The Memories

Another goodbye feels so close.

I’m not ready.

My Grandmother and I have lived under the same roof for two years, yet it feels like we’re ghosts passing through each other’s lives. She haunts 1935, and I exist in whatever future she’s convinced I’m ruining. We share walls and silence; meals strained under the weight of things we’ve stopped saying. Our conversations have thinned into brittle exchanges. They bruise more than they bridge.

Avoidance makes me productive. When I don’t want to think or feel, I clean. That’s how I ended up rummaging through Grandpa’s old side of the room—the side that’s been untouched for a decade, the side that still smells faintly like Old Spice.

Anyway, I just wanted a bedside table for my bedroom. Instead, I found the pumice stone wrapped inside a tattered note with my Grandpa’s handwriting: “Visit me.” She spent the time after Grandpa’s death clearing out half the house of anything of sentimental value, but she kept a rock? I roll it over in my hands. It’s smooth.

“It allows you to rewind time—in a way.” My Grandmother’s voice sounds behind me, startling me. Turning to her, I see her sly smile. “There are rules to it, but that’s for later. Come.” She wobbles to the living room. Ninety years takes a toll on a body. She sits in her favorite recliner, which squeaks with noises WD-40 can’t silence. She pauses. I flop on the couch, awaiting the punchline. She takes a deep breath. “I visit Don often. I miss him—I know you do, too. But. I want you to understand why I am the way I am. I want to show you what my words lack.”

“Time travel?” I scoff. My Grandmother is pragmatic, where is this fantasy world coming from? She smiles, setting the pumice stone on the table next to her croaking chair. Its thud entices me closer. “Is this real?” I ask, skeptic.

“Place your hand on it… and click your heels three times!” There it is! We laugh.

“See! I knew it!” I stand to leave. We have exceeded our usual five-minute interval of interaction, and I am becoming uncomfortable.

“It is real. I promise.” She says, waving me to take my seat again. “Now, it might feel weird but trust the journey. The one who owns the stone controls where it goes. Place your hand on it and clear your mind the best you can.” She rests a shaky hand on her side of the stone. Me too.

A buzzing creeps from the recesses of my mind—an annoying gnat, increasing to a mosquito, then an eagle screeching. My vision blurs, and I succumb to the warm darkness. I feel weightless. My eyes find a speck of light warbling in the far reaches of the dark.

Oh, no, the light at the end of the tunnel. Grandma killed me with the stone, I shudder-laugh.

I’m not ready for someone else’s death, much less my own, but an insatiable longing pushes my legs across the cosmic floor. Bright, warm streaks of green, yellow, and purple swirl quietly as I walk toward the speck. Every step feels like I’m edging closer to the goodbye I'm afraid of.

But it’s not a speck; it’s oval, its electric border sizzles softly. A portal? My Grandmother stares at the images playing on it. She is looking at a rickety modern-day shack. Five smiling and giggling kids spilled out of the front door. Little pale legs bustle underneath flour sack dresses and high-water pants. The kids play by clacking rocks and sticks. It’s short-lived. A stern, haggard man barrels out of the shack, his eyes stopping the fun.

“Chores!” He barks. “No playin’.” His voice was brash, exhausted.

The little ones hung their heads. “Yes, Father.” They chorus.

The image morphs to one girl sweeping hay in the barn. I can smell the barn funk in my mind.

“Watch out, Geraldine!” A voice above the girl yells. Geraldine? Grandma? I glance at her beside me. A scream made me look back; she now had a pitchfork jutting out of her foot, blood pooling underneath. I know this story! She told it countless times. I’m embarrassed to admit, part of me feels vindicated by her pain.

But then her Father enters the barn and smacks her mouth. “Stop cryin’.” He demands as her cheeks scarlet. She smothers her emotions as he abrasively wraps the wound. No cleaning. “Get back to work.” He grunts, leaving.

“That was the last day my family was together as a whole.” Grandma says. The portal vanishes, and cosmic darkness envelopes us. I feel the weight of her silence, her hurt.

Her repression.

The darkness holds us in its maternal arms, letting the memory settle. Why these moments? I fidget. I want to reach for her, but even here, in her own memories, she feels beyond reach.

“Ready for another?” She asks, walking away. We wade through galaxies. A silly thought struck me: is this where wind comes from? Yes, we orbit, but what if people like my time-traveling Grandma generated the wind by visiting memories? I held on to that thought for some grounding. This was not the journey I expected to be doing on a Sunday night.

The next sizzling portal is her adulthood: collegiate valedictorian despite her male classmate’s constant heckling of a “farm girl” in the city (they sound like the seagulls from Finding Nemo, “Mine, mine, mine…”); typewriter clicks overlap with office laughter; promotions to an Executive Assistant, catering to many jerk bosses; her retirement party with former colleagues singing her praises, reminding her she’s a hardass, but they wouldn’t have been so successful if she wasn’t.

It plays on a loop. Her eyes hide embarrassment over her brown bag lunches, though she was providing for six other mouths. Anger flared in them as she went toe-to-toe with chauvinistic bosses. As valedictorian, they gleam with resignation about her predetermined life.

Only eyes.

Nothing registers on her face.

I worry if this fate awaits me. Tears prick my eyes, but I fight them. Time travel is not a place for crying. I inhale the vapor of space, trying to distract myself. Or where am I exactly? A wormhole? Time travel tastes like salt, a dash of cinnamon, and slime. I’m not sure how to convey the last one, find a time traveling pumice stone and experience it yourself.

“I’m proud of my career, but it was never something I enjoyed.” Grandma mutters to herself as the portal vanishes with a soft snap

In her stories, she seemed happy. But she never found it in those predetermined adventures. Her words ring in my ears about my path: a career gives you provisions, not joy.

Assigned chores, assigned career, assigned family. It was a step-by-step life laid out for Grandma before she was even a thought. It sickens me. I don’t understand that, but that’s what she’s showing me.

She shuffles to the next light. As I follow, I reflect on my relationship with Mom. I see traces of repression and assigning in her life, alongside her silent yearning to break free. She could not save herself, but she sacrificed and laid the foundation for me to do so.

I smile, accepting the cool but burning sensation of the wormhole.

The final portal is a split screen. On the left, my Grandpa, bedridden. On the right, me, recent. I never saw him bedridden since I avoid Death. Death is a common friend we all share, but I am not ready for her presence. I had already said my goodbyes to him before his mind ate itself.

Grandma endured ground zero.

There’s no audio, but her mouth is moving, her face angry. She’s yelling at Grandpa who is curled feebly on his side of the bed. He is yelling as well—confused, hurt, afraid.

She slaps him. I gasp. I don’t need to hear her words to see she says, “Stop crying.” He cowers on the bed. Horror paints her face, her hand shaking.

I stare, shocked.

The memory stops, and my side plays: hours after my wreck last year. I nearly died after losing control on black ice, luckily only walking away with airbag rash and a cracked rib for three months. I see her in the kitchen, looking out the window over the sink. It’s still silent, but I can see her face change to disappointment when she hears the news. She mouths the words that severed our relationship, “Oh! Your insurance is going to go up.”

The verbal slap hurt more than anything physical ever could. That moment I began to detach myself from her. Those words told me I am just a red dollar sign to her. Fury reignites in my shoulders and neck. I want like hell for her to change those words.

But the memory continues.

She’s sitting on her bed, head in hands. Crying. I’ve never seen my Grandma cry. It’s unsettling and weird. My fury dissipates; she, too, felt the wound she created in our relationship. She was born into a script she never knew how to rewrite. And it’s too late.

The portal vanishes, and we are alone. We stand beside each other, feeling the distance between us. I want to reach out my hand again. But I don’t. I can’t. I don’t know the last time we touched. Or why. So we stand there. Absorbing the silence, smelling the cinnamon.

She holds the pumice stone out, and I touch my side of it. The darkness around us streaks with vibrant and violent colors. A rumble groans from the depths of the universe. It gets louder and louder, like a speeding freight train. When it feels like we are going to be run over—

Silence.

White swaddles me. I feel it caress me and carry me down to where our journey began. The couch takes up the mantle as the light loosens its grip on me. I blink. The dusty warmth of the living room comes into focus, Grandma beside me, napping. Her faint wheeze fills the darkening living room. The last spills of orange being swallowed by the night.

I stand, stretching that universal shudder-stretch where stars flash in your eyes.

I look at Grandma, in her chair, cradling the pumice stone. She’s smaller than before. Smaller than my memories of her. I see now how much life has taken from her.

I know we won’t discuss what I saw. We won’t unpack it or name it. But something is different in the air between us—a little ease on the knot. A waft of cinnamon tickles my nose. The universe felt endless out there (up there? down there?), but in the dim living room it feels finite. I can’t rewrite her script, but I don’t have to repeat it.

When the goodbye comes, I won’t be ready.

But now I understand the woman I will be losing.