My grandmother and I watch as Surya Bonaly lands the backflip at the 1998 Olympics. She’ll win gold, I think. But alas, she comes in tenth.
Right before we drive back to Indiana, she tries to hug me. I slip away and go to my other grandmother, the one who doesn’t call me “hussy.”
Years later, my brother will get off a plane and mention casually, in the back of my car, that she died. “When?” I’ll ask, shocked. “Back in February,” he’ll say, staring at the fields of ripening corn.
At night, her father, a World-War II veteran would get drunk, lean out the window, and swear that he could see Nazis coming for him. She’d tuck him into bed and clean him up. She was his oldest daughter, but in the end, when he was frail, he’d choose to live with her youngest brother.
The hierarchy was this: his violence gave way to her sour tongue, which gave way to my father’s stone silence, which gave way to my tendency to make jokes that hurt.
Long day at work. I take refuge in a quiet bathroom. When I look up in the mirror, I’ll be surprised to see her face in mine. Stubborn chin. Haunted eyes. What an odd way for someone to finally come in first.
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