Grandmother

By Amethyst Turner

A grand piano is still a piano

Grand central station is still a station

The grand canyon is still a canyon

And my grandmother is still my mother

Your voice was an alto

That summer vacation

When you were my companion

And became my mother

Mine was a soprano

From neglect and starvation

But how can you abandon

The role of my mother

Send me back

Leave each other

No, you're still Mama to me.

XXX

Vita watched Toto chase after her granddaughter, chuckling as the little girl dropped to her hands and knees in order to go faster. The afternoon sun glinted off her hair, painting a halo around her head.

Oh, that little girl and her Marilyn Monroe hair and Frank Sinatra eyes. It was as if the most beautiful people in Hollywood had come together and created this child, not Vita's basket case of a daughter and her drunkard husband.

Toto adored her as well. The beagle collapsed in exhaustion behind her, drawing a shriek of victory from the child. She crawled over the pet the panting dog, giggling as a dragonfly whizzed past them.

Vita turned her face to the sun, soaking in the mid-July warmth. She felt more at peace than she had since Mike's death. Toto helped. He kept her company and broke the eerie silence that surrounded the house, but he couldn't hold her hand to take a step or curl up in her lap to read a book the way Amethyst could.

Usually, she would call Libby on Thursdays and give a quick status update. Vita didn't feel like doing it right now.

For a child who'd been in a month-long coma just eight weeks prior, Amethyst seemed to overflow with liveliness. The girl was always moving, always smiling, always playing with Toto or talking to Vita or giggling with her little stuffed bear. Always doing something.

Her leg had healed up nicely. After only seven weeks, the cast had been removed. Now, she was fighting to regain the power to walk. Holding Vita's hand or the furniture, she could move rather well. More and more often now, she was attempting to stand on her own and walk. Sometimes, she would hold onto the top of Toto's head and toddle along behind him.

Vita couldn't help but resent her daughter for what she'd done. Sure, it was an accident. Sure. She didn't believe a word of it.

She feared for Amethyst's safety, come September. When she went back home, would things go back to the way they were? Or had the scare opened Elizabeth's eyes? Vita hoped so. Four weeks in a coma, for crying out loud. She would have gone absolutely mad if she'd known at the time.

Now, two months later, she could only breathe a sigh of relief that her granddaughter was okay and try to enjoy their time together.

Vita's other granddaughters who lived in the neighborhood came by often. They doted on Amethyst, always playing with her corn silk hair and giving her piggyback rides. Toto got jealous sometimes when he lost his playmate, but Aimee loved it.

As happy as the child appeared, Vita couldn't help but worry about her. Richard Turner, she knew, was a raging alcoholic who had narrowly avoided jail for sexual assault allegations in the past. How was he fit to raise this precious girl?

She could hardly think about Libby anymore. Elizabeth, her lovely, innocent, pure, sweet daughter, had gone and tangled herself up in this shithole of a life -- and she had no idea how to get out. Vita couldn't stand the idea of the same thing happening to her granddaughter. But with a mother like that to look up to, what else could be expected?

Amethyst would often wake up crying in the night. Vita wondered if she had nightmares.

The girl, she learned, was afraid of small spaces, centipedes, and now, long flights of stairs. She would call Vita whenever she wanted to go upstairs, holding her hand until she got to the top. She didn't mind, but felt incredibly sorry for her granddaughter and all the terror she'd already endured at only one year old.

As far as she knew, Richard had never hurt Aimee. Libby claimed that he adored her. But how could Vita trust the couple, after everything? Elizabeth hadn't even bothered to come to her father's funeral. Some daughter she was.

Vita felt bad for thinking that. Glancing at Amethyst, she said a silent prayer for her daughter and Richard. May they find happiness and peace in each other. Amen.

Peace and happiness. Vita smiled. For the time being Amethyst was safe and happy. Live in the moment, she told herself.

But this little pocket of mercy couldn't last, she knew that. As she grew older, Aimee would become a result of her parentage, inevitably take a wrong turn somewhere, and be swallowed into the abyss of adolescence, only to be spit back out as a mess of an adult. Sigh.

But at least there was now.

So Vita sat back and enjoyed, soaking in the sun for the remainder of the afternoon.

XXX

Help me
I've fallen on the inside
I tried to change the game
I tried to infiltrate
But now I'm losing men in cloaks
Always seem to run the show
Save me from the ghosts and shadows
Before they eat my soul

Mercy, mercy
Show me mercy
From the powers that be
Show me mercy
Can someone rescue me

-Mercy, Muse