You get odd communities in the city. My grandmother was at the centre of ours. When she wasn’t drinking, she was often on that porch, and she had words of wisdom for any poor sucker who happened to stop within earshot of her chair. She had a cane that she used like a gavel-she sure as hell didn’t need it for walking-and a voice that could make thunder seem sort of pleasant.
But I learned to love her. It was an uphill battle, for the early years of my childhood, and much of the affection I feel for her is hindsight and odd memory. She told me things I hated, when I was young, and watching them prove true was both a liberation and a bitter reminder that that old woman knew things.
She didn’t believe in magic.
Which isn’t to say that she didn’t believe in Unicorns or Elvis sightings. She thought astrology was idiotic, thought crystals were stupid, and could spend whole days deriding the healing powers of just about any newfangled fad. She had God’s ear, in a way-she believed in God-but whatever he had to say to her, she didn’t share.
But I was talking about Unicorns.
Because Maggie got it into her head that she had to have one. Time of year. Time of month-I don’t know. Maggie’s like her own mystery, as different from my Gran as night from day; part of the same continuum, if you look close enough, but really, how many people do?
“Mags,” I told her, “this is stupid.”
Maggie, hefting her six-month-old onto the perch of her left hip, gave me The Look. Shanna, her oldest, is four, and because Shanna is both capable of listening and repeating what she hears, Maggie’s gotten a little less verbose when she’s in a mood. Doesn’t matter. The Look pretty much says it all.
So when she turned it on me, I shut up for a bit. Not for long; living with Gran, I learned how to talk. If I hadn’t, I’d’ve probably been a mute-that woman could talk. “Look, you’ve got Connell and Shanna to think about now.”
“I’m thinking about them,” she said, in that cast-iron voice of hers. “It’s not for me.”
Now, Maggie’s no idiot. “Look, you know the stuff about healing powers and unicorn horns is just shit. Besides, they look healthy enough to me.”
Connell obliged by spitting up on her left shoulder. It’s not one of his most charming activities, but we’re both used to it by now. Maggie, determined, didn’t even bother to reach for something to clean herself off. And Connell, being the age he is, can swallow or spit with equal comfort. I glared at him, but he just thought it was funny. He usually does.
Baby laughter is a type of disease; it rots the brain. I spent a few minutes descending into that language that isn’t really language at all, and after liberating my finger and my glasses-both of which he’d grabbed-I turned back to Maggie.
“You’re not getting enough sleep.”
She looked like she was fit to spit herself. “It’s not sleep I need,” she snapped.
Creation is an act of defiance. Whose, it’s hard to say. Unwanted pregnancies happen all the time, and if you’ve the mind, you can end ’em. But Maggie’s a special case. I’ve known it for a while. My grandmother told me, before she passed away.
Maggie moved in two houses down the street, and let her grass go to seed the first summer, which is high on the list of mortal sins as far as my Gran was concerned. But there are worse sins-barely-and she sent me along to check things out.
Turns out Maggie, being single, was in that constant state of exhaustion that also comes with being newly parental, and, as she put it, either the grass went or she did. Given that Maggie has eyes to die for (and a temper to die by), I thought it was a fair trade, and after introducing myself, I trudged on back to Gran’s place. And then trudged back to Maggie’s with a lawn-mower. I’m not that fond of gardening, in case I hadn’t made that clear, but there are forces of nature you just don’t ignore, and Gran had decided that this particular woman needed some help.
After I added a new layer of burn to the upper side of my arms and face, I asked my Gran why she was so interested in Maggie. And the old woman gave me The Look-oddly enough, it’s pretty much the same as Maggie’s-and then launched into a bunch of stuff that made me wish I hadn’t asked.
“Mark my words,” she said, after saying a whole lot of them, “Maggie is special. She’s the mother.”
“The mother?”
“The mother.”
Given that we live in a neighbourhood which is more or less over-run with kids of all ages, colours and volumes, this struck me as a tad woo-woo, even for Gran.
“Gran,” I said, sitting down on the porch steps so she could comfortably tower over me, “what’s so special about this mother?”
“She,” Gran answered, with a sigh that indicated she didn’t think much of my intellectual faculties, “doesn’t have much choice.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gran shook her grey head, and her face wrinkled as she pursed her lips. “You think about it,” she told me. “You’re not always going to be this carefree. You have to know things.”
That one caught me short. “Gran?”
“That’s right,” she said, pushing herself up out of her chair. “I won’t be here forever, and when I’m gone, no one’s going to do your thinking for you.”
I remember thinking, at the time, that that would be a bit of a relief.
Asking Gran a question always involves a certain amount of humiliation, because to her, they all seem stupid. It’s like she reads answers that are written across your forehead, only you’re illiterate, even when she gives you the mirror. She’d spent the day working in the herb garden, and smelled of crushed bay leaves and smoke. But that aside, she was on her throne, and waiting with less patience than she usually did.
I used to think of the pipe she smoked as an affectation, a way of making her seem even more weird than she already was. I was younger then. Not even my memory can encompass that fact that she must have been younger as well; she never seemed to change. Even her clothing seemed to weather the passing of fad and style.
“All right, Gran,” I told her, taking my seat on the stair, “I’ve been thinking.”
“And?”
“I’m stupid.”
She snorted, smoke coming out of her nostrils as if she were a wizened dragon. The ritual of emptying her pipe stilled her voice for a few minutes, which was its own kind of mercy. I don’t smoke pipes, but I have a fondness for them anyway, probably because of her.
“I’ve talked to Maggie,” I told her. I didn’t tell her how much I’d been talking to Maggie; it wasn’t her business.
But her eyes narrowed. “So what.”
“She’s not that fond of men at the moment, but it seems like she has a reason.”
Gran snorted. “That’s it?”
I shrugged. “She’s got two kids.”
“A boy and a girl.”
“Pretty much.”
“And a cat.”
I’m not a cat person. “And a cat.”
“Good. And?”
“A messy house. A better lawn. A job she hates just a little bit less than she’d hate welfare.”
Gran inhaled. Exhaled. Frowned. “You’re right,” she said, spitting to the side. “You’re stupid.”
“I said that, didn’t I?”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t.”
My turn to shrug. “So what about her makes her the mother?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“I didn’t exactly ask.”
“But she didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
Tobacco ashes flew as she gestured. It was a pretty rude gesture for an old lady, and I dodged a few stray embers. “And you couldn’t tell.”
“Obviously.”
She grabbed her cane, and I thought she might hit me with it. But she didn’t. “Then maybe she doesn’t know,” she said. Using it, for a moment, to stand. It was the first time in my life I thought she looked old, and I didn’t like it. “She’s the mother,” she said quietly, “because she was born to be the mother. It’s a responsibility,” she added, with a trace of sarcasm. “And a duty.”