The Little Black Book

THE LITTLE BLACK BOOK

by Katie Melissa Eileen Melanson

January 30, 2021.

My grandmother spent a life unequalled in tragedy. Her first husband died of MS. Her second husband was completely beheaded in a car accident. Her brother was murdered with a shovel because he was gay. I apologize for sharing that, but it's the truth. At the end of the day, she had us. These stories only surfaced after her death. I was more sorry to hear of them than you. But I apologize none the less. There is enough sadness everywhere, already.

The time I spent with nan was usually gathering wild berries and flowers and poking around in brooks. The jam was prepared in a thick rolling smoke, delicately wafting through the air at all times; drifting away from long filtered cigarettes, which were the fashion of the day.

Her picture window stood in front of a great jack pine that left a residue on the curled shingles of the roof below it. We would try to peel the sap on the trees and chew it but it was bitter and the tacky mess could not be washed away easily; balsam gum. My godfather chewed it. I couldn't acquire a taste for it, but not for lack of trying. The great, sticky tree was filled, at all times, with any number of birds; waiting, bickering, pining, pleading; for the seeds we kept stocked that hung from the make shift feeder, fashioned with an old yogurt dish and bacon grease to make them stick. Grey jays braved the window ledge to gather seeds from our hands if we yelled after them. You had to imitate their three call rule and chant "Gorbie Gorbie Gorbie" to fetch them. The wooden table where we sat and watched this display was always sidelined with playing cards and a crib board and an ashtray; the standard thick glass kind you'd find at restaurants when it was still socially acceptable to smoke everywhere. Crib was for adults only, for reasons unknown.

I sat amongst the beautiful wooden furniture and mismatched chairs all gleaming with a new finish. We would salvage them from abandoned homes long before antiques were considered valuable and strip them to stain and make new. We left a wind up gramophone behind that I so longed for. Nan said there was no room for it and it was of no use. Before that house caved in completely, I would return by myself to wind it up over and over again. It had just one record.

Her house is buried deep in the woods. With a heavy sigh in the silence; I look over the remnants and boxes and cupboards of scattered contents, in the days following her death. Nan would never approve of this mess. Everyone had been grabbing at the "stuff" they were entitled to. No sit down or remembrance first. Just a pilfered a mess. There are boxes and papers and albums scattered and strewn everywhere in stacks and piles. I just stand there; looking at everything with no emotion and light curiosity, with little desire to touch anything quite yet. Even the birds don't visit as usual and the stillness fills and deadens every part of the house, and especially me.

Everything in this house is makeshift. Chip board walls gleaming with shellac; plywood cupboards salvaged from where ever. It's not much bigger than a camp, really. The linoleum floors are ancient and nothing seems to move; although a house doesn't move in the first place. It seemed at one time that we commanded the floors and the ceilings that are no longer listening.

I finally take a deep breath and decide to thumb through the boxes of photos and scattered memories. My heart is heavy and cautious; fearful even, as though entering a tomb or the grave myself. These are somebody's secrets; but not just somebody. They belong to nanny. These are the things that she did not tell. These guard her heart and you cannot unknow the secrets of someone else's past. You risk not knowing them at all while then knowing them too freely at once.

I examine each thing; paper, photo, worthless costume jewelry; all picked over; all that which nobody wanted. Each little bead that had long torn away and rolled from a half strung string of pearls. I run my thumb across the words of letters; from and to; for hours. I'm seated on that thick linoleum floor; robins egg blue and black on white diamond shaped tile that many houses chose at that time. I suppose it was cheap and in plentiful supply, from a more fashionable city where it didn't sell. It wasn't bad after all, aside all the little burns from flying embers in front of the wood stove, or the odd cigarette cherry that dropped unnoticed and left a black hole. I cautiously examine everything with growing courage and ease; fondness even. She's not there. Nan. She's not here. Slowly this sentiment gathers around me and settles in a little more deeply.

Memoirs, letters, photos all a testament to my existence in this moment, and the realization that somewhere deep inside of me; this must have always been an intrinsic part of my knowing.

Many years earlier, nan had showed me this little trap door she hid under a torn piece of the linoleum in the pantry. She swore me to secrecy and made me promise to never look inside. I would sometimes gaze in it's direction but never dared to fixate on the spot or ponder it's contents. I was respectful like that as a girl and I long for the days, sometimes, when I could bite my tongue like that; so to speak. My mind, for the first time in all of this ordeal, wanders over to this trap door and a light breath settles heavily all through my chest.

I never dared before. I would never break a promise like that to her. I would never. But today there's no one here to break a promise to. There's no one. Just me. Today I am not accountable for that promise, and I feel the irony of her knowing smile on the other side of this sentiment, as though she were still there.

I enter the pantry. It's tiny. Nanny was such a tiny little woman, so all of the small spaces cave in all around me. I loved hugging her on account that she fit inside of me like a small teddy bear, with me standing over her like a giant. I was filled by the protective warmth one feels when enveloping a small child, or in her case, a small woman that was very dear to me.

The warbled table to the left of me is still coated in old white oil paint. We hadn't had the chance to strip and refinish that one yet. It was covered in pots and pans piled half ways to the ceiling. The foot of that table rested directly over a tear in the linoleum that I dared never look squarely upon until now. I breathed deeply and began gently and quietly stacking the pots on the small counter to the other side. One by one, I set everything down lightly so as not to wake the dead. I well up with a sense of foreboding and guilt. There's no need, but I feel it all the same. I was meant to find this but at the cost of so much.

The linoleum floor had been pressed down so long that it was stuck and I didn't want to tear it any more so ran a bread knife under the edges until I could gently pull it away. The plywood is all swelled up from moisture and dampness and is quite stuck. In all probability, it had not been opened since that day she had sworn me to secrecy in the first place.

I need a break from this story. Both in the living and the imagination. Both in this story and out of it, to fix a coffee. I'll return in just a moment. I’m fixing a tea at this time and presently in this moment; but in the story I fix myself an Instant coffee. It's all we used back then. There were no Americanos or flavored grinds, or fair trade. There was instant coffee or orange pekoe tea as far as I knew. The pea green plywood cupboards that I retrieve the coffee from are the same color as my own walls at home. I often recycle ideas from nan's secret world. She was simple but artful about everything. She made everything elegant and alluring and atmospheric with hardly any effort or expense. Everything in that house was absolutely worthless. Everything. But everything there was rich and lavish with sentiment and the endearment of a life that was simply well lived. In that regard, everything there was priceless. Even her clothes left behind were just silly little garments and barely worth a penny. I am filled with every bit of reverence and regard that a person could possibly have. I was in absolute awe of her. I replace the jar of coffee back in the cupboard and close it. I notice even the spices were picked over. That makes me grin a little and cuts through the silence a bit and restores in me, enough light heartedness to continue back to the pantry. (waste not want not is a family trait)

I pause and sip reflecting on all of those 16 hour shifts nan had to work to support her daughters; my mother and aunt. Her fingers were great sausages for a woman of that size, from heavy use. They were so graceful and flitted like delicate humming birds at the same time. I can see them moving across the table just now as I settle on the memory. Little jars of pickles she grew, and little dishes of this and that, placed just so, and just right portions of everything. Silence and manners were everything. But you wouldn't otherwise speak anyways; out of reverence for the wonderful spread she made with seemingly very little effort; what most would consider a fairly laborious task. Her fingers were magic.

Following a series of tragedies, my grandmother moved reluctantly to the nearest town to secure a job to provide for her family, alone. My mother and aunt were often alone in one of those apartments down on Arden or Lutz street while nanny kept busy at work. She was always so busy, if she wasn't immersed in a murder mystery with rolling smoke next to her. Busy hands are happy hands. Busy hands haven't time to ponder things that ought not to be pondered. And busy hands put food on the table when all of our men are busy on the other side of life, where she can finally join them and rest by their side.

I open up the utility drawer and grab a hammer and nail. I tap a nail in the little trap door very softly into the wood so as not to tear at it and then use the opposite side of the hammer to pry the door open with the nail. I don't want to tear the fibers of the door, because ply wood tears apart easily and I want to be careful not to leave a trace. I'm still not sure if I'm breaking the promise or not. Just in case I'm careful to keep everything exactly as it is...minus the little hole the nail leaves behind. Nanny's glasses are still resting on the murder mystery novel on the bed stand and she'll never spot that anyways.

There's a bunch of old photos of her with her sisters and brothers when they were children, doing pyramids with one another or posing in affected manners and sticking their tongues out looking truly in love. There was a pretty vintage, fake garnet necklace and some old post cards from a cousin dating back to the 1920s, from France. There's really nothing worth more or less than anything else I've gone through and I'm almost relieved by that for reasons unknown.

At the bottom of everything there's a little black book. It's tied with a jute string. I remove the string and cautiously open the fragile binding. Tucked inside is a bank account with my name on it worth 20,000.00$. I immediately well up with tears that stream on every part of my face and soak my collar as I sob like a little girl. Nanny never took a thing for herself in this world and had hardly a thing to leave behind and all the while, everything she had, she had saved here and left behind for me.

I used my money to study a creative writing and a journalism course with a post secondary institution. I created a story that then won a first prize of 20,000.00$ which I will use to fix the God awful repairs that have accumulated over the years in this tiny little house I share with my two sons. I have adopted my grand mothers innate inability to financial stability but manage to eke out a living as she did; surviving in shadows as do all things that seek shade.