The Meaning of Maggie (8 page)

Mom turned down the radio and pulled the bag out of my hands. “You girls have to understand that all of this change is hard for me too. And it's especially hard for your dad. All those years, you all were growing up while he was at work. He missed a lot. And now, he's home and there's a bunch of teenagers roaming around the place. And they are kissing boys and misbehaving.” She looked at me when she said “misbehaving.”

“I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING.” I yelled it just one last time so she knew. For sure. That I had not. Done. ANYTHING.

She continued as if she hadn't heard me. “But to him, you all are still little girls.”

I ate the last marshmallow I'd hidden in my pocket.

“Hey, I'm not a wittwe giw. I'm too smawt to be a wittwe giw.”

“You know what I mean.” She sighed.

When we pulled into the driveway, we could hear the speakers blasting inside the house. Dad had the stereo
cranked up and playing
Bruce Springsteen Live
while Layla and Tiffany cleaned. I thought they would've been sulking through their punishment of getting the house ready for Thanksgiving, but they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Tiffany sang “Born to Run” into a roll of paper towels while Layla danced with the mop. I was happy to see she was just regular dancing with the mop, not dirty dancing. It would have been a shame to have to tell on her so close to Thanksgiving.

After everything was spotless and all the groceries were away, Mom started prepping for the next day's feast. Usually, she slaved away in the kitchen alone, while we did a bunch of nothing. But as Mom opened a bag of pecans, Tiffany asked, “Need any help?”

“Really?” Mom asked.

“I can make the pies.”

I didn't know why Tiffany helped. Maybe she felt bad for almost giving Dad a heart attack the day before. Or maybe she was just bored watching
Spaceballs
with Dad and me for the billionth time although I don't know how that is possible because it is HILARIOUS. But either way, she helped Mom make the pumpkin, pecan, and chocolate pies and she even let me lick the spatulas. It was almost like we really liked each other. Almost.

The next day, we feasted! Halfway through the first course, Dad had an idea. “How about we each say what we're thankful for?”

Ugh, really Dad? Layla, Tiffany, and I rolled our eyes, but Dad insisted.

“I'm serious. Layla, you go first.”

Layla cleared her throat. “I'm thankful for my car. Because it is badass.”

Tiffany was next. “I'm thankful for three days off of school. And I'm thankful Dad didn't kill me yesterday.” Ha. Funny. I didn't know Tiffany was funny. She was so skinny I didn't think she had room for a sense of humor.

My turn. “I'm thankful for turkey, and gravy, and stuffing and sweet potatoes and rolls and green beans with bacon. And I'm glad the Native Americans showed the Pilgrims how to make pie.”

Then Mom. “I'm thankful for my three beautiful daughters and my handsome husband, who are going to do all the dishes.”

Finally, Dad. He took a sip from his drink and sighed contentedly. “I'm thankful for the four lovely ladies who take care of me every day. But mostly, I'm thankful that we're all really good looking.”

It was probably our most perfect Thanksgiving. No one fought. No one cried. No one threw up from eating too much pie.
³⁵
I was doing the dishes and scrubbing the last crumb off the last plate when the phone rang. Oh
great. I bet it was a boy calling to take Layla or Tiffany away for the rest of the night. I had almost liked hanging out with them all day. They weren't so bad once you got over the fact that their lips were permanently locked to boys who probably didn't floss.

I listened for Dad to hand the phone off, but he didn't. He just kept talking. I turned the water off so I could hear better. Mom was shaking her head at him, but I guess he didn't see her because he said yes to whoever was on the phone.

“Yeah, that sounds great. Christmas sounds like a great time for a visit.”

Visitors! We never got visitors! I was just about to ask who was coming when Dad said, “All right. Good-bye, Mom. Yeah, call me back with the details.”

WHAT! Grandmother was visiting? She hadn't been to our house in almost five years, which wasn't weird because we weren't really big on grandparents. Mom's parents had been a long time in heaven and Mom didn't really talk about them. And Dad's dad was a big deal army guy and we never really saw him because Dad didn't really think he was a cool dude. But now his mom was visiting. This was going to be huge. Mostly because I only knew one thing about her: Mom HATED her.

Mom was a total wreck in the days leading up to Christmas. At night, she cleaned the dickens out of the house. And that was after she cleaned the dickens out of the hotel all day. Things got really weird when she started ironing everything. She ironed the curtains. She ironed the dishtowels. She ironed all of the laundry, even Dad's underpants. And she tried to iron my overalls.
³⁶

I didn't understand what the big deal was. Dad's mom was visiting, not the Pope. Unless Dad's mom was the Pope, which was highly possible because I didn't really know anything about her. She hadn't visited since I was a little kid. Way before Dad's legs fell all the way asleep.

All I knew was that she lived in Missouri, which sounded Missour-able. Mostly because Mom said she
was a complex woman who was never in “a very happy place.” I asked why she didn't move to a happier place like Disneyland or the Jelly Belly factory but Mom said it was more complicated than that.

And Dad never had much to say about his own mother at all. Whenever I asked about her, he would change the subject and say, “Do you want some pudding? I would love some pudding.” And then I would get us pudding because, well, I was hungrier for butterscotch pudding than I was for information about my own grandmother. Luckily, I knew there was always one person who would give it to me straight no matter what.

I found Tiffany folding towels an hour before Grandmother was scheduled to arrive.

“So what's the deal with the old lady? Do you know anything about her?”

“She's crazy.”

“Oh yeah?” I was curious. “What kind of crazy?”

“I don't know much. But it sounds like she went nuts after Grandpa divorced her when Dad was younger. I think Dad wanted to live with Grandpa and that's what really pushed her over the edge.”

I combed through the facts in my head while Tiffany folded. Crazy huh? It made sense why Grandmother would have gone crazy way back then but maybe she would be less crazy now that Dad was all grown up. Especially now that Dad and Grandpa didn't talk much. We
hadn't seen him in a while either. The last time I saw Grandpa he tried to steal my nose and I was traumatized for life.

I needed more information. “Do you think she's still crazy?”

“Oh yeah. Maybe even crazier.”

“Yikes.” This didn't sound promising. “Do you think her crazy is genetic? Will we get it?!”

Tiffany looked me up and down like a doctor examining a patient. “I think one of us already has.”

I rolled my eyes and walked away. She was totally kidding.
³⁷

I retired to my room and thought long and hard about how our Christmas was being infiltrated by crazy. Our Christmas, which had already been compromised by Mom telling us we were only getting a few gifts because “things were tight” since Dad left work.

Yeah, things were tight, lady. Including my pants, which was why I needed new ones. And I also needed every Tolkien novel because I saw Clyde reading
The Hobbit
one day and if it meant he was into short people, then maybe I stood a chance. And I also needed an assortment of candies and chocolates to replenish my “for emergencies only” stash that was completely depleted.

I pulled a book out from under my pillow and tried to forget about Christmas and everything I wouldn't get. I decided to get lost on Prince Edward Island in the pages of
Anne of Green Gables
.

I must have gotten really lost because I didn't even hear Grandmother arrive. In fact, I didn't hear Mom calling for me to welcome Grandmother. In double fact, I didn't even hear my bedroom door creak open. But eventually the smell of old lady lotion made me look up.

So this was what crazy looked like. She was very small and frail. So frail I imagined her bones were made of dust, so I scooted back trying not to knock her over. Her brown hair was cut super short and her face hung like a bulldog's. The strangest part? She sort of looked like an evil dictator even though I had no reason to believe she was either evil or a dictator. And the brown eyes I thought we shared were actually much darker than mine. Probably muddled by years of crazy this and crazy that. I felt like if I gazed into those dark eyes long enough, I would see all kinds of evil things, but I didn't want to see evil things because I was just a kid, so I gazed at the floor instead.

I was about to ask her all about being crazy, but she spoke first.

“Oh Maggie, what happened to you?”

Her voice was low and gravelly and I must have still been lost on Prince Edward Island because I answered her in my best turn-of-the-century vernacular.

“Whatever do you mean, Grandmother?”

She shook her head. “I'll be speaking to your mother about this.” She disappeared out the door and I jumped up and looked in the mirror.

I expected to see a Cyclops eye forming on my forehead or a witch's wart taking over my nose or at the very least I expected to see chocolate evidence from the Mr. Goodbar I had finished just seconds before she opened my door, but there was nothing. I looked like the Maggie I always looked like. What was she talking about?

I headed to the kitchen to investigate and found Mom and Grandmother huddled close in conversation at the counter. Unfortunately, I only caught the tail end of their talk.

“Well, maybe if you were home with your children like a mother should be, this wouldn't have happened,” Grandmother lectured. “My children grew up getting three square meals a day.”

Mom's face looked like it was going to explode when she noticed me. “Hey Maggie, go wash up for dinner. We're leaving in five minutes.”

I pretended to do as she said but I hung back, waiting to hear the rest.

Mom put on her coat. “Listen, you're here to see
your
son. Who could really use a mother right now. Why don't you just leave my children to me?”

She walked away so fast she almost ran right into me. Busted. She took one look at me and pulled me down the hall to my room, where she slammed the door shut.

“The nerve of that woman! You'd think after all we've been through that she would at the very least be cordial! I don't know why I put up with it! She's only been here an hour and already she's ruined everything! How am I going to make it through the next forty-eight hours?!”

Mom collapsed on Tiffany's bed and smooshed a pillow over her face. For a second, she looked just like Tiffany. Bad attitude and all. Then she tossed the pillow to the side and I could see worry fill her from head to toe.

“Maggie! I am so sorry! I shouldn't have reacted like that, especially in front of you. I just—” She looked stuck somewhere between angry and hysterical. “I just totally lost it, didn't I?”

I laughed nervously. “Um, yeah.”

She stood up and got my hairbrush from the dresser. “There aren't many people in this world who can get me as worked up as your grandmother.” She brushed my hair. “It's just that we have two very different definitions of family.”

I liked definitions so I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I want you girls to feel loved every single day. Even when I'm not around I want you to know that I am thinking about you every single second. And I want you to feel like you can come to me for anything, anything at all.”

She brushed my hair harder.

“But your grandmother parents through fear and guilt and judgment and—”

“Mom, you're brushing really hard.”

Mom released her death grip on the brush. “Sorry, honey. I'm terrible. I shouldn't be talking about your grandmother like this.”

“It's okay.” I took the brush away. “Tiffany already told me she's crazy.”

She looked genuinely relieved. “I'm glad somebody did.”

Dinner was weird, to say the least. We went to some fancy-schmancy restaurant that was completely empty because it was Christmas Eve and duh, families not taken over by crazy ate at home on Christmas Eve. Grandmother ordered everyone's meal, even Mom's, which made Mom's freckles boil. My meal was a garden salad with NO DRESSING, which I thought was just an appetizer, but no, it was my whole meal. My WHOLE MEAL was a salad with NO DRESSING.

As soon as we got home, I went straight to my “for emergencies only” stash in my room. But it was just as empty as it was before. I dug into the bottom of my drawer looking for something, anything! And just then, a Rolo rolled out from under a sock.

It was a Christmas miracle!

I woke up the next morning to Tiffany's sideways face staring at me.

“Merry Christmas,” she whispered.

“Merry Christmas,” I whispered back.

“I'm scared to go out there. It's like having a stranger take over our Christmas.”

“She's not a stranger.” I sat up. “She's our grandmother.”

“You know what I mean.”

I did. I knew exactly what she meant.

She halfway smiled. “But it
is
kind of fun watching Mom lose it.”

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed.

We promised each other we wouldn't go out into the living room alone so I waited for Tiffany while she did whatever she does for an hour in the bathroom. When she finally emerged done up in red, green, and glitter, we slowly made our way into the living room.