Lifetime Commitment

As I lay in bed the night after my grandmother’s funeral, a chilly draft Flew across my naked limbs. I opened my eyes and lifted my head off the pillow to search for the quilt accordioned at the bottom of the mattress. My gaze locked onto Grandmother’s moonlit face as she sat in the Papa San chair in the corner of my room. She shook her finger at me as if I were being naughty and though her lips did not part, the words ‘Negative Nelly’ echoed under the high ceilings of my bedroom.

She showed up the next several nights too, and I began to recall the time, not so long ago, when I called her a Negative Nelly. Was she angry with me?

 ***

Grandmother lived in the corner house four doors down from mine, and each Friday before school I would show up at her door with a breakfast entrée courtesy of Mother. We would eat together in her retro-style kitchen and after I left for school, Mother and Grandmother would take a relaxing stroll through the neighborhood. Grandmother would then settle in front of her PC to play online games and Mother would leave a mug of coffee, a bottle of water, and her meds on a TV tray beside her. Every afternoon at two thirty, she took a nap in her recliner. It was her Friday morning routine ever since I started middle school.

She was a particular woman with a trifecta of quirks: Quirk number one. Her faded, striped, green, reclining chair had to be positioned directly under the skylight. Grandmother said she enjoyed taking morning naps in the sun, so she kept her favorite chair under the skylight, even though it continued to fade. I slid the chair closer to the TV once and she totally freaked out. 

Quirk number two. The drinking straws on the counter were divided into groups of specific colors, and each color was in its own clear, glass flower vase. She made sure to rotate the color of the straw she used because the numbers of each color had to be equal. Mother made sure to always asked her which color she wanted before setting a mug of coffee in front of her.

 Quirk number three, there were three shelves of books in her house. In the center of the first bookshelf was a thick family bible. On either side of the cumbersome anthology, a collection of biographies and autobiographies descended like literary steps. A nine by twelve large print dictionary towered between a set of ten encyclopedias. From left to right on the third shelf, mystery novels were arranged to form an upward staircase, ending with The Big Book of Household Hints. Then the stairs led downward as each successive book shortened in height. Remove a book and you better put it back in that same spot.

***

One afternoon, school had early dismissal due to a plumbing issue. The bus stop was on the corner in front of Grandmother’s house, so I sauntered up the steps and rapped on the window. She was playing her computer games, pausing to swivel in her office chair and wave. I smiled and held up my hand in acknowledgement, but when she spun back around, I kind of felt dismissed. This awkward moment is what ignited our conversation the next morning.

***

As I unpacked the pan of baked oatmeal, Grandmother prattled on about her obsession with an on-line game called Twisted. A game she hadn’t seen in fifteen years. It was a puzzle game and it sounded like a good pastime to keep her mind sharp. She mentioned that the game was frequently interrupted by an advertisement.  She sang, “It will happen, just wait and see, call 555-6543.”

I indulgently giggled and asked her if she called the number. When she replied that she “certainly did not,” I asked her why. She argued that there was a commitment behind every phone call, especially when devious advertisements were involved. I told her to stop being a ‘Negative Nelly’ and she changed the subject.

***

         The following Friday, while we shared a warm bread pudding, Grandmother shared a recent, recurring dream she had been having. She dreamed that Grandfather sat on a shiny piano bench, his fingers danced on invisible piano keys. Oddly, he reiterated the jingle from the commercial that was played during Twisted and ended his performance with, ‘Dun dun dun; the three descending notes played in movies as a warning to impending doom.

         Grandfather passed away when I was an infant. He and Grandmother went to a bed and breakfast and on impulse and decided to stay overnight, something they hadn’t done in years. Grandfather died the next day. I heard many times how he often serenaded Grandmother on the keyboard when he was alive. I suggested that her dream was a sign that she should call the phone number. In hindsight, I now believe the tune he played was a warning. She dialed right then and pressed speaker so I could listen.

“Hello, I’m Angela,” a female voice said. “Here’s what you could look forward to today,” it was a recording. She dispatched a list of actions that could be expected to happen as the day progressed. Then, in a sing song way, “It will happen, just wait and see, call 555-6543.”

I touched seven to delete and disconnected the call. We chatted about my theory that some individuals may rely on horoscopes and fortune tellers to give them hope. Before I departed, I scratched a few of the predictions that we remembered on a notepad and left it on the counter. I had a big soccer game Saturday, so I hugged Grandmother and promised I’d be over on Sunday.

***

          The porch-swing jounced and jangled as we sat. I was curious to know if any of the prophecies came to pass, so we read the list I compiled on Friday morning and checked off each foretold event. I remember one of the quotes I wrote down said something like, “A timely interruption will give you a much-needed reminder to pause.” Grandmother validated the statement by declaring that her medication alarm sounded in the middle of her computer game, thereby, she was reminded to pause to take her pill. I replied that she was making quite a stretch with her rationalizing. Most of our discussion went similarly, and when the silliness of our debate ended, I was sure Grandmother was finished with the matter.

***

A few weeks later, I was setting the table when Grandmother confessed that she had been calling for the daily predictions. She said that she could not get that ditty out of her head. The tune even kept her awake at night. She added the number to her short list of contacts on her speed dial. She had been setting her alarm earlier and waking at six thirty every morning to listen to an updated account of the day’s potential occurrences. It became the start of her new daily routine. Besides, she said, Grandfather seemed at peace as he only sang her sweet tunes now.

***

On a day in July, I offered to spend the night at her house. She was more than happy to have me there. We played cards and made popcorn. I found out that Grandmother actually hated popcorn. I slept in Mother’s old room.

From previous experiences, I knew that the volume on Grandmother’s alarm clock was     very loud. It had woken me up out of deep sleeps before. I didn’t want to be woken at six in the morning; this was my summer vacation. I waited until she started snoring and I tiptoed to her bedroom to turn off the alarm.

In the morning, I rolled onto my back and yawned while stretching under the thin, soft sheet. I sat upright and pivoted, my legs dangling off the side of the bed, my toes barely touching my slippers. I pushed myself to my feet, slid into my open heel scuffies and shuffled to the kitchen, but Grandmother wasn’t there. I sauntered across the linoleum floor and rounded the corner to her bedroom.

Woefully, I stood in the hallway just outside the open door to Grandmother’s bedroom. I knew she was dead. I couldn’t hear anything except a bird outside the window across the room. I stepped through the threshold and ambled toward the corpse on the bed. Its hand felt cool, not cold, but not warm and alive. My vision moved to the glowing numbers on the digital clock, they read 10:02.

 ***

After Grandmother’s funeral, I traipsed to my bedroom and plopped into my desk chair. As I reached for a book to press a funeral flower in, I accidentally nudged the computer mouse and the display on my open laptop lit up. I must have forgotten to log out of my ‘Go Arcade’ account the night before and I was momentarily taken aback when I saw the games’ menu; ‘Twisted’ topped the list. I clicked on the icon as I thought of Grandmother. Immediately a commercial played, a familiar phone number on a red background took over the screen. A female voice sang the words, “It will happen, just wait and see, call 555-6543.” A feeling of melancholy shot through me as I remembered Grandmother singing the jingle. I snapped the laptop shut.

***

The following evening, my aunts and uncles sat at the dining room table reminiscing about Grandmother. I contributed to the conversation by mentioning her self-proclaimed addiction to the on-line game, Twisted. Mother gasped quietly, adding that Grandfather’s addiction to his daily horoscope started when he discovered that game. “He telephoned for predictions every day until he expired,” she declared.

As usual, I began to ponder that conversation while I lay awake that night. Maybe Grandfather forgot to read the daily prophecies because he was preoccupied with his amorous tryst. What if he needed those insights to have something to look forward to? Did he die because he didn’t know what was in store that day? I could not stop analyzing the situation.

My thoughts turned to Grandmother. I wondered if I convinced her to start something she literally could not finish. I prevented her from calling the number the morning she died. Did I kill my grandmother when I turned off the alarm?

Did she try to warn me when she shook her finger, implying that calling the number was the wrong thing for me to do? Was she conveying that there was a life-long commitment behind this phone number?

 Dreams are too easily misconstrued, why don’t the dead speak plainly? Now I’m afraid to stop calling the damn number.

End