We exchanged our usual guarded pleasantries.
Lots of work to do?" she queried, straightening a pile of index cards on the coffee table.
The usual. How long have you been here?"
Just a little while. Your oven needs cleaning much more often. I did it for you this time, but you really should be more appreciative of your possessions." Appreciative. I used the oven twice a month, to cook frozen pizzas, but to her, it was a symbol of what her family had accomplished by crossing the Pacific Ocean and learning a new language. I felt no appreciation for my low-quality, college-apartment oven other than the fact that it saved me the soggy crusts that were inherent in microwaved frozen pizzas, but I bit my tongue.
Your grandfather died yesterday. We will be driving to Houston Friday, and the ceremony is Saturday. We are going to leave early Friday morning, so you need to be at the house before eight. Your cousins are going to be there, too." The words didn't sink in at first; like everything she said, they were delivered with no emotion, no loss of control, no affect.
Pa-pa?" I stuttered, "When? How's Ma-ma? Is she okay? I didn't know he was sick...Was there an accident? What..." Emotions rushed over me, hot and confusing, and for a minute I hated her calm, flat, controlled image; I blamed her lack of emotion for my precious Pa-pa's death; I hated her for her lack of pain when I was such a storm of torment.
Get control of yourself. He died in his sleep Monday night. The ceremonies will be...
"He was an old man, and he saw many things in his life. Take heart." still hated her, for not churning with the feelings I had, for not comforting me more emotively. For being able to take a nap, a damned nap, before telling me this!
I have to go tell your brother. Get your things together, and meet us at the house on Friday morning. And remember what I said about the oven." And with that she left.
A sat, tears running down my cheeks, my ears tingling with loss and rage and hurt, smelling the scent of Pine-Sol seeping from my kitchen, for a long time. Later I packed, sent an email to everyone I knew saying that I would be out of town all weekend, and finished the tables I was drawing up for lab. Friday I went to my parents' house, drove to Houston, and buried my grandfather the next day. Driving back Sunday, no one really spoke. They dropped me off with perfunctory good-byes and wished me luck that week in school.
A walked into my apartment, my chest heavy with grief, and sat my bags down on my desk, careful not to disturb my stacks of index cards. Then I went to the kitchen and began scrubbing my oven with generic Pine-Sol. About halfway through, I realized I had been crying for a long time. I'm still not sure if it was for the loss of my grandfather, for my mother's loss of freedom and spirit, or for my own inability to see that an inability to express love and compassion in words is not an inability to express them at all. I still scrub my ovens with Pine-Sol, even when I don't think they need it.
