The Absence of Anyone Else Chapter One

The Absence of Anyone Else Chapter One

Copyright 2009 JAR Publishing

The nursery school is filled with toddlers who have trendy

names like Jalynn, Cheyenne, and Ryder. Their mothers are young,

bulging out of pre-pregnancy jeans, driving away in shiny compact

cars with Mardi Gras beads dangling from rearview mirrors.

They’re always in a hurry, it seems. They never notice me, the

woman with a toddler in one hand and basket full of books, paper,

and paint in the other, struggling make it inside. They pay

extra each week to have me come here, yet never take the time to

hold the door. Go figure.

I come to share the gift of art with their children, to offer

their young minds a creative form of expression … ideally. In

reality, I come to give the nursery school teachers a thirty minute

break so that they can sit down outside on the terrace, have a

secret smoke, and gossip about everyone else. They get this every

Wednesday in their schedules; I get forty dollars every Wednesday

in my pocket. Not much, but extra money always helps, especially

in the summer, when I am on vacation from my teaching

job and always seem to overspend.

I deposit my two-year-old son Samson into a playgroup with

four other youngsters and head for the three- and four-year-olds.

I read the group a story about colorful fish, then guide them as

they play with paints and brushes in an attempt to recreate the

story’s characters on paper. They giggle and squeal with delight as

they explore the sensation of paint between their fingers, little

round faces full of so much enthusiasm I can’t help but smile. It

reminds me why I chose art education as my college major all

those years ago. This is joy, I think. These children know genuine

joy in this moment. I laugh with them as they rally around me,

and I am not even upset by the fact that I have green and blue

handprints smeared across the brand new secondhand jeans I found

for three bucks yesterday at my favorite thrift store. Oh well, they’ll

be paint jeans now, I think, smiling at the little color streaked

faces around me. So what if they were designer brand and fit just

right?

As I am packing my supplies and preparing to leave, my cell

phone rings, and I know it’s Daniel by the Mariachi band ring

tone he assigned himself weeks ago. I don’t answer because Sherry,

the director of the nursery school, is talking to me about teaching

an extra session next week. Instantly it rings again, the sound only

mildly mortifying. Daniel is nothing if not persistent, so I slip my

hand inside my bag and turn the phone off.

Sherry and I agree on the extra session and say goodbye. I

collect Samson, who is sitting quietly in the toddler room looking

at a big board book. He’s not especially happy about leaving this

colorful place and squirms and fusses in my arms. On the way

out, I notice a large collection of small paper hands, all different

colors, arranged in the shape of one large hand on the window of

Sherry’s office. I pause for a minute to take it in. It’s oddly uplifting

and I try to keep a mental picture of it in my mind as I load

Samson into his car seat and jump behind the wheel of my station

wagon, silently praying, as always, that it will start.

Despite rails of protest over leaving, Samson is now singing in

his car seat, his mood shifting in that speed of light way only

toddlers seem to master. I sing with him as we head across town to

visit my grandmother, Nan, for lunch. Nan’s home is within easy

walking distance of my own, but the heat of a June afternoon in

Calvary, South Carolina, makes a midday stroll out of the ques-

tion. As we pull up in front of the shockingly purple Victorian,

Samson cries “Eat, eat,” a little mantra he always begins as soon as

he realizes where we are. We have spent every Wednesday having

lunch with Nan since summer vacation began, and she’s definitely

the most interesting thing this town has to offer on a sweltering

summer day.

“Ah, hello, my loves!” She smiles as she answers the door with

an exaggerated bow, taking Samson from my arms and swaying

down the hall as though he were her partner in a ballroom. He

laughs at first but then reaches back for me. He’s already sleepy so

we decide to eat right away.

“You’re in for a treat today,” she says to me as I settle Samson

into a booster seat. “Just wait until you try my latest dish! Had to

go all the way to Greenville to get the right sauce but this old bird

needs to fly the coop sometimes, right Sammy?” She winks at

Samson, who is pulling on his ears. He grins.

“Oh I hope it’s something he will eat,” I say as I scan the room

for a glimpse of what’s to come. Dining with Nan is always an

adventure because she thrives on the exotic. As she begins to lay

out the meal, I am shocked and delighted to see yogurt with cucumbers,

pita chips, falafel sandwiches and hummus. I have not

eaten this type of food in years, but once it was my favorite meal.

“Did you make all this?” I ask, more than a little overwhelmed

by the idea of someone being so versatile in the kitchen. After all, it

certainly isn’t the standard Southern fare of fried chicken, collard

greens, biscuits and peas that line her table for holiday dinners.

“I certainly did!” She smiles as she sits down, tousling my

son’s hair. He smiles at her and his grey eyes are momentarily lost

behind chubby cheeks. I watch as she carefully unfolds a linen

napkin and smoothes it onto her lap. It’s a simple yet elegant gesture

that I try to imitate, but Samson immediately grabs the cloth

from my lap and throws it onto the floor.

“So what’s the inspiration?” I ask as I retrieve my napkin and

place it far from his reach.

“Well,” she begins, “I was poking around on the internet, just

seeing what I could find, when I came across these recipes from

the Middle East. You know most of their dishes are vegetarian,

and I’ve been trying to go that route for years but could never

stick with it. Now I think I’ve finally found food I can give up

meat for!”

We laugh and I am pleased to discover that Samson enjoys

the meal as well. While Nan tidies up, I rock him to sleep in the

same chair my grandmother once used to rock her children, then

her grandchildren and now her great-grandchildren to sleep in. Nan

doesn’t believe in throwing anything away that is still reasonably

useful, even if it is battered, worn, and frighteningly rickety. “Sometimes

it’s the old worn out thing that works the best,” she’ll say.

“Shiny and new might be prettier, but prettier ain’t always better.”

I have always called my grandmother Nan, not Nana like my

sister and cousin do. I do not know why, but to me, Nan just

seems to fit better. I hope that when I reach her age, I have a

fraction of her eclectic style.

She has never cut her hair, preferring instead to wear it in a

long silver braid wrapped around her head like a halo each morning.

She dresses in flowing shifts and scarves, old copper and silver

bracelets—gifts my grandfather, a railroad man, picked up

out West—dangling along her thin wrists. He died before I was

born, but when Nan talks about him, she will finger the heavy

silver locket around her neck and say, “Your Grandfather, he was

perfection.” Inside the locket is a faded picture of a handsome

young man of about twenty, and even now, some thirty years after

his death, her blue eyes will sparkle when she talks about the man

with whom she shared three decades.

I like to think that I take after her, not only in appearance—

for I also have long hair and blue eyes—but also because in this

town, she is like a bird of paradise lost in a flock of sparrows, and

I think of myself the same way. I also thrive on the exotic, not too

readily available here in Calvary.

Nan’s large home is decorated with a mixture of family photos

and random assortments of quirky ethnic statues and masks that

she collects. They are not from travels but from a lifetime of perusing

garage sales and thrift shops, other people’s discarded souvenirs

becoming our family’s heirlooms. As I settle a sleeping Samson

onto the large black couch, I notice an unusual wood carving of a

hand with an eye cut into the center. I ask Nan about this newest

artifact as we sit at the kitchen table, coffee cups in hand.

“Isn’t it just wonderful?” She says. “I was told it represents the

Hand of Fatima.”

I look closely at the small sculpture, which looks like an exaggerated

Iris blossom. A hand, palm facing front, middle three fingers

raised, thumb and little finger bent down in arcs. In the

middle, a large eye stares dully forward.

“I love the Hand of Fatima,” I say. “I remember studying it in

art history. My professor said it’s used in the Middle East to mean

different things. It’s really beautiful.” I can’t stand it any longer. I

cross the room on tip toe as not to wake Samson, and pick up the

hand. It’s surprisingly light. Up close I can see that the carving is

rather crude, as though it were one of many simple sculptures

carved in a single day by some unknown craftsman, a world away,

his wares spread out before him on a colorful blanket at a festive

bazaar.

“Can you believe I only paid a dollar for it?” Nan’s voice is

almost a whisper.

“The Market?” I ask, and she nods, slowly stirring another

cube of sugar into her cup. “You just never know what you’ll find

there. It’s like an adventure.” She sets the cup down, bracelets

jangling. I painted her once as a gypsy, complete with a colorful

turban, layers of shawls and an upside-down fish bowl doubling

as a crystal ball. Hokey, sure, but it had been fun. Nan seemed

genuinely sorry when I no longer needed her to pose.

She has two great loves: the Internet, on which she spends

hours perusing random topics; and The Market, a large mish

mash assortment of yard sales that folks set up on Saturday mornings

in an old parking lot off Highway 25. Occasionally, when I

can rouse myself from bed early enough, Samson and I accompany

her. For nickels and dimes he can add to his ever growing

collection of small cars, and I occasionally find sweet bargains on

clothes that I could never afford to pay retail prices for. I make a

mental note to try and go there with her as my meager wardrobe

flashes before my eyes. I should really update it before school resumes.

I notice Nan’s silver earrings are also shaped like hands, with

little copper hearts and a small stone the middle of the palm. They

have a slight tarnish, obviously vintage, and I am smitten with

them at once.

“I love those earrings! Another market find?” I pour one last

cup of coffee, my only vice.

“No, these came from New Orleans, years and years ago.”

“You went to New Orleans? When?”

“Oh, gosh, let me think,” she chuckles lightly, as though she

almost can’t believe it. “Nineteen forty-four, maybe forty-five.”

It seems unreal to me that someone can have memories from

almost sixty years back, and I pause for a minute, wondering what

I will be reflecting on decades into my own future. Will I be wearing

a pair of earrings that I own now, discussing life over coffee

with some yet to be born child of Samson’s?

I come back to the present. “What were you doing there? Visiting?”

I ask, wondering why I seem to be surrounded by images

of hands today. I glance down at Nan’s for a moment, gnarled

from arthritis and leathery from years spent outdoors tending

her overflowing gardens. They seem almost holy to me, these

hands that have cared for so much and tended so many, from her

children and grandchildren to the delicate blossoms in her backyard.

“You might say that,” she answers rather cryptically, then rises

and walks over to her sink, gazing out the window as she rinses

her cup and places it on the wooden rack. “I was fifteen years old,

can you believe that? Hard to imagine that I was once that young.”

I am about to respond “No” when suddenly there is a rapping

at the door that awakens Samson with a howl. I collect him from

the couch as Nan opens the door for my uncle Johnny. He strolls

in, tool box in tow.

Johnny is a handyman, known around town for his ability to

fix anything in the world that could possibly break. He’s also an

aging hippie, forever clad in his lifelong uniform of a t-shirt and

faded denim cut-offs, long blonde pony-tail trailing down his back.

If you look through our family albums, you’d think he hadn’t

changed clothes in twenty years. He’s not a man of many words,

but a good man who raised my cousin Johnna alone after her

mother went out for cigarettes and never came back. He has something

of Nan’s spirit, just as I do. That he could actually be my

conservative mother’s brother amazes me.

“Grace,” he nods as he enters.

“Hey Johnny. Nan putting you to work today?”

“Somebody’s got to.”

Nan shakes her head. “That leaky tap again. I don’t know

why that thing won’t stay fixed.”

“Cause it’s older than you are, Ma.” Johnny winks at me and

smiles at Samson, who snuggles against my shoulder. “Hey

Sambo,” he tweaks my son’s cheek affectionately.

The clock in the hall chimes four. The hour is coming when

the heat will ease a little and being outdoors will be possible, even

pleasant if we’re lucky enough for a breeze. I say goodbye to Nan

and Johnny as Samson and I head back to our small townhouse.

After playing for a while on the terrace, we step out for a lazy

stroll through the nearby park. Pushing Samson along in his stroller,

I point out birds and butterflies and various other things, and he

eagerly searches for each of them, his eyes wide with wonder. At

the park we see several of my students playing and lounging about,

and they run up to us, alone and in pairs, curious about Samson

and smiling at me. I ask them all the usual “Are you having a good

summer?” questions and they all nod and say “Yes Ma’am.” Most

of the children in Calvary attend Calvary Elementary School, and

because I teach art to all grades there, I know every little face in

this town. Samson watches a few boys throw a ball back and forth,

which thrills him for about a minute, and then we head home for

our evening routine: Dinner, baths, bedtime for Samson, studio

time for me. After a full day, I can’t wait to spend a few hours

alone with my brushes.

My mind is on painting as our home comes into view. Lost in

my thoughts, I do not notice Daniel sitting on the hood of his car

until he raises his hand and waves. I remember the earlier phone

calls and that I completely forgot to call him back, so I smile as he

slides off the car and trots over to us. Samson, who is crazy about

him, squeals with delight, pointing and cooing as he gets closer.

“I was about to give up on you guys,” he says. “I figured you

were out for a walk when I didn’t see the stroller in back.” He

nods towards the station wagon, where I keep Samson’s stroller

when we aren’t using it.

“Stalker,” I tease.

Daniel rolls his eyes, leans over and lifts Samson out of the

stroller. “Hey, Sammy boy,” he says, tossing him high into the air,

a little game of theirs that gives me shivers. Samson screams in

delight.

“Stop it!” I say to Daniel, kicking his shin less than gently.

“You know I hate when you do that!”

“But I like it, and Sammy likes it,” he says, tossing Samson up

again, only not so high this time. “So you’re outnumbered Big

Mama.” He smiles as he puts Samson down, holding his hand

while I unlock the door.

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