“I’m fine and thank you for asking. Bones protest and muscles often surrender, to be expected I suppose.”
They embraced, both doing their best to avoid the IV line and pole. He couldn’t help but notice how frail she felt. As he had grown she had retreated, and was now a head shorter. She smelled of her clove tea, of cedar and of dust.
“How are you, dear?”
“Bored. Otherwise, OK.”
“Be careful. Being bored can make you boring.” She smiled at him. “Your mother said you’re not reading much anymore.” Her eyebrows raised in paired question and reprimand.
He shrugged. “Haven’t found any good books is all.” She seemed to make a mental note of that. He watched her sit down gingerly, as if getting it wrong would have consequences the young couldn’t fathom. He wanted to help but was wary of somehow making things worse.
After her first fall, his mother had made Gabriel mow her lawns, occasionally dig out the weeds from her garden and collect her mail on his way home from school. Most of the time he didn’t mind, particularly when he would sit on her front porch and drink iced tea afterwards, legs too long for her chairs and spindly arms glistening with sweat. It was the only time he didn’t think about his acne and the dark fuzz appearing above his lip. They would talk about the books he was reading, about how all his friends wanted to be football players or YouTube stars, but he wanted to be a vet, and about how he regretted not talking to that girl he liked. She listened with all the care of his mother but without the expectations.
He waited until she settled in the chair. “Can I ask you something?”
“Yes, dear.”
“What’s it like? Growing old.”
She nodded, perhaps because at her age everybody asked her that eventually, in their own way. Still, she gave the question due thought. “Well, when you’re young you think it’s never going to happen to you.” She inhaled sharply then, whether because she regretted saying that or because she was short of breath, he couldn’t tell. “In your middle years you’re too busy to think about it. And the latter years? Your body finds a way to remind you every day.” As if to emphasize the point, she shifted in the chair, grunting with effort.
Loved it!
Mark braidwood is my uncle. I love this short story. The small details that add to create a better image of what hospitals are like. Especially the description of, “how the polyester curtains tried to keep the sunlight out”.
I adored that as readers we could see the depths of ones conversation between a grandmother and her grandson . How their conversation jumped from one topic to the next. Starting with Gabriel the young grandson, asking Eunice his grandmother, what she thought about death. Then finishing with how dearly she missed Jack, her late husband who had died in the war. This then lead to whether or not the pair believed in God. Gabriel started an amazing offer of if God exists, then why did he create a war in which his grandfather died fighting. Overall I really enjoyed Mark Braidwood’s short story.