Old Story

I took a pair of teacups to the front deck and there she sat, head tilted back with a subtle smile, happy as a lizard on a heat rock. The smell of baking asphalt and sweet chlorophyl hung on a calm breeze, the warmth of late spring draping itself around us. I looked at the sun and in the glare I saw a halo. It put me in mind of blanket forts we used to make as kids, those thick, white hospital sheets draped around us with a light shining down. She was wearing one over her legs. Might have been more for the tremors than the cold. I sat the cup down next to the speculoos; thin, caramelised biscuits that are neither cookie nor shortbread properly, these ones stamped with pictures of different animals. I sat in the empty chair on the other side of the table, put a squeeze of lemon in and lifted the cup to my nose, a habit I picked up from her. Subtle hint of citrus. Not from the lemon, but from the Earl Grey’s trademark bergamot.

She always told me, drink something hot when it’s hot, cold when it’s cold. Regulate your body temperature.

She came to, slowly pulling back the curtains from her eyes and blinking heavily.

“Did you sleep?”

“Nah. Plenny time ta sleep latah.”

I motioned to the cup. She looked at it as excitedly as a kid that’s been offered chocolate.

“Useda sit onna porch with ma grandma meself,” she said. It always took me a moment to lean into her accent. First generation immigrant. When it attached itself I went home talking like her for at least a week.

“When was that?”

“Oh my,” she put one hand up to the years etched in her face. “Been a bit. Back then this useda be a busy place. There’as the military base up there, fish plant down there, gas station, half a dozen corner stores. The school – well you’d know.” She was referring to the old elementary school, now converted to the world’s worst apartments, five minutes down the road. Her house was situated at the crest of a backroad from which she could see anyone coming or going. If she looked out the window and saw our car coming there was enough time for her to hobble to the fridge and take a pie out. Apfel or kirsch for me, thanks.

The front of her house was lined by a flower garden. It was nothing like the hobby garden my grandfather used to keep in the backyard, a small square packed with cabbage, squash, turnip, carrots, potatoes, lined with string beans. Hearty hodgepodge veg. With every year I watched the patch grow lighter as grass took over it and absorbed the nutrients left behind from his tending it, each shade putting him further behind the times. Nan’s flower garden was a different thing altogether. The flowers grew where they fell. Yellow daffodils looking curiously around, wondering why they weren’t with their sisters over yon, or the wild rosebush in the middle of the yard. She didn’t fuss over them. “Hafta let em live”, she’d say. My eyes wandered to the patch of marigolds, nestled between some purple lupins and little red fellas I could never remember the name of.

“What was that story you used to tell us about the flowers?”

She looked at me quizzically. Major details were getting fuzzy, never mind something that obscure.

“You used to tell us this story about the sun –“

“Ah!” The light came on. She wet her lips and raised her hands like she was preparing to conduct a symphony.

“Back in old times there was two children lost in the forest. They came cross an old crow that was sittin inna oak tree, hungry as can be. Little one said, ‘can you help us? We’s lost.’ Old Crow said, ‘sure can. Head on down road til you come to a pair of stars in the dark, and you be home in no time.’ Well the little ones headed down and sure anuff, they seen two stars shinin in the dark. But they seen it was – oh, what was it? It was some kinda hound – a wolf. They seen a wolf and Crow tried to trick em so he’d have the leftovas. Mama Raven heard the kinderen cryin and come swoopin down, batterin em with her wings. They was bright white and blinded Old Wolf, who ran scared to end of the forest. Raven looked at die kin- the children and said, ‘why are you so far in the dark?’ The children said, ‘we’re lost now and we can’t find our home’. Raven said to wait, then flew up to Oma Sun and picked some of the flowers that grew all over her body. They burned her body and turned her coal black. She dropped them like rain and they lit the path all the way home.” She pointed one crooked finger to the pathway lined with flowers, the marigolds shining among them and said, “that’s where they come from and that’s why they’s there.”

I sipped my tea and watched as she told the story enthusiastically, waving her hands like Crow and Raven, walking with her fingers for the children, claws spread for the wolf. When she finished I watched her face settle and the light fade from her eyes, as it did.

“Your tea, Nan.”

She turned to the teacup and her eyes lit up like a kid that’s been offered chocolate. It had cooled enough that she was able to sip it.

“Useda sit onna porch with ma grandma meself.”

I nodded.

The long buzz of a cicada broke the silence. A sign of summer.

“They won’t last the winter,” she said, gesturing indistinctly to the flowers with one trembling hand. “But they ain’t sposeda. They gotsta come and go.” She rested her hand on the side of her neck thoughtfully, her fingers instinctively twirling hair that was now short, white, and sparse. Summer clouds or the first snow in late autumn. “That’s the way a pretty much anythin. Comes and goes.”

“You’ve seen a lot, huh?”

She scoffed. “I seen countries come and go. Winter comes for everything.”

She cast her gaze aimlessly around the flowers, the porch, the house, which was surrounded by a mostly flat plain on the coast. There was a tree line across the road, past the bog where she used to get cranberries and eels if meat was short. Nothing grew much passed waist high on account of the year-round cold. Just the flowers sheltered by the one-storey house that had been her home for the better part of a century, and the raggedy maple that was older than even her.

“I watched countries come and go.”

She turned to the teacup and her eyes lit up like a kid that’s been offered chocolate. She had noticed the speculoos. She picked one up, cracked off a bit with her gums and let it sit. Her face receded to the expressionless mask but her eyes remained lit. I took one for myself, bit off one half and crumbled the other, scattering the crumbs at the base of the tree for the old raven that was watching us silently.