Listen to the author reading this piece:
You still remember the warm aroma of her instant coffee and the bubbles disappearing as her crêpe batter rested in the small fridge. You still remember her sweet and sourness, her songs, her buttery smiles, and those blue pills she took every night.
It was a ritual of sorts. She used a knife to cut them in two, then grabbed a recycled mustard glass filled with tepid water in her right hand, and the half pill in her left—she swallowed, and sighed.
You wondered why she needed sleeping pills when she was so busy and did so much all day. How tired she must have been already.
She cooked and cleaned and made jam using the thinnest of tights to filter the hard bits from the berries (and no blackberry jam will ever taste as smooth as hers).
She tended her garden, weeded, harvested potatoes, carrots, strawberries, courgettes, parsley, and planted more seeds. Always more seeds. Always more work.
She fed the rabbits and the hens and collected the eggs—because you were too scared to go inside the chicken pen.
She waxed the wooden handrail and the stairs and the parquet until you felt dizzy with the scent of beeswax and had to tread carefully for fear of slipping.
She crocheted and knitted, sitting in her armchair, her back straight, her feet flat on the floor, while you and your grandpa ate sweets and watched TV, slouching on the sofa, feet on the coffee table.
She fed—and complained about—Charlie, who appeared one night outside her garage door, as you came for a visit. The black feline purred and begged so hard to be let in, you assumed it was hers. So you hugged it and stepped inside. But she never believed that story and thought you’d brought it on purpose, to fill the void because she was alone now. Charlie stayed, of course, and loved nothing more than to cuddle and nip at her ears and purr and be lazy—inside. He irritated her need to do—outside. Yet, she made you promise never to bring another cat after he died. ‘Because it hurts too much.’
She never stopped doing until she did.
But one day, you finally understand her need for half a sleeping pill as you research your roots and read her name on a witness report from the 5th of August 1944. But one day, you finally understand, because your twenty-four-year-old grandmother was first at the scene and no amount of doing could tire those unspoken memories.
Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos is a Pushcart-nominee Breton writer, teacher, mother, nature and music lover, foodie, dreamer. She is a contributor to Poverty House, co-founder of The Pride Roars, and the EIC of Raw Lit. Her debut historical novel Laundry Day was a Novel Fair Runner-up. She lives in Athens, Greece.
Find out more at: https://delphinegg.weebly.com/
Really enjoyed this Delphine. A beautiful poignant ending.