“Hey Penn, you busy? You better be because Grandma’s all over my ass, wanting to know when she can read your book. I told her I was gonna get to read it first, but she’s giving me crap, so you better be slaving away, you hear me Julia?”
Lee and Chuck’s first grandchild arrived in May, a son born to Liz and her boyfriend Adam. Julia waited through the night, then joined her sister and mother, Diane too. Carl Charles Chandler would possess his father’s surname, but Liz wasn’t interested in marriage, only in her new son arriving after so many females before him.
He had two sets of grandparents, also a great-grandmother; Helen was delighted with the red-headed little boy, whom she said looked like his Grandpa Penn. Chuck’s usual crustiness reigned, but Julia had to wonder if her father was ready to crack, when Diane and her husband Wayne welcomed a son in early June. Flynn William Booker weighed nearly ten pounds and Crystal had almost been ill hearing that number. She decided drugs or even an epidural would be administered as soon as she went into labor. Helen kidded it was only due to Flynn’s gender; Joanna had been a slight six and a half pounds, but Phil was a whopping eight pounds ten ounces. Crystal hit Phil on the arm as everyone joined in Diane’s hospital room, admiring the plump, pink infant and his besotted parents.
Julia spent her days driving to San Jose to see her nephews, then turning right around for Berkeley, either lingering at Phil’s or Helen’s. Helen sometimes joined Julia, but she seemed weary when they returned. In late July, right after JJ turned two, Julia remarked upon this. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Helen sat on her small deck, looking to the bay. “Honey, I’m fine. Now, what’ve you been doing besides playing chauffer?”
Julia sighed. “I wrote a paragraph last week.”
“Well well, one whole paragraph. I’m impressed.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“Are you being serous?”
“Grandma, come on!”
Julia gazed over the railing, not much to see but scattered clotheslines, patches of vegetables and flowers, and the occasional small tree. The bay was as vast as the empty page sticking out of her typewriter, or the interiors of her apartment, except for JJ’s blocks and plastic cups that collected along the hallway. She loved colorful stacking toys that Julia set right when JJ was gone.
Carl and Flynn would be next, then another Gideon, a girl Crystal was certain. Julia was glad; she didn’t want Phil to have a son. Did Helen, she wondered. “Grandma, do you wish they’d have a boy?”
“Who, Phil?”
“Yeah Phil.”
“Oh, not really. Carl and Flynn are fine.”
Julia smiled. Helen took all comers, but Julia couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Or she shouldn’t, if she knew what was good for her.
Ray had stopped by the night before last and Abraham had played with JJ’s toys. Julia wondered if her niece might she smell another toddler upon her cardboard books and Little Tykes garden? A large circular piece of shaped plastic sat in Julia’s living room, with a small door that Abraham found interesting, but he preferred chewing on the white, yellow, and lavender plastic correspondence that rested in the blue mailbox. Maybe when JJ next visited she would taste another on those pieces of pretend mail, then shoot her aunt a look as if to say Who’s been sleeping in my bed?
Not that Julia had let Ray spend the night. It was bad enough she had allowed him over at all, as if he was trying out the place with Abraham in tow. Between the Winston men and her new nephews, Julia wasn’t getting any work accomplished.
She could tell Helen that; Helen never mentioned Ray, but if Julia breathed his name, perhaps Helen would get off Julia’s back. Instead Julia sighed. “Grandma, I just have too much going on right now to work.”
“Excuses, excuses Julia. You’re full of them.”
“Am I fulla shit too?”
Helen smiled. “Well, does that need to be stated?”
“Isn’t it enough that Phil’s gonna make another record?”
“Enough for him. That has nothing to do with you.”
“Grandma…”
“Did you know I used to paint?”
Julia turned to see Helen fiddling with the afghan covering her lap. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
They laughed, and Julia sat beside her, holding her hand. “Tell me.”
“When Joanna was little, I drew, something I’d done since I was a girl. Daniel loved it, thought I should spend more time on it, but back then, a woman took care of her family. We’d wanted more, but for whatever reason, that didn’t happen. Anyways, I kept drawing, and when Joanna went to school, Daniel bought me oils, paper, pencils, whatever he thought I might use. He didn’t know anything about it, but I played around, and by the time Joanna was in high school, I spent a lot of my time out in the garage, when the weather was nice. In the winter I just drew in the house, but in summers…”
“My God Grandma! Phil never said anything about this, that asshole!”
“Phil doesn’t know Julia. He has no idea.”
Julia’s throat grew tight. “You stopped before he was old enough to remember.”
“I stopped painting when Stan died. Joanna needed so much, and there just wasn’t time.”
“When did you stop drawing?”
“When Joanna was hospitalized.”
Julia stared at Helen. “I assume Phil doesn’t know about that either.”
“No, and I don’t want him too, certainly not right now.”
It was the most she would say about Larry Jerrold, and Julia nodded.
“It was when Phil was three and a half. She took a bunch of pills, sleeping pills. Daniel found her, oh my goodness. He about lost his mind, but she was close to losing hers. She spent six months being treated with electric shock therapy, which probably didn’t help much. But we took Phil to see her when she was able to have visitors, and that seemed to shake her out of it. She would hold him, telling him all about Stan.” Helen choked. “She loved him so, and while Phil didn’t look anything like him, those eyes, so damned green! There were so few color pictures of Stan, and none of them ever did justice to his eyes.”
Julia gripped Helen’s hand. “Where are your paintings?”
“Gone. After she died, I burned them.”
“Oh Helen!”
“I know, I know. You know how hard it was for me to sit in Ohio when Phil was going through all that with Sunshine? Both Daniel and I knew. Daniel couldn’t keep his mouth shut, blaming himself, blaming Jerrold.”
“He knew about Larry?”
“Not that Larry killed Stan, but that all of Larry’s badgering had something to do with it. Stan was so young, and Joanna needed so much, she was never that strong. Julia, I’ve never said any of this to Phil, we never wanted to burden him, never felt that was right. Honey, I know you didn’t get that break, and I’m sorry about that.”
Julia bit her lip. “It’s not your fault.”
“No, but still it’s not fair.” Helen had a bitter laugh. “All these babies are growing up in the bosom of their parents, no acrimony, no bullshit.” Helen sniffed. “Even that chunk of Ray’s is gonna have it better than you or Phil ever did.”
“Grandma, I, I don’t know what to say.”
Helen stood, then led Julia into the house, back to the spare bedroom where Stan’s guitar had once lived. Julia’s box of mementos had dwelled here too, for a little while, but now this room was a warehouse for Helen’s past. She slid open the closet doors, removing a large portfolio. She set it on the twin bed, unzipped the case, exposing a large chalk drawing of a threesome. The man, with bright green irises, stared right at Julia.
“I made this not long before Joanna died, one of the last pieces I ever did, just as spring was hitting. Phil was still in school, Joanna at the store or gone for a walk. She used to take these really long walks around the neighborhood, sometimes I wondered if she’d ever come back. She never got over losing Stan, it stayed inside her, some dead breath she cou
ldn’t live without. Something came over me that spring, maybe I knew or maybe I was trying to breathe for her. I did this one in about a week, sneaking time here and there. Daniel knew about it, but Joanna and Phil never did.”
Phil’s face was that of a twelve-year-old, his parents as if still in their early twenties. Maybe Helen had no idea how to age Stan, but perhaps she hadn’t wished to change her daughter, who seemed to have died right alongside her husband as if Larry Jerrold had fired two bullets on that December night, not just one. Julia removed the drawing, holding it close.
“Sometimes I wonder if JJ will look like this, I mean,” Helen laughed. “She’ll be prettier, but she’s just so much like Phil, a tiny little Phil.”
“At the rate she’s growing, we’ll know before too long.”
“You will Julia.”
The room felt airless. Julia’s tears nearly splashed on the drawing, and she dropped it to the bed. “Grandma?”
“He doesn’t know about these, but I’m gonna have to tell him about, well, about something else.” Helen sighed, setting her hand on Julia’s shoulder. “I really wanted to read one of your books honey. Maybe it’ll be just a paragraph or two.”
“Grandma?”
“Breast cancer, I, uh, I guess I can’t complain about Daniel looking the other way anymore.”
“No, no!” Julia gripped Helen, then moved the drawings, easing them both to the mattress.
“Honey, it doesn’t matter now, not really. I’m eighty years old, I’ve seen my great-grandchild, what else is there?”
“But, but…”
“But nothing. I want you to keep these pictures. You can tell Phil what I told you. I really don’t wanna say it to him myself. Or just keep it to yourself, whatever you like.”
“Helen, no fucking way!”
“Julia, after seeing that video, I knew my daughter died for no good reason, Stan for even less. Stan died because of some asshole’s inherent greed, but it’s long under the bridge. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know, sometimes I wish Larry Jerrold could’ve just died with that deed locked in his head. I’m sure he’s in Crystal’s heaven, not certain that’s entirely fair. Better if I thought he’d gone to hell, but that’s not very kind.”
“Helen, there’s gotta be something we can do, I mean…”
“There’s nothing honey I want done. I just wanna see that coming baby, then…”
“No!”
“Julia, I wanna see that baby, but first, I wanna read what you’ve written. How much you have done honey?”
The book felt light years away, the book and Phil’s youthful face, which was probably his daughter’s face, only with longer hair. Crystal was letting JJ’s hair grow; so far it reached her jaw. Small clips kept it from her eyes until JJ ripped them free, several brown strands liberated too. “Helen, this’s bullshit! Why didn’t you tell us, do something?”
“I’m old and tired. Nothing left for me to do.”
“Helen!”
“Julia, it’s my life. Now, you take a look at these pictures, and then decide.”
“Decide what?” Julia shouted.
Helen stroked Julia’s cheek. “Decide what you wanna tell Phil, if anything, and what you’re gonna do about Ray and that little boy. You’d be good for him Julia, you really would, for them both. I know Ray’s been a bit of a prick…”
Julia stood, shoving her fists into her sides. “Grandma, this is fucking ridiculous!”
“It is what it is. I’m sorry honey, I don’t mean to lay all this on you. But my daughter didn’t mean to end up the way she was, or Phil with all the crap he’s suffered. Now tomorrow you come over here with whatever it is you’ve got written. You leave me with that, and you can take these, but not until I look through them one more time, see if I wrote down the dates when I did them, in case Phil ever wants to know. He’s got artsy-fartsy genes on both sides, good lord, his kids aren’t gonna know which way to turn.”
Helen stood, taking Julia’s trembling frame into her arms. “I mean really,” she said, traces of tears in her voice. “Between their musical grandfather, an artist for a great-grandmother, and their Jesus-loving mama, anything could happen.”
“Hey Phil, oh Jesus Christ! Listen, you need to come over here, it’s not about Ray. It’s, uh…” A long breath was followed by several sobs. “It’s about Grandma. Listen, when you hear this, just come over. I don’t care when. If I don’t answer just use your key. Phil, oh my God, please pick up! Phil, Crystal, anyone, please?”
Chapter 13