I was five... maybe six. We lived in an apartment in Dorchester (a section of Boston.) It was on the first floor of a house on the corner of a fairly busy street. Both of my parents worked so my sister and I were left home with our grandmother who also lived there. She was a bitter and mean woman really. At the time I didn't know it but she was really just hanging around waiting to die. Maybe with good reason... maybe not. Life had kicked the shit out of her and she was done. She would only have a few more years to wait. Being that she really didn't care anymore, she spent most days in a teal bathrobe. She sat on the edge of her bed and stared at her thirteen inch black and white television day in and day out. All that she had left was the indentation she left on the edge of her mattress from sitting there... still... all the time.
One day I was doing kid stuff in the living room. I was playing with something (I don't remember what) when the front doorbell rang. It was an odd thing to happen as everyone used the back door. I looked absently in that direction wondering if I should answer it or not. The teal of my grandmother's bathrobe appeared in the doorway as she shuffled slowly down the hallway answering my question. She moved slowly then. Not as slowly as I would eventually see her move but it still took her a bit to get to the door. I heard it open and then close. I then heard the shhht, shhht, shhht of her slippers on the hardwood floor as she made her way back to the indentation on her mattress.
A ring at the front door usually meant a package or a guest. And because it was an unusual thing to happen I wondered who it was. As she passed the living room doorway the second time I asked who had been at the door. I was curious if there was indeed a package delivered or if there was a guest in the house. She never stopped shuffling. And as she passed out of view she answered me in her scratchy, coarse voice that had almost no breath thanks to her emphysema, "not a soul."
Comments (25)
uh.. ah... mm.. ok I am speechless! That is very very powerful!! Gave me the chills and it is HOT in here too! {{{
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PS: Nice vision of me sproining of the wall
and thank you for sharing that story. WOW
Nice...I could actually see what was going on...hum.
How do you always manage to do this?? Suck me in so completely to what you are writing. This is well done and wonderfully worded. It brought tears to my eyes reading of your Grandmother and remembering my own.
thank you for that feeling
OOohhh. *giggle* Well, well, well. (ok, so I'm speachless and this is rare.)
Great writing as always.