Well, I guess she has her standards.
Once we’ve finished our planning, Mom heads to her bedroom for a nap. I wait outside her door, listening for the sound of an opening drawer and the axe to land on my neck. It doesn’t happen, and I blow out a relieved breath.
“Are you okay?” Lindsey asks as she passes me in the hall.
Now is the time to tell her. “Yeah.” Mom’s nurse needs to be informed of what’s been happening when she walks out of Mom’s bedroom, but I know Mom would feel conspired against and turn Rattlesnake on both of us. “Just thinking about your party.” Lindsey would become the new Wynonna. “What do you think of a diaper relay race?” I totally make up. “Instead of a baton, you hand off a diaper.”
Lindsey opens her mouth but shuts it again. “Great.”
There’s no reason to ruin the baby shower. I can keep an eye on Mom, and Lindsey and I can discuss Mom’s pill stashing after the party.
For short periods during the rest of the day, I forget the pills are in my pocket. I give Raphael fresh food and water and do laundry. Then something reminds me and I get jumpy, watching and waiting for something to happen.
When Mom goes to bed, I brush her hair and watch her shows and stay with her until she falls asleep. If I’m with Mom when Lindsey gives her her medication and insist on staying until she starts snoring, she can’t do anything with her pills.
I shake her shoulder for good measure before I leave her room. She doesn’t respond, so I drag myself up the long staircase and shut my bedroom door behind me. My shorts hit the floor as I undress for bed; the pills are still in the pocket. I’ll get rid of them tomorrow. No rush. Tonight, I just want to sleep. I am emotionally exhausted, but of course my mind races and I stare at the heavy wooden tester above my head, tossing and turning, thinking of problems without solutions. I still haven’t found a Lulu replacement, and Margie thinks it’s because subconsciously I can’t let go. I don’t think that’s the reason, although perhaps I am looking for someone just like me and that’s not realistic.
After an hour, I give up and turn on the light. I brought the letters I’d found in the steamer trunk upstairs with me and I untie the blue ribbon that binds them.
The first is from Grandmother. I carefully take it from the envelope and unfold the yellowed paper. Her words and handwriting are as flowery as her stationery. She calls Grandfather “beloved Louis” or “darling Louis” or “Louis, my love.” She writes that “Patricia is getting to be such a big girl and talks up a storm. Her favorite words are ‘gimme dat,’ spoken like a barefoot Cajun.” She ends the letters with, “Your loving and faithful wife, Lily.”
My grandmother’s early life sounds just like her—lively and whimsical. With each letter, I can almost hear her voice in my head as she talks about sweet magnolia breezes waking her each morning, listening to the world’s most wonderful jazz on Bourbon Street, and handing out books to precious colored children for the Junior League. In one of the letters, she sends a photo of Mom and herself posing with a “hurdy-gurdy man and his petite macaque in Jackson Square.” In another, she sends locks of hair from both her and Mom. She writes of missing him and longing for his safe return.
Grandfather’s handwriting is perfect. Perfectly spaced letters and words in perfectly straight sentences across the unlined page. He writes the date in the upper left-hand corner and begins with, “To my wife, Lily.” He says he misses his “girls and wish I was there to kiss Patricia good night.” Mostly he talks about his duty, the latest in army gadgets, and the magnificent sunset. He ends all his letters with, “Your husband, Louis G. Jackson.”
I’m disappointed that the only sense I get of my grandfather is that he was a dud. His letters are formal and relatively boring. He writes of the things he does and sees, but it’s like reading a travel guide or Military Life for Dummies. The only real hint of emotion is spent on descriptions of places and sunsets and how he “longs for a Sazerac at Arnaud.”
I can’t imagine my grandmother married to Louis. She seems as flighty as he seems stiff. She writes of love and longing for his safe return. He writes of sunsets and longing for a Sazerac. They seem so mismatched that it makes me wonder if she and Louis would have stayed married if he hadn’t been killed. Papa Bob was much better suited for Grandmother and her internal timer.
The last letter from Grandfather is dated November 2, 1953. It’s loose and worn in the folded creases as if it was read many times.
My dearest heart,
This separation is killing me. I long for the days when I am with you again. The memory of the last time I held you in my arms is such sweet torture. It sustains my darkest days, yet makes me long for you all the more. I loathe the world that keeps us apart and the miles that separate our hearts. I do not despair, knowing that you await my return.
Yet, dearest love, if anything should happen to me, know that I shall call to you unafraid. Know that your name is a whisper on my lips. Listen for it and know that I died loving you.
Yours always,
Louis
Wow, my eyes are a little misty. Grandfather wasn’t such a dud after all. Beneath that cold exterior, he had a romantic heart. Like me when I started the Lulu blogs. Maybe we have more in common than a horrible widow’s peak.
At the bottom of the pile is an envelope. It’s empty except for a newspaper clipping, tattered and browned from age. Below Grandfather’s military photograph reads,
Jackson, Battle Victim Wife Told He Died a Hero
Mrs. Louis Jackson of St. James Parish was notified that her husband, Major Louis Gene Jackson, had been killed in Korea on the date of November 24, 1953.
On the thin margin of the notice is written in faded black pen, Louie. Love of my life. I am demolished.
That’s lovely and heart-wrenching. I know that Grandmother was flighty, but it’s good to learn that at one time she did feel something for Grandfather—before she forgot about him and ran off with her first cousin.
I wonder if Louis called out to Grandmother, if her name was a whisper on his lips as he died. My eyes get a little mistier, and I wipe at the corners. He wrote his last letter to Grandmother less than a month before he died. It’s romantic and heartbreaking— no wonder Grandmother read it until the creases wore thin. I can’t wait to read them all to Mom.
I refold the worn letter and tuck it, along with the newspaper clipping, into the empty envelope so I won’t lose anything. My mind flashes to my grandparents’ wedding photo, and Jasper and Jed in matching scowls and identical dark suits. I wonder if my grandfather knew the uncles were gay. I imagine not. At that time, homosexuality was against the law, and no one talked about it. It was kept on the real down low. Most gay men got married or were confirmed bachelors with a flair for fashionable pocket squares.
I gaze at all the envelopes lying on my bed, then return my attention to the one in my hand. It’s postmarked November 3, 1953, and addressed to Jedediah R. Sutton, Royal Street, New Orleans. I recognize the tight handwriting.