A Second Home
This is the first vignette I ever wrote. I loved the way vignettes operated like memories wedged in one’s stream of consciousness. This one is for you and one day I will write you an entire book. Even if you can’t hear it, I’ll read it to you. All of it.
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I visited my grandmother almost every day. I sit in the backseat of my dad's car as he slowly inches his way down the cracked, crumbling pavement, filled with kids standing out in the middle of the street, playing. I was always told to never to play in the road because cars might come around the corner while my brother and I were playing. But there we were, a black car on a road in the burning sun, waiting as these kids, who are a few years older than me, taking their sweet time to make their way to the sidewalk. They'd stare at us, not the curious type of stare, but the incredulous look you give an uninvited guest. I'd avoid their gaze, eyes fixed on the back of the seat in front of me, even though they couldn't even see me through the tint of the window.
I jumped out of the car as soon as we rolled up the curved driveway and made my way to the concrete step that led up to her house. Even though she left the door open and I could call her name through the black metal screen, I still ring the doorbell, just to hear her echo through the house.
Walking quickly, she opens the screen door with a smile, and ushers us in, flustered, as if we'd been standing out there for hours and she was only now realizing she had guests. My grandmother, a woman who had black, wiry curls that were short and sweet, had a face always seemed to look calm, but you could tell she was always thinking about something else.
The first thing she does when I walk in is to offer me a bowl of soup. She always had some sort of soup that was always boiling on the stove. I think that's why her walls always smelled like real homemade, Chinese food. Like grease. I sit down at the table, and my dad takes a bowl too. She talks to my dad, pausing only to ask me if I wanted seconds.
My dad stands up. “Let's go see grandpa,” he suggests. And I follow him.
My grandma stands up and takes our bowls to the sink for us as I skip down the hall with him. The hallway was always sort of dark. The only light usually came from the bathroom window when the door was ajar.
My grandma and my grandpa slept in separate rooms, which was always weird to me because my mom and dad shared a room. My grandparents' rooms were as different as black and white. Grandpa's room had light pouring onto the white sheets and onto his skin. He always looked like he was sleeping. My grandma's room always had the lights turned off and it was dark. Even when we went in there because I wanted to look at her curlers in the little colored plastic boxes, she didn't turn on the lights. When the light was turned on, it was a warm yellowish glow that made everything a lot older than it really was, herself included.
“Hi, Grandpa,” I say, and hug him as best as you can hug a person who is laying down and can’t hug you back. Sometimes, I hear something or I feel him shift underneath me and this was it. I'd walk back down the hall and grab one of the old blankets sitting on the plastic lawn chairs in my Dad's old bedroom. It's dark in here too, but there's a window that looks out into the L-shaped backyard that lets in light so I don't have to turn on the light.
I run and curl up on the couch, and pretend like I'm napping even though I'm not the least bit tired. Grandma comes over and smiles at me, and laughs, but doesn't say anything. They talk some more, but everything blends into the background with the TV show, as I'm curled up under a blanket, and I decide that I never wanted to leave.
2017 / 2021
