The rocking chair on Meemaw’s porch has these wonderful little grooves warn into the arms of the decade’s old maple. I sat in the chair, absent-mindedly pushing off from the floor of the porch to get a gentle, rhythmic rock in motion, while sipping a YooHoo (replete with straw) and listening to Meemaw ramble on about things between her and her new man of the hour, Theodore.
Instead of engaging her and telling her, no, this 74-year-old bachelor is probably not going to “hit it and quit it” like she picked up from a Tyler Perry movie on the TV the other day, I was still enamored with what I saw on the TV at Brent’s the other day.
A new you. A new start. I could finally be who I want to be, instead of Lucy Greenly, the girl who spends her Saturday nights at her grandparent’s house and is about to fail out of community college.
“Now Lucy-dear,” Meemaw Madaline said, with “Lucy-dear” coming out as a single word more akin to “Lucid ear” than the actual words, “When are you going to go visit your poor mother?”
I planted my toes into the ground, halting my rocking so I could shoot a glare over at Madaline.
“We both know that isn’t going to happen any time soon. She has a phone. She can call if she really wants to know what’s going on with me.”
Madaline, who was busy peeling potato skins into a plastic bowl, placed her current spud on the table, then put her hands on her knees and huffed.
“You two have to be the most stubborn women I’ve ever met, and I stayed married to your grandfather for twenty years after he slept with Francine!” Madaline added a forceful nod and a grunt to punctuate her statement.
I looked down, a little embarrassed by both her correct assessment of the Greenly women’s natural bull-headedness and her bringing up our cheatin’, beatin’ grandpa Joe, buried behind the family farm with no headstone and no fanfare. (“He’s just gonna poison the crops,” Madaline said at the funeral to the chagrin of the few people present)
“I mean, what am I supposed to say to her? ‘Hi ma, sorry I blew all your savings and have a massive student debt loan to pay back with no job prospects because I turned out to be terrible at Physics, which is a real deterrent from becoming a Physicist; hope you have better luck with Julie, love you!’ I don’t think that’ll go very far.”
Madaline stood up from her chair, bending her good knee down to keep her balance as she did.
“Listen, dear. You can either go through life being bitter at each other for who you are, or you two can accept what’s happened and move on. Blood is thicker than money.”
“That’s water, Meemaw,” I said with a sigh. “Anyways, I need to get going. I have homework due in the morning.” I walked over and gave Madaline a light hug, and she ruffled around my red hair until it tangled up in her fingers.
“Just know that I love you, and your mom loves you, too, sweetie.”
You. She loves you.
But would she love me if I became a different me? A better me?
I left in a hurry, not to do scholastic homework, but homework on “ZeroSerUm” instead.
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