Upstairs Elisabeth sat on her bed and gathered her well-worn Bible into her lap. She let out a low chuckle. There was something to be said for the uncultured frankness of a child. “I do need a lot of prayer, don't I?” she prayed silently. “And I have a lot to do.”
A
t eight forty-two
A.M
., January 1, 1965, the sun bullied its way through heavy draperies in Elisabeth's front room. The old woman's lids fluttered and she squinted from her overstuffed chair. Her feet remained asleep, angrily pinpricking her from their woolen cocoons. A bulky terrycloth robe covered her flannel nightgown, long sleeves enveloping balled fists, palms perspiring.
As usual, Elisabeth had padded gingerly down the steps in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. Even with the three-way bulb at high power, reading had not been the answer. She had outed the light, tucked her feet beneath her, hid her frigid hands from the draft, and drew her knees up, hoping, praying, waiting for the charity of sleep.
It had been years since Elisabeth had slept through the night. When first she had found herself staring at the ceiling in the wee hours, she attributed it to worry, worry she tried to pray away. She prayed for Joyce, for Betty, for Lisa, for Benjy. Betty and Benjy had finally, mercifully, died within months of each other more than six years before. Elisabeth had not seen her daughter for more than fifteen years except in pictures, and to see her in repose, her weeping Cliff standing guard, was almost more than she could bear. Why had it taken Betty's death to finally push her to scrape together the funds and head west? Yet the funeral strangely warmed Elisabeth, who learned of Betty's vibrant faith and many friends. She even saw hints of what her daughter had seen in her husband, a gigantic, softhearted man. Elisabeth had returned with a modicum of peace and no more anxiety over her daughter, imagining her reuniting with her father and her brothers in heaven.
Elisabeth had outlived her whole immediate family. The losses, all but Bruce, muted as the years passed. But Elisabeth had often awakened, eyes popping open and mind as alert as at midday, at the precise hour she had taken the fateful phone call from Joyce about Bruce so many years before.
Joyce. How she had prayed for that precious girl who now seemed beyond hope. Her former daughter-in-law had kept her end of the bargain anyway; Elisabeth had to give her that. She had allowed Lisa many weekends at Grandma's, Sunday after Sunday at Christ Church. Elisabeth stretched painfully as she recalled Lisa as a student in her own primary girls' Sunday school class. How it both thrilled and wounded her to see so much of Bruce in her granddaughter's deep, beautiful eyes.
Had Elisabeth had her druthers, Lisa would have lived with her full-time. What a thing to do to a child! During the week Lisa lived in a trailer with her bitter mother and her succession of live-in lovers, short-term husbands, alcohol, violence, foul language, and who knew what else. Friday night she was dropped off at her grandmother's echoing three-story house in the old section of the first ward.
Elisabeth had fought for every hour with the child. She made it her business to counteract every evil influence, insisting Lisa bathe, keep a schedule, obey, learn manners, study, memorize Scripture, pray, and go to church. Lisa was remarkably compliant at first.
Lisa reminded Elisabeth of herself as a child, enamored of church and God and Jesus. She prayed to receive Christ as a youngster and got in trouble with her mother for becoming judgmental and “too religious.” Joyce threatened to keep Lisa from her own grandmother, but the two pleaded so strenuously that she had to relent. Plus, it was clear Joyce wanted her freedom, especially on weekends.
Lisa had blossomed into a nineteen-year-old beauty with dark hair and eyes. Elisabeth felt the differences in their generation every time she saw her now, and, yes, she worriedâmostly about the men in Lisa's life. “Don't badger me about my dates, Grandma,” Lisa said. “I know what I'm doing.”
But knowing what she was doing included thinking she could be a good influence on boys who had no interest in God. “It doesn't work that way,” Elisabeth would tell her, and quoted Proverbs about how evil drags down good rather than vice versa. Lisa would roll her eyes, and Elisabeth feared coming off as a taskmaster.
None of Lisa's male friends were from Christ Church, and she hardly ever made it to Sunday school and church anymore. She had never really rebelled, as far as Elisabeth could tell, and Lisa still claimed to be a believer. But neither did they have the spiritual discussions Elisabeth so enjoyed when Lisa had been in junior high. Now that she had graduated high school, their relationship had changed.
Lisa was a student at Western Michigan and worked as a nurse's aide at Borgess Hospital. She seemed so grown up, and yet Elisabeth couldn't shake the image of her as a newborn. “You'll be the perfect nurse,” Elisabeth told her often. “So caring, compassionate, gentle.”
Lisa would blush. “Where do you think I got that?” she said. “Certainly not from Joyce.”
“Honey, don't call your mother by her name. That's not respect.”
“That's why I do it.”
“We have to love her.”
“Do
you,
Grandma?
Can
you, the way she treats you?”
Elisabeth wanted desperately to say that she loved Joyce, but she could not. She was not capable in herself of loving the unlovable. “God loves her.”
“You let her walk on you.”
“Oh, she doesn'tâ”
“Of course she does! She knows you'll do anything for her, but does she ever act like she appreciates it?”
“I don't do it for appreciation.”
“Stillâ”
“That's enough now, honey,” Elisabeth would say, and they would talk about other things.
Now, in her chair on a bitter New Year's Day, Elisabeth closed her eyes again and prayed for Lisa. And for Joyce. Lisa was good enough to drop in on Elisabeth at least once a week. Joyce she hardly ever saw. Frances Childs remained a friend, and they had socialized more since Art's accidental death in the welding shop at Fairbanks-Morse two years before. But still Elisabeth found herself desperately lonely. She was as close to God as she had ever been, despite that her increasing physical infirmities had made her drop her church service projects one by one. And while the Lord remained her refuge, as she liked to say, she had quit praying for relief from the crushing aloneness.
The phone rang. Though it had been twenty years since the call about Bruce, still she hated that sound. Elisabeth planted her palms on the arms of the chair and remembered when she could lift her weight and swing her feet to the floor. Now it was all she could do to shift enough to force them out from under her. They caught in her robe and she had to painfully wiggle free.
Elisabeth felt every one of her sixty-five years as she mince-stepped toward the phone. It rang and rang. Only one who loved her and knew she was home would be patient enough to wait. It was Lisa.
“How are you, dear heart?” Elisabeth said. “Tell me you're on your way to see me.”
“I am!”
“Oh, sweetie, that will be nice!”
“Happy birthday, Grandma.”
“So it is,” Elisabeth said. “And it will be happier when you get here.”
“I'm coming to give you a bath.”
“I'm sorry?”
“Grandma! Do you have the phone up to your good ear?”
“Agh! Just a minute ⦠There. Now what?”
“Bath! I'm coming to give you a bath.”
“Heaven knows I need one, but don't go to any trouble.”
“You haven't forgotten your luncheon today, have you?”
“My what? My lunchâoh, that's right! I tried every which way to talk Frances out of that. I don't know why she insists.”
“This is a milestone, Grandma! Sixty-five is nothing to sneeze at.”
“Then why have I been sneezing all week?”
“Are you ill?”
“I'm still here. Can't see, can't hear, can hardly taste. Short of breath, hot flashes, aches and pains in every joint. But you know what?”
“Yes, I know.”
“Do you?”
“Of course I do.”
“What am I going to say next?”
“That the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
“Amen and amen! I love you, Lisa.”
“I love you too, Grandma. I'll be there in an hour or so.”
Elisabeth stretched the phone cord so she could lower herself to the piano bench. “Just let me call Frances and beg off. It's supposed to be below zero today, too cold even to snow.”
“It's nearly ten below now,” Lisa said, “but it's bound to rocket up to zero by noon.”
“I don't have anything to wear. No sense polishin' and powderin' me for the old dress I'd put on.”
“Get yourself some breakfast and be ready for me, because I'm coming. And I just might have a present that will hush you up.”
“Say! I thought grandmas hushed grandchildren!”
“Then act your age and watch for me. Your driveway shoveled?”
“Now don't be volunteering for thatâ”
“Grandma! I just need to know if I can pull in there.”
Elisabeth leaned forward and pulled back the drape. The sun blinded her. “I can't see a thing,” she said. “But the neighbor boy never misses.”
Feeling gradually returned to her feet as Elisabeth turned on the burner for her tea. But when she sat to drink it she could hardly move. It was sweet of Lisa to come on her birthday, and Elisabeth never ceased to be moved by her granddaughter's sense of propriety when bathing her. Lisa helped her sit on a wood bench across the tub and had never once made her feel exposed or embarrassed. The girl merely helped her in and out and with extremities she couldn't reach.
That morning Lisa hurried in and put a large shopping bag on the table before rushing to the stove. “Grandma, you must remember to turn the flame off under the tea. You don't want to lose another kettle, or worse.”
Elisabeth, alarmed at herself, was too embarrassed to respond.
“I gave the boy next door two dollars for the shoveling,” Lisa said.
“I've never given him more than one-fifty. You'll spoil him.”
“It's a new year. Give him a raise.”
Lisa guided Elisabeth by the elbow toward the bathroom. “I expected you to have your robe and slippers off. Tuckered out today?”
Elisabeth nodded. What would she do without Lisa? Her granddaughter washed her back and her calves and feet with such gentleness that Elisabeth nearly wept. “Your patients must love you,” she whispered.
“They do,” Lisa said with a grin. “Especially the men.”
“Stop that!”
“I'm kidding, Grandma. You know I'm holding out for someone you'll approve of.”
“That'd be no one you've introduced me to so far.”
“Tell me something I don't know.” She wrapped Elisabeth in a huge towel and walked her upstairs, holding her close. Elisabeth found herself transported to her childhood. Hardly aware of her surroundings, she remembered her father enveloping her in a towel and gently rubbing her dry.
Lisa set out Elisabeth's undergarments, told her she'd help her with her hose, and said, “I'll be right back.” Elisabeth's lower back ached as she sat on the side of the bed and put on what she could. Lisa returned presently with the shopping bag.
“Ooh, let me see,” Elisabeth said, but Lisa made her wait.
She helped her with everything else, then said, “I'll show you your new outfit, but don't put it on until just before Frances gets here. Wear your robe till then.”
Lisa pulled from the bag a box containing patent leather shoes. They were still sensible, thick, and heavy on support, but they were definitely party shoes. Elisabeth smiled.
Then came the matching purse. “Lisa! I expected a dress, not all this!”
“Patience, Grandma.” She produced a red wool, shirtwaist dress with a white Peter Pan collar and buttons down the front. Elisabeth tried to exult, to tell her it was the handsomest outfit she had ever seen, but Lisa was already on to accessorizing. “This will take a large brooch,” she said. “How about the white cameo? You're going to look so festive, so wintry. I wish you'd had this for Christmas.”
They rummaged through Elisabeth's bureau for the right necklace, earrings, and bracelet. “Too many pieces?” Elisabeth asked. “I've never worn much.”
“You've never been sixty-five either.”
Elisabeth chuckled and covered her mouth.
“What?”
She shook her head, her shoulders heaving.
“Come on, Grandma. Out with it.”
“I'm going to be way overdressed for Frances!” And she convulsed with laughter. Lisa dropped onto the bed, howling.
“You're awful!”
“Aren't I just the worst?” Elisabeth said. “Now if I could find a feather boa I could look like Dellarae Shockadance Phillips, Lord rest her soul.”
Lisa sat up and leaned against Elisabeth and they supported each other on the soft mattress. “I haven't heard that name in a while,” Lisa said.
“You know the story.”
“Of course. How long has she been gone now?”
Elisabeth shrugged. “I used to get their Christmas card, always signed by her.” She sighed. “âWith Christmas love, Dellarae and Ben.' Never heard from them otherwise. Then two Christmases ago the card just read, âMerry Christmas, '63. Benjamin.'”
“Not that you memorized it.”
Elisabeth felt the urge to stand and look out the window, as she often did when lost in memories. But her left knee was stiff and her right ankle throbbed. She shook her head. “I hurt for him. I really did. I didn't know he'd lost her. A carbon copied note said something about it being his first Christmas without her and how, âas many of you know,' she had passed that spring. Well, I wasn't one of the many who knew.”
Elisabeth felt Lisa's embrace. “An oversight,” she said. “He was grieving.”
“I let him know when Betty passed.”
“That was a long time ago, Grandma.”
“He sent a nice note.”
“I remember.”