Lift - Kelly Corrigan [16]
We practiced over the phone as she drove down to the airport. I thought the key was to lead her grandmother there so that she’d know what Meg was going to say before she said it.
“So I’ll start by talking about how I always wanted to be a mom.”
“Right, perfect.”
“Okay.” She sounded resolute but then she came back with, “She got married when she was nineteen.”
“And?”
“She’s one of the most conservative people I know, Kelly. She goes to church every day. The church that won’t give condoms to Africans with AIDS. What do you think they think about babies out of wedlock? From online sperm banks?”
In St. Louis, Meg sat in the living room with her grandmother and told her.
“Oh thank God,” said the woman born in 1912.
Meg looked up.
“I always worried that your brains and beauty were gonna go to waste. Go in my bedroom. There’s some knitting by the window. Yellow.”
On the radiator, Meg found a tiny sweater, almost complete. The buttons were pinned on and the second sleeve still needed to be attached.
“I wasn’t sure who I was knitting that for,” her grandmother called out from the other room. “Isn’t that something? I just was knitting a baby sweater for no one in particular. And now I know. Isn’t that something?”
So girls, will you please believe me when I tell you that I love you enough to take in the full reality of your lives? That I can understand the things you think I can’t and I can see and know and embrace every bit of you, full frame, no cropping?
This morning, Georgia, you slipped into bed with me before six. After some adjusting and resettling, you said, “You know what I’ve noticed?”
“What?” I asked.
“A lot of times, elbows are bent.”
“It’s true.”
“That’s why the skin is so wrinkly on the tips,” you said, finding my elbow under the sheets as Claire appeared in the doorway looking like a cross between Sandy Duncan and Jeff Spicoli.
“I know some people who never bend their elbows,” she said.
“Who?” you demanded.
“The people in the straightest-arm-club,” Claire said, in her singsong voice.
“There’s no such thing!”
“Yes there is.”
“Where?” you said.
“In Arkansas,” Claire said.
“Mom, tell her!” you said, a tireless champion for Truth against nonsense.
“Oh boy,” I said, looking in the direction of the clock without my glasses. “Does that say seven?”
After breakfast, I sent you both upstairs to brush your teeth, something that never seems to take long enough, while I cleaned up the kitchen; the last few bloated Cheerios, a nearly finished lanyard you started at Camp Tockwogh, a cootie catcher we’d made that predicted the future—You will be on American Idol, You will swim in the Olympics, You will live in Bora Bora—a third-grade spelling list that started with enough and ended with ground, a homemade book that said: Once upon a time—blank page, blank page—The End. I put that in a drawer. Maybe I’ll throw it out later, maybe not—I never know which souvenirs to keep.
We walked to the bus stop.
You guys wanted me to let you wait alone. You told me to “stop babying you,” so I stood 143 steps away.
I could still see you. But God, you were small on that corner. If I’d taken a picture, you’d have been just two shapes.
The bus pulled up, the doors opened, kids called out your names. You were fine—better than fine. I was there. I saw it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Meg and her daughter live in San Francisco and are thriving. However, if you know a guy, a special and good man (preferably born before 1970), I trust you’ll let me know.
An excerpt from Kelly Corrigan’s The Middle Place
Chapter One
monday,
august 2, 2004
August is a terrible time to be born.
I aspire to be the self-actualized person who no longer needs or even wants her birthday to be noticed. I fight the urge to plan something. It’s so self-serving, I tell myself. But this one—thirty-seven—this one is shaping up to be the most mundane, uninspired birthday to date and I’m not sure I can leave it alone.
To: The Ladies
Re: Lunch
Date: Monday, August 2, 2004
* * *
As I’m sure you’ve committed