Via Cross (F)

I drove up from Beaufort, my monthly visit with my great-grandmother. Dorothy took my coat as I entered the living room. My great-grandmother calls it the salon.

“Here, Robert, kiss me while I am still alive.” She tipped her head to the side and I kissed her cheek.

“Good, now sit here, close to me. My hearing, you know.”

“Yes, M'am.”

“Do you like my hat?” A green velvet fedora. She lifted her chin and gazed toward the ceiling. Her eyes seem focused on something, something unseen.

“Yes. Chic. Did you eat lunch, Gramma V?”

“Oh, Robert, like your father, boring. Dorothy takes care of our dining. You know that.” She tapped her cane for emphasis.

“What did Dr. Weston say during his last visit?”

“Do you think I am a child, Robert? The same, the same, the same. I’m dying, still dying.” She slumped back in her chair.

She pointed her cane at the wall behind me. Her Glory Days collection she called the photos. “They never complained. They bragged, they shouted, sometimes wept right here, right here on bended knees, heads in my lap. But no complaints.”

I waited.

“Oh, Ernest was so shy, so shy. People missed that about him.” She looked to the left and right around her. “I wish I could smoke.”

“Gramma—“

“Oh, don’t say it.  And Scott was so shy. Why were those boys so shy? So much greatness. Here in this room. Your great-grandfather, he was great in his own way.”

“I guess the days seem slower now.”

“The days, these days are merely counted. Oh, Robert—“ She leaned forward and rested her chin on the top of her cane.

“Is it true William Faulkner only stayed here when he visited the city?”

“Bill, yes, only here. Such a gentleman. Such perfect manners. Scott had good manners, like a good schoolboy, until he loosened up, then he would talk and talk, tell the funniest stories about other people. I really need a cigarette.”

“Who was the worst guest?”  I knew the answer.

“Well, Norman, was. I thought him a great bore. So belligerent, and why? Talent, talent like any of them. Sweet, sweet to me. He put his wet shoes up on the furniture. He smashed glasses. He swore. I didn’t like him. Your great-grandfather thought him worth the bother. Sweet man. Sweet to me at least. Didn’t like him a bit.”

Again, a pause, a stare, far off to somewhere, somewhere else, out there, far away.

“Do you know why no one visits from the college? Because your great-grandfather, the great man, is dead. Or they are all dead. Every last one of them. What a shame. Or maybe not.”

“I’m sorry, Gramma.”

“You know what 96 is—not 97. Isn’t that marvelous. Louise told me that yesterday. That girl, you should have married her, not Charles. Charles seems somehow incomplete. And that girl.”

“They are a good couple.”

“Good? No, you and Louise would be great. She would make you great.”

“Gramma, please.”

“True is true. No arguing with the true. Do you have any cigarettes?”

“No. And don’t pressure Dorothy about buying some.”

“I hope you will be better company at dinner. Why don’t you go change clothes. Dorothy will fix you a drink when you come down.”

I stood up.

“True is always true, Robert.”

“Yes, I suppose it is, Gramma.” 

I was nearly to the door. “Louise would make you great.”

Lyman 2021