My Aunt Sophie didn't like the fact that my Aunt Norcie 'ran away' and married Ernest Yeager.

My Mom told me the story. "Aunt Sophie blamed her for leaving the family, especially her father, who was sick most of his life," she talked as if filling me in on some long kept secret. "Plus Uncle Ernie isn't catholic, and that made it one-hundred times worse, Aunt Sophie was always strict like that."

"But didn't they love each other?" I asked.

A short silence preceded her next thought, "Yeah but sometimes...that's how people are."

I didn't understand, and logged it away to 'learn the family at some point in the future' part of my brain, the same part that holds....[elaborate]

My Mom later told me about another incident, one that finally explained to me why my Aunt Norcie and Uncle Ernie were closer with my grandparents than with most of the other people in the family, or at less explain the reason why they always stayed at their house when they came to town.

...

Through the Window

Since the house was sold, visiting my Aunt Steffie never felt the same. I was visiting only half of what I should be. I looked out of my aunt's kitchen window--just as I looked up the hill from Grandma's kitchen--and laid eyes upon the house owned by a stranger.

It looked the same for the most part, save for the leaves neatly blown to the edges of the woods. Orange couches leaned against the house, probably a symptom of not being 'settled in' yet.

The dark brown swing frame still stood in it's spot, in front of the pear tree and above the pink bricks, now cracking into cement dust from years of weathering and use.

I never observed the house long, the thought of not being able to walk down the hill and into the thick zusha grass proved unsettling, and a deep, disturbing feeling crept over my body. It wasn't right, and the emotions that flowed from it didn't bode well with the truth of it all.

I have to turn away quick, or the memories have time to manifest themselves and try to bring me down into the depths of despair once again.