That evening I picked a book from my grandfather’s dusty library and joined my grandmother in the den as she worked on her cross stitch. I thought it might be awkward, sitting quietly with her, and it almost kept me from coming down from my room. With my mother it was always uncomfortable, like she couldn’t help but fill the silence with words, complaints, or judgements, overstimulating my already wild brain and forcing me towards solitude.

My grandmother was not my mother though. She was exactly how I remembered, sans the additional stress that wore on her features in the lines under her eyes and the droop at the corners of her mouth. She appeared older than she was, but her nimble fingers stayed young. She was already nearly finished with the project she started the day before.

It was as comfortable as it used to be when I was a child. I remembered staying up late, enjoying the cool summer evenings, so still I could hear the wash of the ocean waves in the far distance, beyond the moan of the old house flexing and the taps of the needle against my grandmother’s thimble. It was the same now, only I was older and my heart beat a different rhythm; the stitches on my wrist itched when I turned the pages, and the wind screamed as it billowed around the aging house. 

“Your mother called me today.” 

My grandmother interrupted the silence as I started chapter eight. I flinched, the metaphorical walls springing up around me at the mere mention of my mother. Obviously, right when I’d let myself be vulnerable.

I tried to act like I wasn’t already in a panic, turning a page I hadn’t read. “Checking if I was still alive?” I considered waiting until my mother came to pick me up to try and kill myself again, just so maybe she’d realize it was mostly her presence that made me wish I didn’t exist. 

“She seems worried about you,” my grandmother responded, trying to hide her skepticism. I mirrored it with a sarcastic hum.

“She wasn’t concerned about me until I ‘made a scene.’” 

I rolled my eyes, then placed them back on the pages of the book, but I couldn’t return to reading. My throat was tight with frustration and I had to focus hard just to keep breathing normally.

A heavy silence lingered as my grandmother considered her words. She started speaking again, more careful this time. “I wasn’t sure about having you here at first. I was worried I couldn’t give you what you needed. We haven’t seen each other for so long and… I don’t fully understand what you did. Why you did it. I can’t comprehend, with so much life ahead of you…”

She stopped. Maybe she felt my guilt in the air and thought it best to leave her further judgements silent rather than vocalized. I didn’t blame her for not understanding. I barely understood myself. At the time it felt like the only thing left to do. Like there was nothing else. No other option. 

 Instead of continuing, she tried to insert some positivity. “Maybe this place is a better environment for you, though. For now at least. Maybe with a change of scenery, you can leave the dysfunction behind.” With a sigh, she put her cross stitch down and stood, coming over to set a hand on my shoulder and place a kiss in my hair. 

I didn’t know what to say in response, but I tried to smile as she left the room, heading back to my grandfather. My heart fluttered again in that weird way, like when she had used my nickname over breakfast, or when the paramedics had resuscitated it with an electric shock in the back of a speeding ambulance.

It wouldn’t change anything, but it sounded nice regardless.

***

My grandmother needed to go out again the next day. When I pried, she seemed apprehensive to share, but explained that she needed to pick up some supplies for my grandfather. She was a retired nurse, which was why she was able to tend to my grandfather on her own, but despite saving money on paying for in-home care, she still had to pay for the expenses of his life support, which were clearly adding up from the state of the aging house. 

She didn’t go into details, and I didn’t ask further, knowing I was already treading in sensitive territory. I couldn’t help but wonder about how much money was already spent on my grandfather’s care though. He’d been in a coma for almost three years now. Was my grandmother in debt yet? I remembered hearing my mother argue on the phone with her years ago, about expenses. Grampie’s accident had put an even bigger splinter in their relationship. 

I knew my mother would never say it, but she had already mourned her father and wanted to end things cleanly. My grandmother adamantly refused when the decision to stop life support first came though. My mother didn’t understand why my grandmother put herself through the suffering of caring for him, but then again, she didn’t understand a number of things. The women of our family had a lot in common, but empathy was never something my mother excelled at.

I think I knew why my grandmother held on. It was because sometimes the pain reminded her she was still alive. She was in that room every day, seeing him lying there, and her heart ached, but at least she felt something. I imagined being alone in this house, which had once been a home always filled with my grandfather’s warm laughter, eventually made my grandmother feel like she was the one who died. The one lingering where she didn’t belong. A ghost in a place long since dead. 

I wondered, if she could understand better what I did, if she knew that was the existence I was trying to escape. A never-ending nightmare of barely existing. I knew too well how it felt, because I had been there also.

Maybe I still was.

Maybe I was so scared to go in my grandfather’s room and see him because I might feel something too. I’d grown used to being a walking corpse, avoiding reminders of my autonomy like the plague. I wasn’t sure how it would be to feel alive again. The thought itself scared me. Like coming back to life.

I opened my journal, taking the cap of my pen with my teeth and underlining, three times: Talk to Grampie.

Before she left for town to get the supplies, she took out some cash from her purse. Two fifty dollar bills. “Can you pay the boy today? Fifty for him. The other one is for you. You can go into town and see a movie sometime if you’d like. Or buy yourself some new clothes. If you need more, let me know.” 

She was being too sweet, a glint in her eye; I knew what she was doing. Setting me up to talk to the living was a sneaky move fit for my mother. There was something different about the way she did it though. I knew her actions were for my own good, rather than her comfort and reputation. 

I pretended to be annoyed, but I couldn’t muster the emotion convincingly. I knew her intentions were honest and I couldn’t be mad. She didn’t realize what handing off that money meant for me though. I had, after all, thoroughly embarrassed myself in front of him just the day before. 

I watched out the kitchen window as my grandmother left, disappearing into the desaturation, leaving me alone again. Since arriving the atmosphere seemed to only get more gray, and I wondered what happened to the sun that shined so bright here when I was younger. Had it forgotten about Newport as I almost did? 

He arrived not long after. I didn’t notice him walking down the path to the house. It was as if he just appeared, trimmer in hand as he got to work clipping the shaped hedges around the perimeter of the house. 

I zipped my sweater up and slipped my flats on, realizing immediately upon stepping out that they wouldn’t be appropriate footwear for the Newport winter. The wind confirmed my thought, its bitter chill as I exited the house hinting towards the frigidness of the coming season. Maybe I’d ask my grandmother if I could buy a pair of nice boots. 

I approached him, trying to muster an indifferent expression even though I could tell a flush was already warming my ears. He turned to greet me with nothing more than mild curiosity. His eyes were a stormy gray, like the sky since I’d arrived; the heat grew unbearable under my collar.

I buried a hand into my pocket and withdrew with one of the bills. “My grandmother told me to give you this.”

He glanced down, then smiled politely, straight teeth peeking out from behind his lips. “I don’t need payment. I’m—” 

“Listen, I don’t need to hear your good samaritan excuse. Let’s stop beating around the bush here. Just take it and say thank you and we can get on with life.” My overwhelming embarrassment came out as hostility, and I threw my gaze to the ground to avoid his reaction, and so he couldn’t see me mentally kicking myself. 

He didn’t say anything else. Instead he reached out and took the bill, folding it up and putting it in his back pocket. With my obligatory errand dealt with, I turned on my heels to retreat. 

He called after me. “Are you alright?” 

I stopped, glancing back at him over my shoulder, wearing a questioning scowl.

“I meant, after yesterday. You seemed shook up about something. I was just wondering if you were ok," he clarified, eyes shining with a sincere curiosity. 

I wanted to be annoyed, wanted to say it was none of his business and that he should mind his own. I couldn’t be angry when he looked so innocent though.

“I’m fine,” I replied sharply, hurrying back to the house to avoid further interrogation.