Leaving Granny's House

She didn't cry when I left this time, and that's never happened before. From earliest memory, I associate bittersweet tears with my grandparents, even Pawpaw. We'd pack the night before, Pawpaw and Daddy working together with three essentials--muscle power, spatial reasoning, and duct tape--to make sure everything fit into the Grover, our blue Ford pickup. Within our family, Pawpaw was known for his loading ability, possibly because Granny's known for her propensity for bringing canned goods and boxes of generic Angel food cake to our house. I always wondered whether she thought that our town had no grocery stores?
Rising before sun up, my parents carried my sister and me to our bed in Grover, a hand-crafted, hand-designed slabe, fully-equipped with mattress and seatbelt. Daddy'd designed it just for this 20-hour trip which he drove straight through the night or night/morning as today. As we pull away, Pawpaw puts his arm around a dentureless, hairnet-clad Granny and they both weep. It is in this moment I understand how much they love and miss us.
So, what does it mean that she didn't cry? Does she love me less than she used to? Has she become so accustomed to her solitary, post-Pawpaw life that my company aggravates the structure? Is she simply focusing on the fact that my cousin will soon arrive, so her life won't return to its seemingly lonely existence? No matter, it hurts just a little.
There was a time I hate to recall, right after my sister was born. Granny brought me a cowgirl doll which cost one rich woman's laundry load. Some inane, three-year-old reason prompted me to rip off the doll's head. This sweet picture of Momma holding purple-skinned baby Kara, pasleyed-clothed round Granny aiding the unwrapping process, curly-headed me standing, waiting for that pricey gift--the one person who'd remembered to get a big sister present, to recognize that I might feel unloved and invisible during that time. And shortly afterward, after Granny had asked me to "Please honey, keep quiet; I just got Kara Beth to sleep," angrily, overtly, I take the cowgirl doll--just small enough for my hands, wearing a costume similar to the one from the previous Halloween, red-checkered shirt, red boots, and blue jeans, the doll who looks a lot like my brown-headed self--and I tear off the head, rip out the curly hair and bite into the red-checkered shirt.
Perhaps, then, her dried-eyed attitude comes from years of concealed hurt. Perhaps she sees my Saturday morning calls and deliberate six-hour detour as ways to assuage my guilt. Maybe she knows the realization I've reached: my worst personality traits, the traits which I hate most about myself, come directly from her. The way I avoid well-known, even well-liked acquaintances upon seeing them in foreign situations. How I deliberately turn my back when I see them and walk out of the store, much to my husband's chagrin. Hearing Granny's story of seeing an elementary classmate and avoiding conversation raises my hackles and boggles my brain, yet I recollect that I made the exact decision three weeks ago. At the time, I experienced a moving meta cognitive moment--I know I consciously made this decision, yet I don't intentionally make the choice. How do I reconcile those facts with the woman I love? Who maybe doesn't love me as much as she used to? It feels that we have switched places--she the frustrated three year old, me the benign presence.

Writing Exercise #1: Sketch of Parent

"Whoo hee; whoo hee." Lips pursed, Momma sings, quietly under her breath. Standing between the antique bureau and the oversized hamper my dad made last Christmas, Mom packs for their Alaskan cruise. Though I've wondered about this tendency and the song, I now know it's the rhythm of her life--she has no distinct melody or pitch in mind; in fact, she does this unconsciously. Today, our work harmonizes with this song, me folding bleached undershirts, she combing through the bureau's bottom drawer for Dad's pasleyed sweater and her flannel pajama bottoms.
"Momma?"
"Whoo hee," breathes out, "Um hmm?" she turns, eyes refocusing, lips transitioning from whistle to smile.
"How many of these will Daddy need?" I hold up the shirts my brother-in-law refers to as "wife beaters," much to my dad's amusement.
"1, 2, 3, 4" she mouths the numbers, rolls her eyes, and cocks the right hip: "14."
In my head I think, "14? They'll only be gone seven days," but then I know my dad's idiosyncrat need to bathe twice a day. At this point, as always, I start a well-memorized song,
"If the skies above you are grey,"
"You are feeling so blue-ooh-ooh." Mom joins as always, though we soon stop because of laughter. We've been switched to harmony without anyone on lead. Establishing our rhythm, our place, gliding from one hymn to the next, me on alto, her one soprano, we pack our way through an afternoon.
"Babe? Go get that..." Nouns escape my mother, almost like the North Carolina mist hangs in the woods for a short time but flees the noon. I've learned to fill in the blanks, guessing at possible alternatives. Such a habit annoys most others, yet for us, it's never an interruption but a necessity.
"The overnight bag?" I suggest as Mom points and shapes the object with her hands.
"Yes; thanks."
Early the next morning, the vacation-routine begins. Daddy arises early to start his coffee, fill the mile-worn thermos and solitarily load their newly-leased Dodge minivan. Each bag fits like a jigsaw piece into the trunk.
Argeeing to leave by 6:00 a.m. means little to my mom. Without fail, my dad huffs around at 6:10, grumbling down to my mom because she's still unclothed, blow drying her hair. In return, she sweetly replies, but after he leaves, she rolls her eyes. Dad's speech #234 begins as soon as he tromps up the basement stairs: "Your mother and your sister are never ready when they say they'll be. She's just like Granny you know--getting up with plenty of time but putterin' around, doing things that don't matter." Downstairs, I imagine her ever-present answer, something about how it doesn't take her too long to get ready.
By 6:30, they head to the airport in silence. The first verse of this song has begun like all other verses in their marriage: a grand adventure with great promise that'll turn to "Yellow Brick Road" in a few hours, but presently sounds like the deathmarch.