OCR Text |
Show Moon -179 Esther looks at me again. "She's always pushing her weight around. Don't pay attention." By the time we get to their house, not having driven by the house or stopped for milk, thank goodness, I am somehow changed from the person I was getting off the airplane. I am smaller, despite my earlier impulse to laughter, crouched into myself, wary. I walk behind them up the steps carrying my bag and I feel I must be very careful here. I haven't felt this way in a long time and it humbles me, how quickly we revert, how fragile the illusion of self-possession and independence. There is also a kind of reassurance in this, knowing that my memories haven't been off the mark. It was hard. No wonder my mother couldn't stand up to James. Ruth sits me down at the kitchen table. Esther says she has work to do, goes upstairs. Ruth puts on a pot of coffee, sits down, takes my hand, and says, "You look so much like Anne." A sudden upsurge of grief takes me by surprise. Ruth withdraws her hand and gets up, pulls cups and saucers out of the cabinets, pours the coffee. When she sits back down I have composed myself. I am trying to think of a way to salvage this visit, and it occurs to me I know almost nothing about the family's history, so I ask her to tell me about her childhood. She frowns as if she's been asked to do something unpleasant. "Oh there isn't much to tell." "Oh, but there must be. You lived in a time I can never visit. Just tell me the little things, a typical day." "A typical day isn't something your grandfather could abide." "Oh?" Ruth says nothing, so I try again. "Where did you live as a girl?" |