Another addition, which I wrote very quickly. Will come back to this later.
My grandma answers the back door in her housecoat, pink foam curlers in her grey-brown curls, somewhat undone from sleep. She is awake, but is missing her usual dark pink lipstick and mascara, though still smiling–her dentures white and almost gleaming.
“Good morning,” she beams, ushering me and my mom inside. I am eight and we are here for a quick visit before school to drop off the mail, which my mom let me pull from my grandparents’ shiny metal post office box, for which we have a spare key. I set the stack of envelopes and fliers on the kitchen table’s crocheted tablecloth, next to a basket of peaches and a vase of plastic roses. I stand shy in my sneakers on the scratchy green mat by the door as my grandpa steps slowly into the room.
“Hello!” he yells in his low, enthusiastic voice, feet shuffling in the slippers my mom gave him for Christmas. My grandpa still retains a number of handsome features from photos of earlier years: short dark hair–despite graying–with a slight high curl in front, eyes like stones, strong jawline, broad shoulders, surprising warm smile. As usual, he wears a cardigan and trousers.
My grandparents have always been quiet, but pleasant. Always smiling, always friendly, but reserved. Raised Mennonite and Catholic, they came from big families (ten to thirteen kids) but you’d never know it–visitors were scarce, with brothers and sisters (my mother’s aunts and uncles) arriving occasionally, just as foreign to me each time I met them, regardless of how many occasions there had been. They led simple lives; despite their upbringing they didn’t go to church, nor farm (though my grandma kept a garden)–they had never even learned to drive.
Their lack of a vehicle wasn’t really a problem, as they usually only left the house when they needed to, and if they needed a ride, my mom was always there. Before they retired, they walked to their nearby jobs (Fort St. James is fairly small)–my grandma a night janitor at my elementary school, and my grandpa working at the historic park and later at the Fort St. James Hotel. On rare occasions they visited my family (a block away)–although usually, we visited them. They would sometimes walk to the doctor’s office and the grocery store, and every once in a while they’d take me and my brother out for Chinese food and burgers. They usually only left town for medical reasons.
Today, they are staying in. My mom and I are in a hurry, so we stand by the door and keep our shoes on while they hug me and ask me about school. When it is time to go, I tug the doorknob–the back door sticking like a refrigerator door–and step out onto the back porch, triumphant for having conquered the exit. When we back down the hill and out of the driveway, my grandma holds open the living room curtain and waves until we disappear down the street, and I wave back and watch until I see the curtain swishing in her wake.
