|
Fall Leaves Autumn dawns over the Lewiston valley like a slow wave of fire. Trees - birch, maple, oak – shed their green for bright hues of crimson and ochre, and an amber haze of ripened grass catches the leaves that drift from the branches. Beyond, the Niagara River is a flashing blue brightness, brilliant in contrast to the waning sky, as the earth turns its feet to the sun for the season. We follow the road as it descends through this display, down into the village. As we drive, the weak autumn sun filters through the trees, casting shifting dappled shadows on my arms and shoulders through the windows. I let my eyes drift, blankly watching the sparkling patterns the light leaves on the river. Grandma is in the hospital, again. We arrive at my grandmother’s house. Cars choke the driveway: my cousin’s dusty pickup, the muddy tracks of his golden retriever lining the bed, my aunt’s four-door Toyota, a handful of rental cars. This time, the whole family has turned out, I realize grimly. Rare to see the Healys at full strength, as scattered as we are, among California, the Midwest, New York, Florida – the only sure gatherings are our obligatory visits, for weddings and deaths. My grandmother has had three such family visits in the past five years. My sister and I are the last to arrive. My cousin Billy meets us at the door to say goodbye. He’s already stayed longer than he can spare, and his pregnant wife Amy will be worried if he misses his flight. He gives us each a rough hug, we exchange a few words, and he’s gone, until the next reunion. I drag my suitcase inside, wondering when things changed. The last time I saw him, he was drunk at his wedding, and now he’s almost a father. But that was nearly two years ago. It was summer, then, and the August sun had baked the grass outside Cleveland a dull brown. The clan had tripped out of the hotel at the reception’s end, stumbling to find a place to continue the night. I blush, remembering the nightclub we snuck my underage sister into, my cousins in their formalwear confidently striding past the line outside, with her in their wake. His wedding was my first as a Healy adult. Before, I had always been a child, relegated to flapping out the chicken dance with my sister on a corner of the requisite wooden floor laid down at all weddings. That summer, I was twenty-one and I had a serious boyfriend – marriage had been mentioned. To my family, I was an adult, both legally and emotionally. Chris and Rosa sit in the kitchen, their bodies comfortably close. I was only thirteen when we were in Connecticut for their marriage. Even though the pouring spring rainstorm flooded the outdoor reception, we kept dancing, the green lawn of their backyard turning to mud beneath our feet. That was the year my aunt’s medication warped her mind. Painkillers, taken for an injury she sustained in her 20s that had left her in a full-body cast, had been improperly prescribed, and the hormones had unbalanced her brain. On the day of the wedding, she got in her car and didn’t return until the next morning. Sitting myself down at the kitchen table, I look at my cousin’s tired smile and wonder how his life is colored by the memory of his ceremony and his mother, conspicuous by her absence. I stay to talk, but jetlag suddenly slams into my consciousness. I struggle to keep my eyes open as I slowly trudge upstairs. My uncle Tony, another Californian, is in the room at the top of the stairs, his old bedroom from youth, littered with pictures and trophies of his sailing achievements. Ten years younger than his siblings, he never had the bond of camaraderie that helped my dad and his sisters survive their father’s bouts of anger and aggression, but instead became introverted, focused on solitary activities to escape the hostility at home. A crash landing behind German lines during World War II and the subsequent stay in a POW camp turned my grandfather’s brilliant, determined nature into a closed, hard, bitter one, and his family bore the brunt of his outbursts. I glance in the room as I pass; Tony is on his back on the guest room bed, stretching, with a grimace of pain on his face. He’s had two family visits already, more than most: the first, a stunning wedding, dotted with the San Franciscan socialites, the second, a sober, silent vigil, as the family waited for him to revive from a coma last year, after his second honeymoon ended in a tragic accident. I reach the end of the hall and the second guest room, gratefully sinking into the bed. My limbs ache, and images swim before my eyes. My family stretches me, the burden of the collective past I shoulder when I arrive at these reunions, overwhelming. My weight on the familial load is miniscule, but, soon, I know, I will be expected to add my own detritus to the middenheap of memories. I want to cry, too tired to consider my role, but all I can mange is a muffled gasping before sleep overtakes me. The hospital room has a sour tang, the air heavy with smells of medicine and saline. The rough gown drapes off my grandmother’s shoulders, and I can see bruises lining the hollows of her clavicle. It looks like living is painful. She is so frail, and the operations only weaken her. I faintly smile, sitting with the family, as we watch her sleep, afraid to intrude, even though that’s why we’ve come. Her eyes open eventually, and they are as clear as summer sky. Glancing at the monitor of her respirator, she tells my aunt to fetch the nurse, her high, nasal voice succinct and coherent. To her, the hospital stay is a burden – they won’t let her adjust the equipment herself, and she knows her own necessary levels of medication, after wheeling around an oxygen tank for her emphysema for four years. Soon, I wish she’d stayed asleep, as the entire conversation is based on her nurses and how she could do their jobs better herself. My thoughts wander as I think of all the things my family has talked about during the years. Politics, history, science, our family myths and legends, all those things that define us as more than random strangers, but relatives connected somehow. Years after we stop one conversation, we’ll return to them, to the debates we left unfinished, no matter how trivial. Perhaps this talk, grim, bristled with needles and reality, really is the most relevant – a dying woman discussing how to maximize her time alive. We stop at a tavern on the way home, where we silently sip pints and listen to my dad and his sister tell stories about their grandparents and my grandparent, about childhoods of people who are long dead. The hospital has made me maudlin, and I think idly, wondering when and how my turn for the family visit shall come. In autumn, when the nights are cool and sunlight waning, the trees feel winter approaching. The chill air carries whispers of cold, promises of future snowfall. From the back porch of my grandmother’s house, I stare out across her yard, watching the smoke from my cigarette drift among the branches of the oaks and into the fading twilight. I feel heavy and hollow, and disappointing. With family comes honesty - the little lies we tell ourselves daily fall away, crumbling beneath the truth of scrutiny that relatives share. These visits, when tragedy draws us together, are barren, all pretense stripped away, like a tree scourged by winter. They know my secrets, the mistakes I’ve made and left unmentioned for years, and I know their stories. My dad knocks on the window, a telephone in his hand. The family watches with amusement as I take the call, and the pall seems to lift, as they slyly smile knowingly, their faces smug as gossips. Murmuring softly over the long-distance lines, I wander the yard, stirring dead and fallen leaves into brief eddies. I can feel my face flushing, both from the cold and from my boyfriend’s words. “I wish I was there, seeing your family. I’d like to meet them all.” Maybe someday, I think. Maybe the next visit will be for me. back |