Mitochondrial Curiosities of Marcels 1 to 19 (6 page)

2. Take one round flat spiritual-looking rock. Paint a fish or spiral et cetera on it.

3. Sew overlapped toes together, leaving opening for rock to fit inside.

4. Insert rock.

5. Lie down and put Sockra on forehead so rock is between eyebrows and socks cover eyes.

6. Become rich.

Grandma Giles' apartment smells like burnt sugar and cat, which anywhere else would be disgusting. There, it's Divine Bliss. Which means how evolved am I, since Jojo needed Tibet for her db. Anyway, capital-A Abundance. Receptors opened and multiplying.

One of the million fabulous things about Grandma Giles is the way she greets us. ‘Ohhhh,' she says before the door's closed. ‘Ohhhhh, my girls.' It's the lowest sound possible, the kind of sound for when the world ends and we're all trapped under rubble taking our last breaths.
Ohhhhhh
, we'll all say to each other, as in, Goodbye fellow humans, our species is finished. Louis the cat slaps his tail against our ankles and hopes we'll put something on the floor for him to pee on.

‘Actually, Grandma,' Paige says, as Grandma Giles grips her, ‘actually, one full-spectrum bulb is all you need in the living room.' As usual, the apartment is blindingly bright.

‘Ohhhh,' Grandma Giles says. ‘Anyway, I don't drive.' She wears the magnetic apron I made her, her metal measuring spoons stuck in a perfect row along the waistband into which I skillfully sewed magnetic tape. Paige says
ouch
as Grandma Giles pulls her in tighter. Then Paige holds the ends of her braids, her latest obsessive-compulsive response to stress. Minor epiphany. Talk about convenient. Paige pulls hair; I think
abundance
. A piggyback compulsion. Braid/abundance. Perfect.

‘My poor little birthday girl, so exhausted.' Grandma Giles holds my face and looks deeply into my eyes. ‘I have made fudge.' Paige sighs in her dietician-to-be way and touches a braid. Abundance.

‘Excellent, Grandma,' I say. Excellent. Grandma Giles' hair smells like cigarettes, citrus shampoo and Clairol Nice'n Easy Almond Bliss. I breathe deeply.

‘Grandma, I can't believe you still have that clay lamp,' Paige says. Braid. Abundance. Grandma is already in the kitchen, and Paige blocks the hallway. ‘I mean, it's such a
blob
.'

‘It's called Trinity,' I said. ‘That lampshade rules.'

‘It looks like a
UFO
.'

‘Exactly.' My lampshade phase was brief but prolific. I made them after trying to make a lamp, which involved electrocution, which involved bodily fluids, hair loss and so much pain I listened to
CBC
without changing the channel for an entire day.

‘Have you ever considered sex with aliens, Paige?'

‘I fail to believe you find that funny.'

Abundance.

Look at her, $1,200 sitting in the bank doing nothing, but, no, she can't stand my crafts in this living room. ‘How about with random strangers? Seriously, Paige, if God gave us hormones – '

‘Stop.' Paige holds a braid like it's a rosary. ‘Number one, as if
you're
Ms. Experience. Number two, that frame. It's like I'm buried under garbage.'

Paige is fixated on the photo frames I made for this year's mug shots. ‘Collages of found objects, as in art, Paige.'

‘Correction, Dree. Debris. Please tell me you disinfected.'

Interesting. School-photo Paige is surrounded by a teeming mass of pathogens. Replicating themselves like crazy as we stand there. I pick up one of Grandma's old photos. ‘So, something more classic? Like this?'

‘I am not giving you my money for orphans in Africa.'

‘Jesus would,' I say. And then Jesus jerks my hand and all the photos crammed onto the
TV
fall against each other.

Braid. Abundance. Braid.

‘Ohhh,'
GG
says, back with a platter of fudge. ‘Don't worry, don't worry, get away from there.'

‘Just one that's broken.'

‘I said, leave them.' As Grandma grabbed the photo out of my hand, I looked at it, because Grandma never grabs anything. ‘I'll find a new frame tomorrow,' I say, but she ignores my outstretched hand. ‘Have some fudge.'
Or else
, says the silence that follows. Paige and I stuff big hunks in our mouths and Grandma wraps the broken frame in a tea towel and puts it on her lap. Louis digs his claws into my thigh, his way of saying, Pet me, things are effing tense in here.

‘Actually, Grandma.' Paige pauses which is not what Paige ever does after
actually
. ‘Actually, Joan recycles our art projects every six months. So, you don't have to keep
my crafts
, it's just little – ' Kill me. Paige pulls a recipe box out of her backpack.
Stencilled
.
OMG
, with what? Penises? Grandma Giles squints like crazy at the row of tiny phallic whatevers. ‘Actually, Grandma, mushrooms and zucchini have complementary nutrients.' I slide the photo off Grandma's lap and under the sofa while she considers the abomination in her hands.

‘Look, Dree, they're so perfectly spaced.'

‘Wondrous, Grandma. How
did
she do it.' Penis penis penis. It's all I see, which means? Anyway, so what. Why not ornamental genitalia? If sex is so natural, so thousand-thoughts-a-day, why isn't there wrapping paper, T-shirts and water bottles decorated with happy little vulva et cetera? How come it's all about cleavage which, hello, is probably about breastfeeding, as in, Where's my mommy?

‘Well, it's just beautiful, Paige. I'll put it right here beside your sister's lamp.' I can tell Grandma Giles truly thinks it is beautiful because she's sad which is Grandma Giles' version of happy. She
loves beautiful things and they make her sad. If the world were fair, Grandma Giles would have enough money to sit and look at sunsets and flowers and feel sad. She clutches the heinous recipe box and stares at the fudge. Fudge used to make her happy as in sad but she can't eat it anymore with the whole diabetic thing. I take another piece on her behalf.

Maybe it's Grandma's sadness, maybe the stencilling, the anti-craft, or maybe it's my overstuffed manic head. I have to sleep. My body wants to slide right off me and become a puddle. It slides into the chair instead. ‘Pass your sister that blanket,' says Grandma. ‘My poor little Dree. Worn right out.'

‘And that Rita woman,' she says to Paige. ‘Your poor mother.'

‘You should have seen what she was wearing at the brunch, Grandma,' Paige says. Paige is Grandma Giles' reporter, as in, voice of Joan re: things Grandma can't ask Joan directly about.

‘Ohhh, poor Joanie. What a service.'

‘Correction. Pancake brunch, Grandma.'

And so on, including the waitress with the low-cut crushed velvet top and big red belt. My mouth can't move, otherwise I would have defended the belt.

‘Well, maybe it was best I couldn't come.'

‘Exactly,' says Paige.

Pause. Meow from Louis. As in, Okay, Grandma, here's where you can't avoid saying
something
.

‘Ohhhh, poor girls. I'm so sorry.'

Bloody hell. She can't even say his name. Grandma Giles hated Leonard.

‘Someone from Timbley was there.'

‘Who?' Grandma's voice jumps.

‘Rose someone. I thought she was a guy at first,' Paige says. ‘Then Dree threw up so I didn't have time to talk to her.'

Cow.

I wait for Grandma to answer but hear trees instead, huge shaky evergreens on the hospital grounds. Leonard stands in their shadows waving me over and I stand on the second-floor balcony of the old hospital. There's no railing and a long long drop. I lose sight of him and wake up to my own shrieking. Actually, no. It's Grandma's smoke alarm which means supper's almost ready. That's literally the drill every visit because, except for me, Grandma's smoke alarm is the most sensitive thing on the planet, and it goes off whenever something boils on the stove and every supper she boils potatoes.

Even with the killer beeping, the only part of me reasonably awake is my bottom lip because it's busily hatching a cold sore. It used to be that Grandma's was the magic bad-food bubble. I could eat a pound of fudge plus Cheez Whiz plus buttered everything while watching six hours of
TV
and wake up feeling great. Now I'm one big virus, or maybe my bottom lip is a microcosm of my life or even Edmonton life if possibly the number of viral molecules equals Edmontonians.

‘I dreamt about Dad,' I say at the table before filling my mouth with mashed potatoes, ultra-creamy because Grandma Giles uses insane amounts of butter.

Grandma hmmms and tells Paige butter is nothing to be afraid of.

‘Correction, Grandma.'

‘My mother put butter in everything, you know.' Grandma passed me the butter dish, knowing I was her ally in all things high-fat. Strangely, she did not say, as she usually does, ‘Ohhhh, the last piece of Wedgewood, and once I had so much.' Nor did she list the entire Wedgewood family, the crystal, the silverware or the linens that had kept the butter dish company, all of them
wedding presents, all of then trashed when her house burned down. It was a long list and usually took us right through to dessert. Tonight, though, she says nothing, and Paige and I take turns saying, ‘Yum, Grandma, yum. This is great.' Maybe she'll tell us the fire story later because, otherwise, the visit will be very weird. She has to tell it over and over like turning compost. When Joan was about five, Grandpa Giles fell asleep on his La-Z-Boy with a cigarette, probably drunk. They lost everything including his job since he was a fireman. From Timbley high society, which is really not too high on the food chain, they went to basically paramecia. ‘“Ben and that poor Rowena,” that's what they called us,' Grandma would say.

I open my mouth and hope for the best. ‘So, in the early nineties, you and Joan and Leonard all worked together at the old hospital, right, Grandma, at the old hospital?' Spontaneity does not work for me. Grandma Giles smooths her hair back and holds her head as if it might blow off. I have too many competing emotions to notice dread.

‘Well, I think it's time to celebrate our little birthday girl.'

Paige gives me a mechanical pencil wrapped in recycled something while Grandma furiously makes sundae supremes. Slam slam slam. Cupboard doors and jars onto counter.

Oh god. The walnuts.

Grandma has this thing about keeping nuts and raisins way too long and this other thing about not wearing her glasses. These things are not compatible. And I don't move fast enough.

‘I'm allergic.' Paige swoops in for the walnut-free ice cream before I'm even standing.

‘My poor little Paige. Well, I don't suppose you get this at home,' Grandma Giles says, as she squirts Cool Whip. ‘Poor Joan has no time for this sort of thing.'

I'm all ‘Wow, Grandma, this is fantastic,' while I watch the brown bits. Yup, those are de finitely legs. Just before sinking into vanilla ice cream, each bug rolls on its back and wriggles its tiny legs. I have to name them as they disappear. Goodbye, Esther. Ivan. Sophie. James.

‘Yummm, Grandma, excellent. Did I tell you about the last letter from my foster child in Zambia, Grandma? Dad said she sounds gifted.'

‘Dad actually said bright,' I say.

‘Her name's Amahara.'

‘Poor little thing.'

Dad
and
hospital
keep coming up like the word
fat
does in a room full of extremely large people. I saw that happen once. This is worse. We finally make it back to the living room where Paige turns on the
TV
and channel-surfs until I'm sure we'll all have seizures. Grandma remembers she has a birthday present for me and gives me a basket of baby socks. ‘Brenda brought in this darling little sock creature she made for her granddaughter and the same day I saw all these on sale – '