In Connecticut

On a Sunday I woke up when my mother called. Phone vibrating against the lamp on the nightstand and through my skull. A gut of Taco Bell and three bottles of wine, two hours of sleep and I answered my phone.

“James,” my mother said.

“Hi, Ma.”

“Listen... my mom's not doing well.”

“I know, Ma. You all right?” Still asleep.

“Yes, but, she just had surgery and they aren't sure if she'll survive another one.”

“Christ.”

“Yeah. So, they are saying it could be any time, now. I wanted to give you a heads up in case you wanted to throw together an overnight bag. It could, you know, be anytime.”

“Weeks? Days?”

“They don't know. She could surprise us and have a couple years still. They don't know.”

“Okay, Ma.”

“I'm going to let you go. I'm trying to...”

“I know. I love you.”

“I love you. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Crawled out of bed. Onto the floor.

“Everything all right?” Elle asked from the bed.

“I don't know.” Slid into the bathroom, pissed and drank from the tap. The circles under my eyes were darkening and I thought they looked red also, but it had been a rough couple of months and I wasn't surprised.

“What'd your mom say?” she asked.

“My grandmother's not doing well. She wanted me to be prepared.”

“Oh shit, I'm sorry.”

“Thanks. It's okay. I might have to disappear to Connecticut at some point. Don't know when.”

“Of course.”

The slime of morning fell away over the next couple of hours. I made eggs and toast and listened to a few records and when it was near eleven Elle decided she would be visiting her parents so I poured a glass of wine and a few more and we watched a show I was forcing on her.

Hours passed and my living room grew dark and the wine was almost gone. We mumbled back and forth to each other about how bored we were and suggested all of the things we could but wouldn't do. Paint. Play music. Write. We decided we'd drive to the store. Get more wine. Maybe the things we'd need for baking something or other.

My phone vibrated itself off the table and I thought I should really turn that setting down.

“Hi ma,” I said.

“They think it may be tonight.” Her voice was stone.

"Shit. Christ.”

“I am driving down now,” she said. If you want to ride down with us, or drive on your own, or you can stay. I know you work, so...”

 “Ma, just give me a few minutes to make plans. I'll call you back.”

“Okay, but I am leaving soon so don't take long.”

“I got it ma. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Elle looked at me from the couch.

Eyes big.

“I have to go to Connecticut.”

“I know. Do you want me to come?”

“You can if you want, but I don't know when I'll be back. You won't make it to work.”

“Okay.”

“I have to call my job.”

I went to the kitchen and left a voicemail on my boss' phone and finished my wine and thought about being a kid and running through my grandmothers condo with my cousins and that horrible couch in the basement and the portraits of clowns and the framed pencil drawings of my mother and aunts as young girls. The organ and grandfather clock. Ceramic cats and pecan pie. She would swear in french rarely but enough that I'd remember and I stood over the sink in my kitchen, now  a couple decades later, and I put my glass in the sink and pulled my face together before I looked back at Elle.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I have to get ready.”

Called my mother back and threw a toothbrush, pajamas, and socks in a bag and waited.

Elle stayed for a while and I finished what wine was left and we listened to another record and then my mother showed up on my porch.

I went to Connecticut.

My grandmother, my grandmother.

There is nothing I can write here to articulate my love for her.

I stand in the corner of the hospital room.

She is lying in the bed and I am numb. Something inside of me has distanced myself. No, detached. I am not here. She is not her. Her face is distorted and... she is. Not. Her. I refuse it.

Aunts are there. Cousins. I love them all, but I am not there. For hours I sit in the corner and I watch. I write. I drink water and don't understand why hospitals don't have bars and my cousins cry and my aunts cry and an uncle shows up and he cries and I wish I could but I am just not there. That is not my grandmother.

After a long time, a day, she goes, though I have no memory of it.

Only watching my mother crouched over her bed, clutching her hand and whispering in her ear, holding back.

In silence mostly, my mother and I drive home, and I am finishing this story a year and a half later (although quickly) because... I am able to accept it now.

You were loved.

I hope you knew that.

You were good and you were loved.