"Yes, thanks!"
"You're gonna love this stuff."
She and my uncle know I don't drink. Three glasses of pomegranate juice are poured, and we clink.
"Cheers!"
Grandma is asleep on the couch, frowning. "She's not doing so well these days. I'm not sure how much time she has left. Let's wait 'til your dad and Kyle get here to wake her, and you can all say 'hi' at once."
She's 93. We go over and replace her blanket with a sheet; she's a little too hot by the fireplace. I feel her hands. They're a strange combination of warm and clammy, and they tighten around mine. Her eyes don't open.
A knock. Uncle Chuck opens the door. It's my cousin Kyle. I go over and give him a hug. We sit down next to each other at the bar.
"Hey, Kyle. How's school going?" Aunt Kay asks. She's making a salad while Uncle Chuck takes the turkey out of the oven.
"Good. I'm in woodshop. 8 hours a week. I'm making a clock. Not doing so well with it; it keeps getting smaller and smaller." We laugh. Uncle Chuck offers him a Corona. He takes it and gets up to find something to open it with.
There's another knock - Chuck goes to open it. It's my dad.
"Hi all! Look what I found in a dumpster! It's a Physician's Desk Reference!"
He holds up the giant trophy of a book and comes over and plops it on the counter in front of me. It's in near-pristine condition. My dad and Ida have always been good at finding things in dumpsters. I start thumbing through it. It's a dictionary of medicines. 2009.
"Now you can figure out everything that's wrong with you and Ida, eh?" his sister asks.
"Yep! It's all in there."
"No Ida tonight, huh?"
"No, you know Ida. I can't get her outta the house."
Another knock. Every one my Aunt Kay had said would be here is all ready here, so we're wondering who it is. Uncle Chuck goes to open it again since Aunt Kay's hands are full.
"Jim and I will come in, but only if Kay signs a handwritten agreement that it's okay." Kyle's mom is standing in the doorway, with a stern-sounding and at the same time shaky voice, her hands clasped in a pleading motion and her eyes scared-looking and ready to burst. She's a small, frail woman, older than Aunt Kay but younger than my dad. Their other sibling, Kevin, isn't making it out from Arizona this year.
Uncle Jim and Aunt Jessie and I live in the house my Grandpa built on one side of the Fallbrook clan's 20 acres, and Uncle Chuck and Aunt Kay live on the other side. Uncle Jim tried to sue the family gardener, Jorge, for verbal abuse back in June, and ever since then it's just been one thing after another. He and Aunt Jessie were accused of harassing Grandma at the Senior Care Club while trying to get her on their side, and they were banned. Aunt Jessie filed to get conservatorship of the person for Grandma from Aunt Kay, who is the Trustee of the Fallbrook Trust and conservator of Grandma's person as appointed by Grandma years ago. Aunt Jessie filed for elder abuse when they were banned from the Club. Grandma never liked Uncle Jim. Even with early Alzheimer's, she was lucid enough then, and she said so.
Uncle Jim and Aunt Jessie lost all cases. Now there's a restraining order against Uncle Jim protecting Grandma from him, so he wants it in writing that they can come in for Thanksgiving and not face repercussions. Aunt Kay had sent out a mass invite, so they assumed it included them. It did, but that was before there was a restraining order. I'm not sure what's gonna happen now.
I look at Aunt Kay with my eyebrows raised. She says what I hope she'll say. "Come on in!" she yells from the kitchen. Her hands are messy with the fuyus, bell peppers, avocados, and tomatoes she's slicing into the salad. Uncle Chuck's holding open the door, motioning for Aunt Jessie to come inside.
"No, Jim wants it in writing!" she yells back. "I'll go wait in the car!" Aunt Jessie doesn't wait for an answer. She takes off and Uncle Chuck closes the door behind her.
We all look at each other in surprise. "Here, I'll write it," my dad says. "Any body got any paper?"
"I do." I rip him a piece of paper out of my journal that I was writing in. I'd only gotten so far as "Pomegranate juice in wine glasses." After I hand him the paper, I put my journal away. I figure I'll just try to remember everything. I don't want people to think I'm weird, or feel weird about me writing about them.
My dad sits next to me at the bar and reads aloud to me as he writes. " 'I, John Fallbrook, do solemnly swear, as a witness, that Kay Johnson said for Jessie and Jim Ingold to 'Come on in'. Signed, John Fallbrook.' Look, I even put what she said in quotes. You think that's good enough?"
"Sure, we're all witnesses," I say. "I think they should just come in. Jim can just sit at the table if he wants, if he's uncomfortable. It's Thanksgiving. Nobody's gonna do anything." I look at Aunt Kay for confirmation. She nods.
My dad goes out with the paper. Some time passes, and he comes back.
"Wasn't good enough," he says. "They left."
"Nuh-uh! That's so lame." I go out to try and catch them, but they're gone. When my dad had said they'd left, Kyle had looked really sad. He should get to have his mom here, Jim or no Jim. I decide to call Aunt Jessie from the porch.
"Aunt Jessie, why don't you just come back? We're all witnesses. I'm a witness. Nothing bad will happen."
"No, Kay will stab us in the back like she always does. So we need it in writing. We don't trust her." I can hear Uncle Jim in the background telling her what to say.
"No she won't, I promise. She doesn't want to hurt you. She wants you here."
"You don't know, there's...there's so much paperwork against Jim. They have too much against him. We...we're not coming back unless we get it in writing. If not...we'll...we'll just see you when you get home."
"Aunt Jessie...why don't you just come back then, if Uncle Jim won't? I know what it's like. When Ronnie didn't want to come to family gatherings...and he usually didn't...I'd just come without him. Family's too important. Come on, it's Thanksgiving. Kyle was really sad when you left. He looked like he was gonna cry. Can you come back, for him atleast? We'll put the past behind us for one night? We all love you. We want you here."
Jim's still talking in the background, louder now. He's hardly taken a breath.
"Well...thanks...I'll...well...we'll think about it...". She hangs up.
I go back inside. "Nope. Not comin' back."
"Oh well. I tried, didn't I? You know it was Grandma's lawyer who put the restraining order on him. Not me," Aunt Kay says.
"I know."
It's time to move grandma to the table. The places are all set. Food's laid out.
"Hi Grandma!"
"Hi Mom!"
"Hi Grandma!"
"Time for dinner, Mom!"
Her eyes open and she smiles for a moment as she sees our faces close to hers. Uncle Chuck gets her in the wheelchair and wheels her over to the table. Aunt Kay brings over a bottle of wine and hands it to my dad to open. I'm nervous as he opens it next to Grandma.
"It's not champagne. It won't explode," Uncle Chuck says.
"Oh yeah, huh. I was always more of a whiskey, vodka, tequila, and beer drinker, hehe." I'm talking to Kyle, who's sitting next to me, drinking his Corona. "Ronnie thought wine was for pussies. In the ten years we were together, he never let us have it. So the first time I had it was after I left him. The boyfriend I left him for - Evan, remember? - he opened up a bottle of wine on our first date. He poured us each a glass, and I tried to put the cork back in. It wasn't going back in, though, and he laughed, and said, 'Adora, usually, when people open up a bottle of wine, they drink the whole bottle.' He didn't really like to drink, as it turned out - he didn't even finish his glass - so I was like, 'Woo hoo!', and drank the rest of it. Then any time I'd go over I'd ask if we could raid his mom and stepdad's liquor cabinet. Eventually he said he thought I might be an alcoholic and suggested I try a meeting, but I told him, 'Yeah right, I'm not an alcoholic - I just like to drink!' " Kyle and I laugh. "Of course, four months later I drank four bloody maries at one bar, made out with a 60 year-old black dude, went to another bar, had a Corona to 'sober up', ended up drinking two more pitchers of beer with this Mexican family, made out with one of the Mexican kids, and drove on two freeways before blacking out and waking up in my bed the next day not remembering the rest of the drive. That was when I realized that - maybe - I had a problem. Of course if I'd known that, at the meeting, they'd suggest I stop drinking entirely, shit, I never would have gone." Kyle and I laugh some more.
Kay sits next to Grandma and wakes her up and starts trying to feed her. Grandma doesn't open her mouth, even with a fork of fuyu in front of it.
"Mom, you gotta try this fuyu. Mmmmm. You'll love it. Open up now." Grandma opens her mouth and takes the bite and chews it slowly. She stares, blankly.
"John, did you know your daughter's in recovery? How many programs, Adora, four? Alcohol, debt, sex...what's the other one?"
I try to "shh" her but it's too late.
"Oh yeah, I knew that. My friend Dirk goes to those meetings. He's told me about her."
"Oh yeah, Dirk. Dude, that guy is scary," I recall. "I haven't seen him for awhile. Man, he weirded me out. He was always talking about how he killed people, and shit."
"Yeah, but he's doing a lot better now. I think he's over it."
Kyle and I look at each other with our eyebrows raised. We all laugh.
"Yeah, I need to stop drinking, too. I had to go to those meetings for awhile when I got a D.U.I.," Kyle adds.
"Yeah, I'm lucky I never got caught," I mention. "Shoulda been, many times. Coulda killed someone, you know? I'm so glad I don't drink any more. Life's a lot better, sober, man."
"Yeah. I'm sure I'll stop eventually. It's just hard."
"I know."
Aunt Kay asks my dad, "So how about you, John? You still doing meth?"
"Oh...no." He says, matter-of-factly.
"How about Ida?"
"No...well, she's trying really hard to quit."
More laughter. This is our Thanksgiving dinner conversation. I like it, actually. It's never been so...real.
The conversation keeps going about dad's meth-head friends. Aunt Kay brings up a name I recognize: Karl Von During. She talks about how he used to hide out in a shed on the property.
"Karl Von During? He molested me when I was four," I tell them. "He put me on his lap, and I felt his...thing...get bigger. He was wearing these tight pink biking shorts. He totally bounced me on it. It was gross. I'll never forget it."
"Oh, you don't have to worry about that," my dad says. "He doesn't like girls." He goes on to tell a story where he caught Karl having sex with a guy in a car.
The food is nearly as good as the conversation -- everything homemade. Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad, yams. My aunt and uncle outdid themselves.
"I did some wood-working, recently," Aunt Kay says to Kyle. "Last Christmas, Chuck's family had a gift exchange where all the gifts had to be hand-made from scratch," she tells us all. "I got my brother-in-law. What the heck do you make for your brother-in-law? So I made some salt and pepper shakers on the lathe. See?" She shows us her picture slides on her phone. Grandma's asleep. She'd accepted a couple bites of fuyu, but that's it.
"Oh yeah, check out mine." Uncle Chuck, besides being a mechanical/electrical/computer engineer, is a master wood-worker. He shows Kyle his slides while Aunt Kay shows me hers. Uncle Chuck's the reason he and Aunt Kay live in a mansion. She's a school teacher. She teaches music at the junior high. All the kids love her.
After dinner, I go over to do the dishes. I used to hate doing the dishes when I lived with them, when I was 16. I thought I was abused or something. On the contrary, living with Aunt Kay and Uncle Chuck was the first time I wasn't abused. All I had to do was do dishes and babysit their kids, Brian and Ellen. But they kicked me out when I took Ellen to a Jehovah's Witness Bible study with my dad one night. It was because of that, and, I'd let them watch PG movies. They were 11 and 8 and were only allowed to watch G when their parents weren't around. So I ended up back at my dad's and Ida's, until I couldn't take it any more and moved in with Aunt Jessie and Grandma. Then I went to UCLA. I dropped out to move in with Ronnie, though, when we fell in love. Now I attend half-time at a state school, after spending five years at a community college (where I now work half-time) and taking a few years off to have our son. He's four. He's with his dad most of the time so I can work and try to finish school. Ronnie's American Indian so he doesn't have to work. I miss our boy like crazy. I get to have him on weekends, though, and we alternate holidays each year.
"Uncle Chuck's gonna take Grandma back to the Regency. Come say good night, Adora."
We all go give her a hug and a kiss. I think it might be for the last time. She opens her eyes for a moment and smiles, and closes them again, frowning. I can tell she's in pain. She leans over to the right side, even when we try to straighten her up. "I just don't know how much time she has left," Aunt Kay says again. She and Chuck have stayed the closest with her. "But she's had a good, long life. Did you see the email I sent?"
"No, I didn't."
"Lemme show you."
She shows me the email on her iPad:
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"As I sit here and watch Mom sleep, I realize that every day I have with her is a gift. Those who know much more about Alzheimer's than I, tell me that she is in the final stages (of course no one is offering an opinion about how long she has. Weeks? Months? Years? - I of course think she has years.) I know the night Dad died Mom called us down at 4:00 a.m. Chuck and I helped Dad roll onto his side, tucked him in with pillows, and once he was resting comfortably we went back home. He died before morning. I had no idea he had only hours left. I'm obviously not a good judge of that sort of thing. Mom has not been doing very well for the last week or so. She is in quite a bit of pain. It's 1:30 in the afternoon on a Thursday. I've spent many hours here at Regency and taking her to the doctor and running to the pharmacy each evening this week after work. Ironically, Chuck (who's always such a big help with Mom) is out of town this week so I feel like I'm dealing with this on my own. Last Friday Regency called during the day and recommended taking her to the emergency room. Instead, I chose to do what I could for her here. The emergency room can be a scary place with IV's and whatnot. Of course my first inclination was to call my sister and talk it over with her since she was so involved helping with the care giving for nearly two years (this was last Friday night while I was sitting in the pharmacy waiting - but alas, she won't talk to me.)
"I have a 1/2 day sub so that I can be with her this afternoon. I have to go back to Porter at 3:00 to teach an after-school elementary band class of over 60 kids. I considered canceling, but this group meets only once a week and we have a concert in just 3 more weeks. Life is always a balancing act. Do I let the kids down to watch mom sleep (in case she needs me), or do I let mom down by leaving her side - and would she even notice?
"Whenever her time runs out, it's important to remember that she has had a good life. She had a happy marriage for nearly 60 years. She put her heart and soul into raising 4 kids and gave us every opportunity possible - music lessons, dance lessons, life lessons, and especially moral support. She also greatly contributed to all her grandkids while they were growing up. She also had interests in addition to family. She was a round-dance instructor for many years. She was active at the Methodist church, the woman's club, and the garden club. She camped, backpacked, raised goats, made cheese, gardened, drove the tractor and did the mowing, and always had a wonderful sense of humor - still does. In her 80's she took up sailing, archery, had her first ski lessons, had a boyfriend, ran a few races (and won medals), and bought a tandem bicycle. She has lived a full and rewarding life. As I said each day now is a gift to be treasured.
Okay - we have some action here so I have to help Mom . . ."
Sent from my iPad
"Wow, that's beautiful," I say. "Yeah, she has had a good, long life."
"Yeah. Just tell her you'll see her later."
"Good night, Grandma! See you later! Love you!"
"See you later, Grandma! Love you!"
"See you later, Mom!"
"Love you, Mom. See you later!"
"Okay Mom, time to go home now." Uncle Chuck wheels her out and Aunt Kay goes to the freezer and takes four gallons of ice cream out. She opens the lids and starts cutting the brownies. "You guys ready for dessert? We've got four kinds of ice cream." Kyle and I go over to the kitchen.
"I have to go home. Gotta get back to Ida," Dad says.
"You wanna bring her a brownie? Maybe she'll be nicer to you," Aunt Kay offers.
"Haha, yeah, I better. You know what her pet name for me is? 'Asshole'."
"I remember that," I say. "Or if she's really pleased with you, it's 'Ugly Asshole'." We all laugh. "And then she throws things at you. Broke your nose with a plate once, I remember."
Aunt Kay adds, "Yeah, didn't she hit you with a frying pan and knock you out?"
"No, just stunned me a little. And it wasn't a frying pan. It was a wicker basket. Hit me with a wicker basket a couple of times, actually."
"So how long have you two been together now?"
Dad tries to do the math. I help him out between my bites of caramel-swirled ice cream and whipped-cream-covered brownie. "Mom took us when I was eight. Told us we were going on vacation to Grandma's, psh. When was that, 1991?"
"Yeah, that was July, 1991. So, 1993. 20 years. Yeah, that's when I started doing a lot of drugs. Ida came around, and we got together. In the beginning, we talked about how happy we were to have different homes to go to at the end of the night. Then she showed up on my doorstep a month later, saying, 'Johhhhnnnn! I need a place to stay!' She's been there ever since."
"How sweet," I say, wryly.
"We've each left each other a couple times - she called the cops on me once, I called the cops on her once, and we've both gotten a restraining order on each other once. One time she left me for her ex and I went over there and threw a propane tank at the door."
"Whoa, did it explode?"
"Nope, just dented the door. Then the lights turned on so I took off. She came back to me when he moved, though, and he gave me the door. Still have it, dent and all."
I tell them about my sister and mom and their abusive significant others. "Did you guys hear about Dawn? Charlie broke her nose and gave her a concussion. Mom's boyfriend just hit her in the nose, too. She called me while she was driving drunk. I made her pull over and talk to me while she ate something. She was crying pretty hard."
"Oh no, I thought Dawn was doing well...?" My aunt's concerned.
"She is; she's still teaching special ed full-time. She got herself a studio apartment. She's taking domestic violence classes. They took custody of Jake away from her though. Because it was a drunken fight. He's with his dad Micah now. But she gets to see him on weekends. And it'll get better."
"You know, she turned out okay, I think," my dad says. "I was always getting in trouble, when she came to live with me in high school -- she was always ditching her classes. And then she took off to New Mexico with that Ziggy. I'm glad she's doing better now."
Uncle Chuck's back. He gets his plate of brownie and ice cream. "Yeah, all you kids turned out all right," he says. "I'm grateful for that."
"I'm grateful to be here with you guys. And I'm grateful I don't have an abusive significant other," I say, looking at my dad.
"I'm grateful for communication," he says. "It's a great thing we humans have. It's how I win all my court cases, like when I wrote to the Turko Files and got my house back. I didn't even know I could write so well. My teachers told me so in high school, but I didn't even really believe 'em. Turns out it's true."
"I'm grateful for school," Kyle says. "And I'm grateful the insurance is covering the car after Ally's accident. I shouldn't have co-signed for her, but looks like it's gonna be okay."
"I'm grateful that our kids turned out so well. Graduated college -- Brian's an engineer like his dad, and Ellen's getting married at the lake in June to her high school sweetheart. And I'm so grateful my mom and dad raised me the way they did. And I'm grateful to have my job back at Porter. I hated teaching elementary school the past three years. And, I'm grateful for family. It's so nice to be with you all tonight. This has been really great."
Smiles all around.
"Well, I have to get goin'." We all give my dad a hug. I'm glad I got to see him. None of us see him much.
"Love you, Dad."
"Bye."
After he leaves, we share stories.
Uncle Chuck: "He was here running some electrical wire through the shed to pay off some of the money he's borrowed. He came back the next day and there was a hole in his windshield. 'What happened?' I asked him. 'Ida', he said."
Aunt Kay: "We were driving up the street by his house and we saw somebody pushing somebody in one of those jogging strollers. It was your dad pushing Ida. She was all sprawled out. She looked way high. Should have surprised us, but it didn't, strangely."
Me: "I saw him walking along the road barefoot, picking up rocks. I pulled over and asked him if he wanted a ride. He said, 'No thanks, I'm finding some really cool quartz here!' I was like, 'Okay, Dad. Have fun. Bye.' "
Kyle and I ask Aunt Kay more about what it was like for them (her, Aunt Jessie, Uncle Kevin, my dad) as kids growing up. Aunt Kay and Uncle Chuck both talk about what their childhoods were like, and so does Kyle, talking about his mom. I ask Uncle Chuck more about his job, since I just started dating an engineer. I want to know what his traveling's like, and if Aunt Kay ever goes along, and if so, what that's like for her (James says he wants me to go along sometime).
Uncle Chuck describes what it was like traveling in Europe during the Iceland volcano eruption when flights were grounded. 22 1/2 hours when it should have taken 2 1/2. He describes the whole trip in detail, from train stop to train stop, Frankfurt towards London towards Switzerland. It's exciting; he's got Kyle and I leaning on our elbows on the granite countertop as we stand around the kitchen island hearing how he barely made it onto each train, no place to sit, had to go back to get his laptop at one of the stops, thankfully it was still there, and he got back on going the right direction, and the clock was ticking...
"Did you make your meeting in London on time?" I had to know.
"Yeah. But I didn't make it to Switzerland. I had to do that meeting as a conference call from inside a truck on a barge. But it was okay - they served me steak and wine for six dollars." Aunt Kay's glad she didn't go with him that time. She'd stopped traveling with him for work. He'd sleep the five hours on the plane and work the whole next day while she slept in the hotel room. But they do enjoy it when they go on vacations together, and they vacation frequently.
I tell them more about James, how he'd left work to go to my choir concert at 7pm and when he left my choir concert, he went back to work. "Yep, you can expect that from a young engineer. 50 hours a week, at least. This nice place we live in -- it's due to hard work and dedication." Uncle Chuck designed the mansion himself and hired a crew to build it. He helped build it, too, when he "wasn't working"; he built the grilling patio in between flights to and from Europe. He works for the Siemens corporation; he used to be a product manager, and now he trains product managers. The house is long since done, but he still builds things in his spare time.
It's late. I'm more enthralled than Kyle now, who's been yawning for the past 15 minutes. I do want to go home, too. So we call it a night after a round of hugs, and Kyle and I walk out together.
"I think that was my favorite Thanksgiving, ever," I say, giving him one more hug after we get to our cars.
"Yeah, me too. I liked it small like that."
"Yeah, it was nice. Sorry about your mom though. I wish she would have just come in."
"It's okay."
"Well...it was good seeing you, Kyle. Love you. Have a good night."
"Love you, too. G'night."
I unlock my car from the passenger's side since the driver's side's lock is broken. I re-stick some of the duct tape that's holding the mirror up. I go around to the driver's side and get in, turn the ignition, and blast Christian music on the radio. The volume knob's broken, so Blast is the only sound level there is. But I don't mind. It's my soundtrack as I go to town to buy cat food and cat litter before I go home, so the cats'll stop bringing mice in and pooping and peeing on the floor. It's Wednesday; tomorrow's the "real" Thanksgiving.
I'm grateful for my family. I'm grateful for everything I have. I miss my son, but I get to spend my Thanksgiving day in bed, alone, writing.
I call that: Bliss.
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