December 27, 2012 - 1:25
This home is the polar opposite of inhospitable. My temperature, hunger, and temperament are constantly being gauged by my grandmother. My grandfather hates it when I leave to go any elsewhere, and he has started calling me "my girl". "My girl can't leave."
Since my mother died he has latched onto me more than he used to. Sometimes I think he wants to believe I am her, for just a moment. He called me Itty Bitty Fritty on accident. But he also calls me the name of my second cousin, Greer, occasionally.
Today we shoveled the driveway in a joint effort, but typically all he wants to do is sit and watch closed caption TV together. I am happy to do this.
They go to bed fairly early, and as I must be quiet, I have difficulty wearing myself into a state of weariness at night.
So, scouring their pantry for sedating fluids just now, I found only dessert sherry and suddenly realized they don't really drink. And I rarely see them drunk, BUT I don't forget a dinner last year, when a cousin said, "At least she's in a better place." And my grandfather, who had been drinking, said brashly, broken,
"No, she's not. This is the better place. She's supposed to be here." And let out a bellow in the decibel of the near deaf, that I now know he makes in his sleep, followed by sobbing. The torrential sobbing of the occasionally drunk.
That's I how feel lately. A little bit sometimes more.
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