Sometimes, probably seeking a reprieve from the hubbub of grandchildren under the grape arbor, Grandma would come upon me in the living room. In every instance, she would gently but pointedly tell me that she wouldn’t be around forever. Is there anything of hers that I would want when she was gone, she would ask. In the presence of such beauty, I revolted against these questions even as I pretended for her sake to consider which items I might want.
What I wanted was for nothing to change, for her and this sanctuary of loveliness to exist forever exactly as they were.
Whenever she asked what I wanted, I felt an inexplicable coldness at my core. I knew that somehow when she was gone, these rooms would disappear with her. So, much to her frustration, I never chose anything.
I was right. Through terrible circumstances involving memory loss and predatory caretakers, I have almost nothing that was hers, only some lovely earrings and a few of her books. Her favorite book, The Water Babies, sits on display in my home and daily evokes memories of wonder, beauty, and joy.
When I had drunk my fill of the living room, I would find Grandpa’s study at the end of the hall, a room dominated by a large brown leather chair, an olive-green afghan covering the seat. It had been the first piece of furniture my grandparents could afford in the years after exhausting their savings purchasing first Grandpa’s cement block factory and then, a few years later, the house. My mother remembers a childhood when these rooms were all empty, and she recalls Grandma’s joy when they were able to bring that first real piece of furniture home.
Within days, my mom’s two younger brothers had whiled away an afternoon punching holes in the leather with freshly sharpened yellow pencils. I shrank with horror every time I pictured the scene—first the act of unreasoning, irresistible impulse, then discovery, dismay, despair. That day the afghan had been pressed into service, and there it remained, forever concealing my uncles’ childish folly.
Beside the chair, on a small end table, stood a large clear glass jar full of marbles in fantastic colors, stripes, and swirls. Heavy and cool in my hand, they clicked and squeaked against each other in my palm as I slowly traced our family history across a wall full, almost ceiling to floor, with framed photographs…
Of my great grandfather whom I barely remember—I saw him dance a jig once on the flagstones in front of the goldfish pond, cane in hand, smile splitting his face, a shock of white hair peering out from under his black hat.
Of my grandmother’s half-brothers whom she discovered in adulthood when she learned that her father had kept secret his two previous marriages and the children they had produced. They looked just like him. I heard stories that even though they had never known him as anything but their barber, one of the brothers had picked up the same hobby—intricately-detailed, award-winning bird carvings.
Of my great-grandmother, whom I saw once in the hospital on oxygen as she lay dying of lung cancer. My memory is of white hair in a loose bun, deeply wrinkled hands, tubes and tape, the humming and beeping of medical machinery so vital and so unfamiliar that they overshadow the quiet, small-framed woman under the thin blue blanket.
Of my mother as a girl, of her brothers, two and three years younger. Of her wedding. In one photo she posed smiling in bridal radiance beside her sister, fifteen years younger, who at eight, wrote railing, raging, lonely letters to my father after my parents were married, rebuking him for taking Lori away from her, all the way to Texas.
Across the room was a heavy wooden desk, littered with mail, usually bearing requests and gratitude from the many charitable organizations my grandfather supported. Then came the shelf full of Grandma’s horse show ribbons, trophies, and photographs. She had suffered from fibromyalgia—long undiagnosed—since she was young. My mother remembers many days during the brutal Minnesota winters that Grandma spent sitting on their cast iron registers to stay warm and ease her pain. When she turned fifty, my grandfather wanted to surprise her with something she would love and something that might help ease her symptoms and bring her joy.
He said, “You’ll never guess what I got you.”
She shot back, “What, a horse?”
It was indeed a horse.
First, he gave her Red, a quarter horse and then a few years later Chelsea, a dappled gray. She was at the barn every day and turned out to be an excellent rider. The shelf full of ribbons testified to her skill in the many Western shows she and her beloved horses enjoyed together.
As I felt time slipping away, I would duck into the small, high-ceilinged bathroom tucked between the study and the stairs. It was painted a deep, dull shade of pink and, towards the ceiling, scallops of thin, black crochet-work interspersed at regular intervals with pompoms encircled the tiny room. The proportions and colors always felt vaguely suggestive of Alice in Wonderland; as I stood at the tiny corner sink and weighed whether or not I was supposed to use the pink (decorative?) hand soap, I almost expected the deeply imprinted words to command: “Eat me.”
Now I ascended the wide staircase, feet relishing the thick cream carpet, palm gliding up the polished wooden banister, gaze resting on the bird Grandma had painted—a delicate bird resting in the safety of blossoming branches. The last time I saw her, Grandma told me that this scene, painted directly onto the wall not long after they had moved in fifty years earlier, is what she would miss most if she ever had to leave her home.
This was one of my first thoughts when her deteriorating health and memory loss required round-the-clock care in a nursing facility, and I almost wept with gladness when I learned that my aunt had photographed and framed this scene to hang on the wall in her room.
Upstairs, an L-shaped landing offered passage into the bedrooms. Past three bedrooms, I wrapped around the banister heading straight for the sunroom and for Rapunzel. There she was. Immediately inside the warm, sun-drenched room, on a round glass table, a large porcelain figure of Rapunzel presided. Robed in rich shades of purple, she smiled an oblique, enigmatic smile. Violet-blue eyes peered out from under long lashes and a lavender cap edged with tiny pearls. Her long blonde braid fell over her shoulder and coiled at her feet. She possessed such presence; she felt as real as I did. Grandma loved fairy tales, and owned many dolls crafted as their heroines, but Rapunzel was the most recognizable, and she was my favorite.
It was in the sunroom with Grandma that I watched The Wizard of Oz for the first time. Grandma’s name was Dorothy and she had a pair of sparkly red high heels that she always let us try on and play dress-up with. I remember being somewhat unsure if the story was about her and if she had played Dorothy in the film when she was younger or if in some way she was the original Dorothy upon which the tale was based. It seemed unlikely, yet there was her dark hair, her name, and those red shoes.
I wanted to ask, but never got up the nerve. Grandma, though slight, was formidable. She was kind though not warm, affectionate but reserved. Hugs from her were not exactly infrequent, but they were always a surprise. I wasn’t sure how she would take my question. Maybe she didn’t want anyone to know about her secret past. But then why did she keep those shoes?
I had slowly spiraled in a full circle now. The bright windows of the creamy white sunroom opened over the murmur in the grape arbor. Indistinct voices blended into the ever-present breeze and its accompaniment, the windchimes that hung outside the sunroom window and under the grape arbor. Their gentle harmony feels glowing and golden and sun-soaked in my memory.
Now it was almost time to reverse the spiral, descending to the basement down two flights of stairs, almost as tightly coiled as the wandering grape trailers. But first, a quick peek into the rooms along the hallway. Passing out of the sunroom, the banister on my left, Grandma’s beautifully rosemaled hope chest on my right, I scanned the collection of family photos above the chest. The one in the large white wicker frame always stood out—my mother and her brothers when they were very young, curly-haired and chubby, sepia-toned and smiling.
I’d skip over the bathroom for now, opting instead for the briefest glimpse into my mother’s old room that now belonged to my Aunt Julie, the aunt who had teased me when, at seven, I made her a birthday card and spelled her name “July.” I would throw one longing glance at her beautiful dollhouse and make my escape. I was always afraid to be caught trespassing in her room.
Though it had been many years since my uncles had occupied it, the room forever called “the boy’s room” followed, just across from the stairwell. Its key features for me were the crib which had cradled my mother and her siblings as infants but now held a display of old dolls and antique teddy bears, and the sink just inside the doorway, marking this as the room in which the town doctor had seen patients when this had once been his home.
Then, a hurried and anxious peek into my grandparent’s room. I had neither been invited nor forbidden to enter it, but it always felt off-limits. I might catch a snatched glance of Grandma’s first painting, a lovely pastel of Christ. I’d see a flash of silver jewelry on her dresser. I have an impression of pinks and creams on the bed. But I was always relieved to step away from that doorway and circle back to the upstairs bathroom.
It walls papered in old newsprint and its floors tiled in white octagons, the bathroom felt somehow timeless. The old, oversized tub and Grandpa’s shaving set and brushes on the sink seemed so quaint and old-fashioned. Of course, Grandma used many antiques as décor, but the bathroom stood out because it was full of old items that were actually used on a daily basis.
And, there just inside the bathroom door, was the much smaller door to the laundry shoot that, if only I had just eaten the pink soap, might have been able to whoosh me straight down to the basement, no stairs needed. When my uncles were young, it had done just that for the cat.
The basement smelled of laundry detergent and oil paint.
Along the left side of the long, cool, nearly windowless basement was Grandma’s painting studio with shelves of paint tubes and half-finished canvases above newspapers protecting the floor. The entire wall was a cheerful mural of trees, flowers, and woodland animals. As I mused over her landscapes, I always wished I could paint like her, or even draw a little, but her gift skipped me entirely and landed squarely on my younger brother.
In the right half of the basement an ancient television with enormous antennae blankly stared down a brown couch, its cushions worn to a perfection of comfort. Beside them was a motley collection of old dolls in a large, antique, white perambulator. I would eagerly scoop up my favorite, Little Red Riding Hood. When I flipped her dark braids and red dress upside down, suddenly her grandmother appeared with gray yarn hair and embroidered spectacles. If I turned the grandmother around, I was face to face with the wolf—eyes fierce and teeth bared.
There were those layers and revelations again at the end of my ritual. I felt reverent and at rest, alive and attuned to magic and mystery. Ready for anything.
Now, the shadows were growing long, and it was time for the rest of the family to tumble into the basement. I would entertain younger siblings while I watched and listened. Soon there would be more stories.
After the stories, we would leave for the cabin castle through the dark rustle of unseen grape leaves in the Minnesota breeze.
Rachel Brown
enjoys sipping tea, savoring good books, and spending time outside.
She is daily inspired to live more deeply and love more fully by her husband and two children.