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Congratulations, Olga KorbutAndrew Anderson
The only conversation we’ve exchanged so far was brief and in regards to the peculiarly choppy Gulf waves we viewed from the causeway. My Grandma and I are en route to my parent’s house in Brooksville where about half of our immediate family will be staying or visiting this weekend. This is my first time driving to the new house since I just got my license reinstated after having it suspended four years for my second DUI. Never a confident driver, my heart’s palpitations are slowly but surely waning. I’ve made it past the causeway, merged on to an expressway and have finally started to drive fast enough that now only every other car feels the need to pass me immediately. Grandma and I are making a special stop at the Florida National Cemetery where my Grandpa, a proud Navy man, was buried a few years prior. We are celebrating the birth of baby Madeline, my grandparent’s tenth great-grand child. Beside me, my Grandma proudly clutches a bouquet of pink spray roses and baby’s breath I put together per her request this morning. We pass another exit
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as I say, “Alright, we can talk now.”
* * *
“Who keeps calling me?” I grumble, swinging my legs from the mattress to the floor. I passed out some hours before. The view from my mattress is vile, repugnant. A wall of beer cans cover my desk and the encompassing floor. Microwave dinner trays with crusty forks stand stacked in a tower next to my bed. Clothes litter the floor and my schnauzer mix Cooper has, by no fault of his own, gone to the bathroom in the corner. Thankfully, I have tile. My cell phone wails again, so I pick up on the second ring. My sister sobs but composes herself long enough to tell me Grandpa just died. I am speechless. It feels as though a horse has kicked the wind out of me with its hind legs. I disassociate throughout the rest of the conversation. No, there isn’t anything I can do tonight but rest and plan to be picked up by my mom and to spend the day with Grandma. Grandpa’s death is sudden and unexpected. Straightaway I move to my bathroom for the unopened, emergency stash of whiskey hidden in my toilet’s tank. Sitting down on my sofa, I light a cigarette and take a long swig. Two cockroaches slowly scale my wall. After one more swig the tears come. It is eight o’clock at night.
* * *
I take a deep breath before hurtling myself backwards, pretending I’m standing on a beam four inches wide instead of wading in a pool four feet deep. My feet hit the concrete as my upper body brakes through the water. My hands shoot up into the air and Grandma exclaims, “Congratulations, Olga Korbut. You are the first gymnast to ever perform a back somersault on the balance beam.” The night before, she gave me an old autobiography of the ’72 Olympic darling that originally belonged to my aunt.
My brother Kyle and I are staying with my Grandparents for the weekend. They live two miles from us and are present at every holiday, birthday and school program. Sometimes my friends at school talk about their grandparents as if they barely know them. To my siblings and me, Grandma and Grandpa are second parents. “Do a front somersault, Olga,” my grandmother enthusiastically cheers. I oblige and then perform one more back flip before she announces that it’s time to change for lunch. As we walk into the garage to dry off and change, Grandma tells Grandpa to quit tinkering and come inside to eat. At dinner, we sit at the table with the TV turned off, but for lunch, Kyle and I eat our chicken noodle soup with oyster crackers, fruit and chocolate chip cookies in front of the TV where we watch cartoons on Nickelodeon. Grandma and Grandpa eat at the table. As expected, we have an activity scheduled for the afternoon. “After lunch we are working in the garage,” Grandpa announces, “Kyle will build two model airplanes and Andrew, we are going to build a barn for your My Little Ponies.” Kyle and I both smile between mouthfuls of soup.
* * *
I stare at the clock on my cable box and nervously chew my nails. “There’s no other way,” I say to myself grudgingly. It’s 7:30 PM, three days after my twenty-seventh birthday, I’ve got forty-five cents to name, and I need a drink or twelve. My grandparents always give me a birthday card with at least 25 bucks inside. I haven’t seen them in a few weeks; it’s hard to get around in Florida without a driver’s license and even harder if you’re a selfish drunk. I’d been sober for a year: The 7 months of house arrest while wearing an alcohol-detecting ankle monitor gave me a good start but after four months of grit and determination a childhood friend showed up at my door with a six-pack and now, three weeks later, I needed a twelve-pack
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just to fall asleep. While changing into my running clothes I glance in the mirror and hate the face that is about to show up at his grandparents house, at night, for the first time in years, to ask for his birthday money that they know will be spent on booze.
They live a couple of miles from my apartment and their astonished faces upon opening the door douse me with a deep disgrace that, while it burns, does not prevent me from going through with my plan. We make awkward conversation and I refuse any food or drink, defying an unwritten rule of visitors to Grandma’s household. The conversation halts and I can tell by their dejected expressions that they know why I’m here. “Well I better be off,” I utter while standing up, “Mom said you had a card for me.” “We left it at her house this morning,” Grandma quietly replies. My heart skips a beat. “Come back again,” she pleads before closing the door. Grandpa stands silently, nodding his head. I want to cry, to pound on the door until they open it and to tell them I’m sorry and I love them. Raking a deep breath, I tell myself, there’s always tomorrow or the day after. Tonight, I have to run over to my parents’ house to pick up my birthday card so I can get drunk.
* * *
Grandma opens the door with a big smile and a fond hello. She’s 86 now, thinner than ever, but her smile is still the same. “Oh good, you brought Cooper!” she announces. I lay his carrier down and unzip it before he darts towards Grandma. His front paws hit her knees and she reaches down for a kiss. It’s Thursday afternoon, and I’m here to take Grandma grocery shopping and to cook her dinner. It’s cool for Florida so we take our coffee inside. Cooper, with his advantage of fur, runs around outside enjoying the smells. I live in a small, 540 square feet apartment so he always enjoys a chance to romp around Grandma’s backyard. I’ve been sober for quite a long time, and now that I can drive again, I visit Grandma at least two or three times
a week and really enjoy our time together. We tend to drink coffee and eat ice cream or ginger snap cookies while discussing my life, family and national news, as well as her past and my future. I especially love when she pulls out family pictures from the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. She claims to have a bad memory, but her many stories show otherwise. She fell a week ago in the garage and is still limping. “Do you mind if I send you to the store with my list?” she asks reluctantly. I tell her I will gladly take her shopping or shop for her anytime she wants. “I’ve got chicken and a box of scalloped potatoes someone left here. Buy whatever you need to make a meal out of that,” she says as I walk out the door. When I return, she sits on a kitchen stool as I cook our simple dinner. Upon tasting my chicken grilled in cream soup she raves as though I’m an acclaimed chef. While washing the dishes I tell her I need to go thrifting to find a thicker sweater for what will surely be a cold winter. “It won’t fit, but I can give you one of Grandpa’s for the ride home,” she says, disappearing before bringing me an extra-large but thick wool sweater. I kiss her goodbye and grab Cooper’s carrier. She always waits at the door to wave to any guest as they drive off. Inside my apartment, now clean with nice furniture, I turn on the bathroom light and gaze into the mirror. I’m absolutely swimming in the sweater she gave me, but my reflection makes me smile. I’m warm and comfortable. I turn off the light and walk into my living room and curl up on the couch to watch a favorite show on DVR. It isn’t cool, but I fondly keep the sweater on anyways; it makes me feel close to Grandpa.
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As we pull in to Florida National Cemetery I am once again astonished by its vastness. Thousands of veterans and their spouses are buried here beneath the manicured fields lining both sides of the winding roads. Even though we have both
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been here before, my Grandma guides us with the aid of a map my Mom printed off the Internet for us. We turn right, then left and cruise forward a few miles before Grandma exclaims, “Up there on the left.” I pull my Jeep over to the side of the road and switch the engine off before suddenly remembering that two days before Grandpa died I promised to spend the weekend with them both at their second house in Inverness. “We really do only have today,” I muse before wrapping my arm around Grandma’s shoulder. We walk past several rows of tombstones before we get to Grandpa’s. Placing the bouquet in front of his tombstone, she speaks, “Baby Madeline was born yesterday, Emerson. You both share the same birthday. I wish you could be here to celebrate, but I know you and Barry are having your own celebration up above.” She sobs after mentioning my late uncle, so my grip on her shoulder tightens. We stare at the grave silently as a tear of regret slowly rolls down my cheek. ⊗
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