He tells me afterwards that Aunt G wants me to come to my grandmother’s house to pick out some keepsakes. He advises against it, and his eyes fill with tears. We hug each other gently, gingerly, each of us afraid, I think, that the other might shatter with the grief of it all.
Later, I drive to my grandmother’s. I own nothing connected to her, though when I was a kid she gave me the most perfect present of my childhood. I loved fairy tales, and when she asked me what I wanted for my eighth birthday, I said a crown. At my party, she handed me a silver box, emblazoned with the name of a fancy downtown department store. I opened it and mouth-breathed into exotic layers of blue tissue paper. Underneath was an elegant rhinestone tiara, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I loved it and wore it constantly, mending it when needed with the metal filaments that came inside plastic twist ties.
Now, the idea of having something material to remember my grandmother by feels important.
My aunt meets me on the front stoop and ushers me in after locking the door behind us. I roam through this house I know as well as my own and take in the blended aromas that are nowhere but here in my grandmother’s brick ranch. They are complicated by the smells of illness and the potions of professional cleaners, but still sharply evocative.
The visit doesn’t end badly. I choose three pairs of my grandmother’s iconic dress gloves, the green felt ones she rotated to wear on special occasions and religious holidays. My aunt finds me a paper bag, and I layer them carefully inside. I plan to arrange them inside a glass-fronted shadowbox frame I’ve been saving for something special.
The call comes in as we’re having dinner. My father is up and out of his chair in seconds and takes the call from the living room. When he comes back, he says his sister is very upset; she’s yelling that I came over and stole some things of their mother’s. She wants them back.
The next day, I return the gloves. Later, in the evening, the phone rings. My brother picks up and tells me it’s Aunt G, and she wants to speak with me.
Aunt G tells me that I’ll be happy to learn that she’s donated my grandmother’s gloves to Goodwill. Isn’t that just perfect, she asks?
Sure, I tell her. After we hang up, I stare at the phone long enough for my sister to come looking for me. Long enough to choose between laughing and crying. I make the only reasonable choice.