Thrown-out Magazines

“When I think of my grandmother, it is weekend dinners.” A choked-up chuckle was followed by some sniffles; Clara dabbed at her eye before continuing the memories. “It wasn’t just dinner, it was a whole affair. All these new recipes from those homesteading magazines – every week there was a new one to try out. Or multiple to try out,” she added. “It was always really delicious, so it wasn’t like there were any left-overs afterwards. No matter how much she cooked. And those magazines – they were something close to holy to her. They weren’t to be thrown out; they were to be kept, because one could always find something good in there. Oh god,” Clara snorted, before laughing. A wet teary laugh, but a true one. “I just remembered how one time dinner was cancelled for like three months, because Mum threw a few of her magazines away.”

Michaela tensed; the bench below her shook a little with her mother’s sharp startle.

This was not what had happened.

Mum’s fingers were trembling, her hand on Michaela’s was still welcome. She couldn’t look at her mother; she had hardly been able to do so all day. These last few days, almost. How from one day to the next the lines on her face deepened. How her features grew hard; trying to keep the emotions in, keep up appearances and not break. The grey strands in her dark hair standing out even more. Michaela was already close to breaking, but seeing Mum break too? It might be selfish, seeing as Michaela was a grown woman, but she still needed her mother to look up to. To tell her that everything would be ok.

And right now she needed it even more.

“I still don’t know how a bunch of magazines almost broke this family,” Clara continued, unaware of the tension in the front row.

Her brother Francis, sitting on Michaela’s right, put his arm around her shoulder. As she leaned in, she took a deep breath, tears threatening to spill now for different reasons. Grief for her grandma mixed with painful memories she thought had been put away.

Clara wasn’t completely wrong, Grandma had loved these magazines in a way that probably went above and beyond what most would consider normal. That however did not mean that she cut off the family for three months because of a few thrown-away magazines.

Michaela remembered it as if it were yesterday, even though it had been around fifteen years. Michaela had just gotten her braces removed, using every opportunity to smile into any reflective surface, and showing it off to anyone who cared enough to give her a moments attention.

That day she had shown Brittany.

Brittany, the prettiest girl in their grade, with brown curls and the biggest brown eyes and a smile that made Michaela’s knees wobble and sent the butterflies in her stomach flying.

Brittany, who had smiled, and blushed and said that it would made kissing so much better.

Brittany, who Michaela then got to kiss.

That euphoric feeling of their first kiss was even better than being rid of the braces, a feeling that had Michaela all but floating on air for the rest of the day and smiling from ear to ear as she sat at the dinner table, eating potato casserole.

“My,” Grandma smiled, “isn’t someone chipper today.”

“Mhm,” Michaela beamed, in a way that had the then twelve-year-old Francis rolling his eyes. Clara, nine years old, seemed to be happy with the overall happiness, but was too distracted telling Grandpa about the four-times-table she had just learned to pay the oldest sibling any attention.

“You know with a smile like this the boys must be lining up to ask you out,” Grandma continued, that knowing look on her face.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Michaela shrugged.

“Come now,” she pried, “there’s got to be some young man you’ve got your eye on.”

Michaela looked up and locked eyes with her mother. Mum knew. She knew that there wasn’t a boy that caught Michaela’s eye. That there wasn’t any boy that caught her eye and that there wouldn’t ever be a boy that would catch her eye.

When Michaela started to get all these feelings for Brittany that were so much more than friendship, she had gone to Mum for advice. Asking what was wrong with her that she didn’t get that same fuzzy feeling in her chest when she thought about boys. How to fix it. Mum had been taken aback, but had also told her that there was nothing that needed to be fixed. That crushing on a girl was just as ok as crushing on a boy. And that she loved Michaela, no matter what.

She hadn’t even told Mum about the kiss yet, didn’t get that chance with Clara and Francis being around all day. But she really wanted to tell Mum. And maybe she could tell Grandma and the rest of the family too.

Mum smiled, but it wasn’t quite happy. Michaela wasn’t a hundred percent sure why Mum’s eyes didn’t shine the same way they always did when she was happy. Or why it felt so forced. But it was a smile, and Michaela decided to decipher it in a positive way.

“I don’t really care about boys,” Michaela said.

“I get it. And focusing on school is also really important,” Grandma nodded, as if she understood what Michaela was talking about. “But it’s also something to find a nice guy to share all that with. You know, I was your age, when I met and fell in love with your grandfather.” At that Grandpa smiled over, before focussing back on Clara and her numbers. “And through it all it has been wonderful to have a partner at my side.”

“I want that too.” Her cheeks heated up, and that all too familiar flutter returned to her stomach, as she thought about Brittany and about them being together forever.

“Gross,” Francis shuddered, but Michaela gladly ignored her little brother.

“It’s just that… I don’t want that with a boy.” Her eyes were on Grandma, but she felt how her dad and grandpa’s eyes turned to her, almost burning holes into the side of her head. “I want that with a girl.”

It was silent at the table, safe for Clara counting up and down; she had gotten to the five-times-table by now. Grandma’s face was unmoving and the flutter in Michaela’s stomach dropped. And along with that, the pit grew bigger and bigger. She was going to be sick.

It could have been minutes or hours, Michaela wouldn’t have been able to tell either way, until Grandma finally moved, and turned to Mum. “What?”

“You heard her, mother.”

“And you’re allowing this?” Daggers poked at Michaela’s innards at Grandma’s icy tone. The hope and pure euphoria of earlier this day hardening into something Michaela was missing the words to describe.

“That is not on me to allow or to forbid,” Mum made clear. “It is only on me to be there for my daughter.”

Michaela didn’t dare breathe, as Mum and Grandma had their eyes locked, standing off, the tension getting unbearable. By now it was almost impossible to sit still but Michaela feared that any move of hers would see her in even bigger trouble than she already was in. Even Clara noticed that something was wrong, she stopped counting and looked around the room, trying to figure out what had happened.

With a scoff, Grandma went back to eating. “Eat,” she barked. “I didn’t prepare all this for you to let it get cold.”

As delicious as that food had been maybe five minutes ago, the pure thought of eating anything right now made Michaela feel sick. But she couldn’t even imagine what would happen if she didn’t eat. Would she get yelled at? Would Grandma be even more disappointed?

So, she ate. Small bites, each taking more effort than the one before, but as long as she looked at the plate, she didn’t have to look at any of her family members. She had something to focus on to keep her from crying. And though she wanted to, she didn’t cry. Not during dinner, not during the drive home. Not when both Mum and Dad gave her the biggest hug and told her how much they loved her. Not even when Francis held her hand and said that he thought girls were gross, but if Michaela liked a girl, she probably wasn’t gross and if it would cheer her up, they could play Mario together.

The tears did fall, when she was in bed, all wrapped up in her blanket.

Those tears also fell a week later, when she and her siblings got ready to go to Grandma’s for dinner, and Mum said that they wouldn’t do family dinner for a little while. Michaela was devastated. Francis understood enough of the situation to be uncharacteristically kind to his older sister over the following weeks.

And Clara… Confused was not enough of a word to describe how she felt about this situation. Michaela didn’t want her to know the truth. She didn’t want to have to talk about being into girls, about people being against it, about her own grandmother not wanting to see her. And on top of that she didn’t want to confuse Clara even more by telling her that Grandma didn’t like Michaela anymore.

So their mother took the bullet. “You know how Grandma has all these magazines with the recipes and such? Well, I think she has too many. Some of them are even as old as Francis! And she doesn’t even read them anymore. So I threw some of them away. And she’s really mad that I did that, so until she can get many new ones for new recipes, we can’t have dinner.”

Lying wasn’t the greatest way to deal with that, but Clara bought it. And they agreed that if those issues with Grandma wouldn’t be sorted out, they would eventually tell her the truth.

But after about three months, they were invited back. Grandma apologized and while it took them a while to get their relationship back to what it was, they managed to work things out.

And kept the story of the magazines to this day.

“I know I was quite young back then. And maybe something more than a few magazines being thrown away happened that I never knew about or realized.” Francis squeezed Michaela’s shoulder, and she almost laughed out loud at how correct Clara’s assessment was. “I’m not sure if that even matters. At the end of the day we were sitting around the table again, eating together, being a family. And that’s how I’m going to remember her. In the time we as family spend together, be it over dinner or not. And in all that love I feel only thinking about it. I love you, Grandma.”

Michaela was up next; standing up at the podium. Next to her grandmother’s still figure in the ebony casket. In front of her family, and so many people she didn’t quite know. Michaela stared at the paper in front of her. She had prepared a short text, talking about the time Grandma had taught her how to use a sowing machine. It didn’t feel right anymore. Not because the text Michaela had written was wrong, unemotional or depicted a false memory. But Clara’s eulogy had uncovered things, had uncovered wounds. Those wounds had healed long ago, but at least for this moment the scars were prominent and present again. And Michaela couldn’t ignore them.

“Grandma and I had our ups and downs,” she started, disregarding her original story, deciding to speak freely. Hoping it wouldn’t start the next family drama. “We’re family after all. And family can be difficult. And view things differently. And fight. And destroy each other’s prized possessions,” she added with a chuckle, which earned some chuckles from the rows of people ahead of her. “But family also forgives. And grows. And I think Grandma and me, we really got to grow with each other. And as much as I have learned from her, I think she got to learn a few things from me as well. In the end that’s what it’s supposed to be about I think. So I consider myself lucky for having had the grandma I got. We got,” she added, smiling at her siblings. “A grandma, who loved all of us so much. Even when it maybe wasn’t always easy. And I love you too, Grandma.”