Sunday November 1, 1992
Nick rides shotgun as Ned drives with the game on just the front speakers. Irene, stretched out in the back seat solemnly working a crossword puzzle, had gotten a message while they were at home group and ended up talking to her older brother Steve for over an hour, more than they’d talked the past several years put together.
Trips to see his grandma Joyce were, to say the least, eventful, and somewhat rare; it was though she lived much further away. Nick remembers a couple of visits where Irene would go in first then signal Ned to bring in the boys after a few minutes. Over the years it became clear that Joyce usually started drinking as soon as her soaps were over, during the week of course, then on weekends it was a roll of the dice.
Visits were also timed for when the younger brother Andrew was, well, maybe at the VA hospital, staying with a…friend, or just not around. Joyce didn’t keep phone numbers written down anywhere, or else would hide them too well to be of use, since Andy had the tendency to dial numbers and practice his improvisational skills.
From what Nick could tell, Steve planned to make sure Andy was occupied today since he had concerns about Joyce becoming more forgetful than usual, as a mixed blessing, even seemingly forgetting to drink. Since her second husband Roger had died when Nick was a kid it seemed her life was all about dealing with Andy’s situation, hell, Andy pretty much is a situation in and of himself.
They arrive and and slowly approach the windowless door of the small, plain peach-colored house with no eaves, just gutters on the front and back. The flowerbeds are overgrown and ridden with weeds soon to mercifully be euthanized by winter’s grip. Irene presses the doorbell but it doesn’t make a sound, at least that they can hear, so she knocks. After about twenty seconds,
“Who’s there?”
“Mom it’s Irene, can we come in?”
Coughing, then, “Helene who?”
“Irene, mom, it’s your daughter.”
The door pops open, “Well hi there, oh you brought some boys.”
They proceed inside while the gals do all the talking and quickly realize there’s nowhere to sit down. Newspapers, magazines are piled everywhere and dirty dishes line he kitchen. The aroma of cigarette smoke is almost welcome compared to what it must be covering up. There is a well-worn recliner with an obviously broken footrest and covered by a dirty afghan. She had been watching something on the TV that’s pretty loud and Ned tries to discreetly shut it off,
“Oh shut that damn thing off so we can talk,” Joyce barks out in a stern manner but with friendly intentions.
Ned finds the power switch then looks around.
“Do any of you want something to drink?” Joyce, short, stocky and graying, faces them in a glass-eyed haze and can’t seem to find any of them.
Irene covers them, “Oh we’re fine, Mom, we were out on a drive and thought we’d stop by.”
“Oh ok, well see…oh, you’re Ned, so good to see you. And this is your boy?”
“This is Nick, our youngest,“ he confirms.
“Hi Gramma, good to see you.”
“Oh, you’re getting so handsome, can I have a hug?”
Nick gives her a hug while trying to catch up with it all. She used to send cards on holidays but not birthdays.
“I bet you have a lot of girlfriends,” as she pokes him on the chest.
“Only the ones that can catch me,” which gets a coughing laugh. Oh my.
Irene jumps in and Ned taps Nick on the shoulder, and motions toward the door, as they were asked to take a look around the place.
Once outside Ned starts, “You’re a soldier for coming along, you didn’t have to.”
“Just felt I should.”
“Well it’s going to be a rough road, she’s only in her sixties but I think you know how that goes.”
“Yeah.”
They turn the corner, “I guess Andy has these streaks and keeps up the place now and then, at least.”
“He’d need a few of those streaks back to back at this point.”
“Yeah, gonna need a new roof soon.”
They stop in the tundra-like back yard which hadn’t been mowed in a while, plain as day save for a rough rectangular patch about 20 by 30 feet, to which Ned points out,
“I think ol’ Rog had a garden back here that never got seeded, just grew over like those damn flowerbeds.”
They head around the side toward the tiny single-car detached garage and lift up the door. Inside it is a ‘73 Maverick with four flat tires, an open trunk with various parts inside, and too much junk to walk around it. Nick gets the dark feeling there’s a stash of smutty magazines somewhere in here but would never have the nerve nor desire to find out.
“She used to drive that.”
“Would make a cool project.”
Ned laughs, “That’s the spirit.”
“Should we rescue Mom?”
Ned sighs “Let’s get at it.”
Back inside they find Irene showing Joyce a photo album and pointing out who everyone is. Nick takes one last look around and zeroes in on what he was subconsciously looking for, the photo that he’d only seen a few times of a young corporal, Thadeus Rutledge, one of the first to fall in Korea.
* * * * *
“So she’s just super hot?” Deej is lit up as can be.
“Yeah, Steve married her after, well, his first wife got pregnant and he wouldn’t have it.”
She makes a disgusted look.
“That’s a good chunk of why Mom doesn’t talk to him often, and just does his own thing, travels for work, all that.”
“So he remarried Debbie and she’s younger?”
“When we were little, around kindergarten he got to meet a local pageant winner and the rest is history.”
“Wow you had a day.”
Nick had the back seat on the quiet ride home after lunch with Steve and Debbie and was able to doze off then took Deej to Subway after a bike ride to clear his head some.
“Yeah, so it makes sense why Mom was always closer to Dad’s family since hers was…”
“And her younger brother, Andy, you used to talk about him?”
“Yeah probably in a mean way, he was at the VFW. I guess they won’t sell him booze, he has to win drinks at pool or such.”
“Wow.”
“The place is not being kept up so it’s up to Mom and Steve to figure out options, hopefully he’s not gonna be cheap about it.”
“Well he did reach out to your mom at least.”’
“Yeah, we’ll see.”
“So…Debbie…still got it huh?”
“Oh man, yeah, I guess at first Mom thought she was just some trollop in for the good life but they’re still together, but then we only know their side of it. She brought a bunch of pictures, their place, dogs, vacations.”
“And wore tight jeans.”
“Yeah, it was something else, she likes to hug full body too, and free with the complements, was just…a lot.”
“Probably a mixed blessing.”
“I’d appreciate anything you can do to fix the weirdness.”
Deej puts her ankles around his, “We’ll see what we can arrange.”
Without thinking, Nick had gotten a tuna since that’s the first thing he ever had from Subway, and she’d already warned him he better drink a lot of Sprite after finishing it.
“So how is your mom?”
Nick takes a deep breath, “About what you’d expect…it was in the back of our minds, you know, all the alcoholism and smoking, just a house of cards.”
“Sounds like your gramma and Andy are codependent.”
Nick chuckles thoughtfully, “Yeah…yeah a good way to put it. The poor dummy just never grew up.”
They each take a few pensive sips.
“Wanna come say hi to Mom?”
“Yeah.”