INTRUDER

SHAYNA BROWN

It’s normally seven hours from my doorstep in Austin to hers in Baton Rouge, but I’m on course to make it in six with only a warning from a cop to slow down. Billboards litter both sides of the highway – advertisements for drive-through boudin and gumbo, alligator museums, and a handful of “Geaux Tigers!” I try not to think of the divorce papers buried at the bottom of my bag, papers Adam shoved in my hands as I was trying to leave town. The thought of my shattering life in the rearview mirror puts lead in my foot. As I drive, I play with the ring on my fourth finger; a gold band etched with fleur-de-lis that ties me to this state, and to her. 

When I reach the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, I can almost smell Granny’s small, musty house – one of the few still standing along the channels of the marsh below. Its dust and stale air mixed with melted grease bubbling in a cast iron skillet, just waiting to bathe bacon, or catfish, or whatever it is Granny’s frying up today. The house has eroded so much, a passerby might assume no one could possibly be living in it, and maybe they’re right, because she’s been dying in it for almost a year. 

When I arrive at Granny’s house, the smell eagerly awaits me but Granny does not. She’s probably napping, as she does so often now. As I shut the front door, a cold breeze surprises me. A winter storm has snuck in and I don’t think I brought a sweater. My sister and I are taking shifts every other weekend, leaving a home-care nurse to handle the weekdays, so I never bring much with me.

The house is dark even though it’s afternoon. The windows are locked shut and covered by thick drapes that keep all light out and all sickness and decay in. I’d open the blinds if I could get to the windows, but old cardboard boxes scattered throughout the house block my way. They’re stacked high and shrink the living room to a narrow path. I have to move a large box holding small kitchen appliances, fabric strips, and an antique shotgun from my path. Who has left this mess here? Even before she got sick, I suggested Granny get rid of some of the piles, but she wouldn’t budge. More recently, I tried to talk Becca into helping me discreetly take some of the stuff to the Goodwill, but she sided with Granny.

“I’m not taking her blenders. And it’s not like a couple boxes is gonna make any difference,” Becca had said when I called with a plan to clear out the house, get some houseplants, let in some fresh air.

“But they’re everywhere. This is no place to get better.” I kept my voice low, careful not to wake Granny, shifting the phone from one ear to the other.

“Uh, Granny’s not going to get better,” Becca said, and I felt my face flush.

“That’s not what I meant. I just… I just want to make the place brighter. More conducive to…” I trailed off, feeling stupid.

“The doctor said she doesn’t have long. Let her keep her crap,” Becca said. I wondered where she’d buried her heart.

“The doctor doesn’t know. People outlive doctors’ predictions all the time. It’s totally normal to beat the odds now.”

“I don’t think that’s how odds work,” my sister said, a new gentleness in her voice that irritated me. “But regardless, she likes knowing her stuff is there. It’s like a security blanket. Just give her that.”

“I’ll clean out the fridge, at least,” I surrendered.

“Fine, but the freezer is filled with actual useful, edible stuff, so don’t go crazy in there. I had a popsicle last weekend and it didn’t seem to be toxic. I highly recommend ‘em.”

Becca is younger than me but wiser, which bugged me when we were kids, but now it feels like a gift. I’m not expected to have it all together. She is. While I was off failing in school and marriage, somehow Becca got a nursing degree and met a nice lawyer with a full set of aggressive, white teeth and Popeye muscles, and together they built a full life. My life is full too – full of failures. I barely graduated from college, my paralegal job is a soul-sucking grind, and my marriage-turned-in-process-of-divorce never should have happened. It’s been five years of combat and bringing out the worst in each other and still, I can’t let him go. I let out a frustrated growl as I toss my duffle on the couch, aware of the divorce papers buried inside it. Then, I look around the rest of Granny’s house. 

Photos hang on the only wall that isn’t blocked by piles of boxes. There’s a wedding photo of Granny and Pawpaw but the rest are of my sister and me as kids. Here we were at my piano recital, two sisters smiling at Granny behind the camera. And there’s one from Easter twenty years ago, where we were wearing new fleur-de-lis rings Granny had tucked in a plastic egg. The rings were too big for our little hands, swallowing even our thumbs, so Granny gave us each a long, thin chain necklace to hold the rings until our fingers could. My fingers find the ring and I fidget, running my thumb along the etching of the lily’s three leaves emerging from a central point, engraved in a repeating pattern.

My favorite photo is here, a portrait of the three of us together on the stoop of Granny’s shack. I can’t tell if it was happiness or sunshine illuminating our smiles. Because of Granny, we got to be kids. We never knew our dad, and Mom was lost to a cunning and baffling disease – too lost to be present for us, popping up only in between rehabs and binges.

“We don’t talk about that in this house, Anna Lynne,” Granny used to say. Instead, she stepped in to provide the parenting and support we needed.

I hear her stirring. Slowly, she shuffles out of her bedroom. She’s paler than I remember, all five-foot-nine of her hunched in her nightgown, worn down from almost eighty years of living. She’s a blurred version of herself, stooped and trembling. The house is drafty, and I want to wrap her in warmth.

“Hiya, Granny,” I say.

“Anna Lynne!” Hers is the joy of a child on Christmas morning. Even though I was just here two weeks ago, even though she barely has the energy to hold herself upright, her love rushes over me like a rainstorm and I’m a thirsty flower.

I kiss her on the cheek and smell talc powder and something strong and medicinal. “Let me look at you.” I pretend to examine her and she bats me away.

“You’re too skinny,” I tell her. Becca had warned me it had been a bad couple weeks but I’d hoped she was exaggerating. She lives only an hour away in New Orleans, so she has a more constant finger on Granny’s pulse.

“You’re one to talk, Anna Lynne. Have you had any supper? The aide left fried cornbread on the stove.” 

“Let’s check it out,” I say.

 After dinner, we stay seated at the small, metal kitchen table and I deal us a hand of Gin Rummy. Granny is reclined in her chair, slight in body, and known for her sleight of hand. We’ve been sitting at this table playing cards my entire life. Even our discomfort is comfortable here.

“Well, you must not like me very much if you dealt me this hand,” she says, her laugh interrupted with a violent cough.

“I just know you’ll play any hand well, Granny,” I reply. An exchange we’ve had a million times.

We play for almost an hour. She moves slowly but still beats me. The scrape of card against card is rhythmic, soothing, blending with the only other sound in the room, the tick tick tick of an antique clock on the wall.

“You hold on too tight, Anna Lynne,” Granny says, looking past her cards to me.

“Ma’am?” I look at my hand, at the cards gently nestled there.

“Not the cards,” Granny says. A sharpness in her tone cuts the air between us. “In life. You understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I lie, looking down.

“Head up, young lady. Head up,” she wheezes, and I lift my eyes. “We’re strong women. You hear me? Let go.”

I give her a confused look before realizing Becca must have told her about my divorce. I feel the heat of shame on my shoulders, melting between my shoulder blades, warming my sides like an unwanted hug.

“I’ll let go of some of these boxes for you,” I joke, forgetting where I am, who I’m with. She gives me a look I haven’t seen since I was a teenager sneaking out of the house on a school night and, always, getting caught. “Sorry, Granny, sorry. Just kidding. Yes, ma’am. I will.”  Her eyes slice through me but I’m saved when she starts coughing and turns away. I wait a beat and then slowly, carefully, continue with the game.

We play in silence for a few more rounds. I’m looking at my hand when I hear her breathing get deeper, more ragged, and I look up. She’s fallen asleep. Her chest rises and falls. Her mouth is slightly open as her head tilts back and balances between her bony shoulders. I sit across from her, and we are surrounded by looming piles of boxes. As her head rests on her chair, she leans dangerously close to a stack of toaster oven boxes. I stand and push the whole pile away. Becca’s right. The choice to hoard is Granny’s, but I wish I could clear out some space and give her some room to breathe. I just want her to breathe.

Ages ago, before I went to Becca, Granny shooed my questions away with her hand. “Honey child, they were marked down eighty percent! Eighty percent! Never know when you’re gonna need a toaster oven. And I could give them as Christmas gifts. Stop picking on me about my boxes.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” was all I have ever answered.

Watching Granny doze, I wrap a thin blanket around my shoulders and listen to the tick tick tick of the old clock. Her cancer is inches from me and I believe I can see it eating away at her insides, its outline visible through the thin fabric of her nightgown. I imagine reaching in and grabbing it, ripping it out of her body and throwing it out of this house.

I’m bending the cards in my tightened fingers, so I set them down on the table. Granny’s hand has dropped to the table too, her fingers relaxed so her cards are half held, half fallen to the side. I avert my gaze, refuse to cheat, even though I’ve never been able to beat her at Gin honestly. 

She falls asleep in her chair a lot lately. The cancer, the treatment, the exacting toll of existing so long, they just wear her out. I think falling asleep is the only way she can outrun thinking about where she’s going.  Normally, her frequent naps would have alarmed me, but the doctor told us it was normal.

“Normal,” he’d said. Normal to have a tumor the size of a plum poking out of your chest. Normal to poison your body in hopes of poisoning the protruding tumor. Normal to be saying your goodbye in a way that is a forever-goodbye. At thirty-five years old, this is my first encounter with death up close, and I still don't know why “normal” is a reassurance. I just know that it is.

Tonight, I tuck her in, laying an extra blanket over her, shivering as I curse the ineffective radiator. The house is so run-down; maybe the piles of boxes are actually structural, holding up the roof. I make myself some tea and bring a book to the couch where I sleep when I visit. The couch is in the kitchen by the metal table, right by the entrance to the house. The living room is too small for a couch, so this has been the setup since we were kids. The only other room in Granny’s house is jam-packed with boxes of things Granny has dreamt of using, gifting, or selling at a profit. They’re things she’s spent so much of her life wanting, needing, and not having, and now they surround her: mixers, skillets, homemade jarred vegetables and jam, waffle makers, ice cream makers, decks of cards, that weird antique gun. This room, like all of Granny’s home, is swollen with piles stretching higher than my head. I know one day soon my sister and I will have to clear out the room, and it will take weeks of work before it’s emptied. This is a good lesson for me, and I tuck this information away to use later, when I am older, when I do not want to burden my loved ones with things.   

I get comfortable on my couch-bed and fidget with my fleur-de-lis ring, which slips from my finger and rolls away. I imagine it’s rolled into a puff of dust, and I’m a little desperate as I get on my hands and knees and start to search. As I sweep my hands around the edge of the couch, I hear a commotion behind me. I push myself up and Granny is standing in the kitchen doorway in her thin nightgown with house slippers on her feet.

Her eyes are blazing, and she has the old shotgun propped in her arms. 

“Granny!” I yell but regret it immediately. Yelling at someone with a gun, even a gun that has been sitting around collecting dust for years, is never a good idea. I stagger, jumping to my feet. She trains the gun on me and snarls.

“Granny, it’s me,” I say, quivering hands lifted above my head. The winter storm rattles the house and whistles loudly. The antique clock continues its relentless ticking.

“I heard somethin’,” she says to me, and I can’t tell if she knows it’s me she’s talking to. “Intruder.” Her eyes are wild, and it scares me. She’s erratic as she whips the gun around to the other side of the room. 

“Granny, no one’s here, it’s just the wind outside. Just the wind.” I try to control my breathing and approach her carefully, reassuring her as I go. But when I reach for the gun, she shrieks and thrusts us both to the side with a violent turn.

“There!” she screams and points toward the stove. I jump to look, goosebumps on my skin. Now she’s got me spooked, but I see nothing out of the ordinary. She shivers with a whimpering cry.

“Granny, it’s the stove! No one’s there.” I put a hand on her arm and slowly trace my fingers along the stock of the gun until we are holding it together. Without warning, the gun fires, rearing back like a wild horse. The recoil jabs Granny and she falls backward into me. I slam against the wall, landing hard on my hip. The gun drops to the ground where it lies motionless, playing dead. I gently kick it away from us and keep a steadying hand on Granny. I survey the room for damage but find none.

“It’s okay,” I say, breathless, ears ringing. Not a single box seems out of place. Granny is staring into the distance, eyes wide but empty. As I hold her, I anchor us both.

“It’s okay,” I repeat. “You’re okay.” I steer her toward her bedroom.

“There?” her voice breaks.

Once she’s back in bed, I sit by her side quietly, trembling but hoping to be of comfort. As she gets settled, she is shaky and uncertain, confusion seems to be overtaking her. My breath catches. Granny looks like a sketched drawing of herself, not the formidable spitfire grandmother I know, and the contrast makes my stomach tighten. Tucked in like a child, she is shrunken, betrayed by the body that has been her lifelong companion. 

Once she seems to have drifted off, I rise to leave. Her eyes jump open and she grabs my arm with both her hands.

“Anna Lynne, I’m scared,” she says, her voice an urgent whisper.

“Granny, it’s okay, I’m here.” My stomach is twisting like it’s host to a family of squirrels.

“Is this going to hurt?” she asks. It takes me a minute to understand what she’s asking, and I feel my skin on fire as I stumble to process it.

I don’t know anything about death; I barely know about life. My fallibility is on full display and I know I’m letting her down. I remember being nine or ten, going to the dentist for the first time. Is it gonna hurt, Granny? I’d asked, shaking and ready to make a run for it. I don’t think so. But I’ll be right here no matter what, she’d said.

Her grey-white hair is swirling around her head now, hovering above her like a halo.

“No,” I say, trying to project a certainty I don’t have. “And I’ll be right here with you no matter what.”

I hold my eyes firmly on her face.

We sit in silence for a few minutes. I am frozen, not daring to move. Her eyes are closed but she keeps a strong grip on me. Then her eyes are open again.

“Will Pawpaw be waiting for me where I’m going?”

This question surprises me even more. Granny has always been a fervent atheist, singing that gospel to anyone who’ll listen. Now that she’s on hospice, though, she seems to be more open-minded. God has been dancing on her lips lately.

“Yes,” I tell her, not because I believe it or have thought it through, but because it seems like the only kind response. “Pawpaw is waiting for you.”

“Oh, that is so good, Baby. So good,” she murmurs, closing her eyes again. She seems to be drifting away from me. I hold her hand in silence until she falls asleep and lets me go. Her strength seems completely drained away, a human husk where a powerful force used to be. Instead of sympathy or compassion I feel a rush of anger at nature for giving and then taking away. 

I walk back to the kitchen, still shaking, and take the old, dusty gun from where it had fallen. I run my hand along the tarnished steel neck and smooth wooden stock, its shine faded but its form unyielding. It’s like Granny, I think, old but still strong.

Slowly, carefully, I push the gun deep under the couch, planning to have my Popeye brother-in-law handle it next weekend. As I climb into my couch-bed, I notice a small hole just above my head. The damned thing really shot a bullet. I run my fingers along the jagged, chalky gash left behind, and start to laugh. Granny was never one to go quietly, and I guess neither was her gun. Are there other dangerous items in these boxes? The idea of purging grabs hold. I jump from the couch and start looking through boxes. Slowly at first but then with frenzied energy, weeding through box after box, consolidating, culling, and then sneaking bags of stuff I’ve deemed expendable into my car to donate on my way out of town. I manage to fill the back of my car in under an hour. Afterward, when I scan the kitchen, it looks almost inviting. I feel like I can breathe. Moonlight trickles through a window that’s been covered by boxes for years, and my heart thuds. Granny will be angry, but in this moment it feels worth it.

I sit on the couch and reach into my bag and grab hold of my divorce papers. Granny’s words tickle at my stomach. She’s right – we are strong. She and I are spun from the same yarn, and I lift my head with the power of that knowledge. The divorce papers feel lighter here, smooth and inviting, and I’m not sure why I’ve been afraid of them. I find a pen in my bag and without hesitation, sign here and here. I stuff the signed documents back in my bag, and burrow into my sheets. I am drained of everything and feel lighter than I have in ages. I don’t even remember falling asleep. 

“Normal,” the doctor says when I call him the next day. “Hallucinations at this stage are normal. It means she’s progressing. You’ll want to let the hospice know.”

When Granny wakes up, there is no sign she remembers anything of the previous night’s excitement. She hobbles into the kitchen, and I make her instant coffee with sugar and heavy cream, the way I’ve watched her drink it my whole life. She sits at the table and doesn’t even seem to notice the mug. She also doesn’t seem to notice the clearing out I’ve done.

“How you feeling today?” I shuffle cards and deal ten to each of us.

“Pretty good for a dyin’ old gal,” she answers with a scraping gasp of breath that turns into a cough. I tell myself not to worry; the coughing is normal. I want to tell her not to say the word dying, but I know she’d want me to be tougher than that, so I don’t.

“Is there anything special I can make us for dinner tonight?” I ask.

“My appetite isn’t so much, honey. You just do what you’d like.”

There are times when taking care of the people you love doesn’t look like what you wish it looked like. But that’s okay. That’s normal.

I go to the freezer in the shed and find some chicken, and a bag of frozen trinity – onion, celery, peppers. I make chicken and dumplings because it’s easy on the stomach and it’s one of the first things Granny ever taught me to cook, so I think the sentimental value may outweigh the nutritional.

She takes a single nibble of dumpling and pushes her bowl aside. I’m still working on my bowl and Granny catches me staring at the tumor protruding violently from her chest, just above the hem of her shirt. The radiation marks around it boast angry shades of black and dark purple, like a vibrant orchid bloom.

“It’s not nice to stare, Anna Lynne.”

“Yes ma’am. I’m sorry.”  I lift my eyes, and this makes her smile.

“I named it,” she says and touches her chest. “His name is Robert Pattinson.”

“What?” I stare at her, thinking I’ve misheard.

“The actor. The vampire. I named it after him.”

Now the confused, old woman has confused me. How does the actor Robert Pattinson’s name belong in this space, floating among the boxes and chicken and dumplings and purple tumors?

“Do you know who Robert Pattinson is?” My words tumble out.

“Of course I do! You think I’m a fool?” There’s an energy and a return to the old grandmother I remember, and my heart beats hard, happy. She’s getting better, coming back to us instead of walking away. Clearing out the boxes did help. I will call Becca tonight to tell her.

“Well, I’ll be darned, Granny.”

“I’ve seen all the Twilight movies a dozen times.” She is smug now, and I am at a loss. “He is one very good-looking young man,” she says, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Yes ma’am.”

“Anna Lynne,” she says, turning to me with a look of clarity.

“What’s up?” I say with too much perk.

“You moved my boxes.” My stomach drops to my feet.

“Hm?” I put my hand down.

“I’m no fool. I see—” she interrupts herself with gasping coughs. I get up to pat her back and inch her water cup away from the edge of the table.

“It’s okay, Granny. It’s okay.” I pat her back and realize I was wrong. I love the boxes. I love the smell. I love everything about the house. I don’t want anything to change. 

“I can put it all back, I haven’t donated it yet.” I start to say. Her coughing slows to a raspy breath, and she turns in her chair and leans her head against my side.

“Thank you,” she says, staring out the newly unobstructed window. “Thank you, Baby,” she says again, keeping her head against me. I hold one hand on her shoulder and with the other I swipe tears from my eyes. The moon is nearly full, and its shine brings a new brightness to the room. We sit in this light, silent except for the tick tick tick of the clock.