Kyle Killen
Without Louise
Perhaps you’ve seen my grandmother. White hair, five foot two, seventy years old. She was in a hospital gown and plastic shoes. Her chest is wide open. She may or may not be conscious. She answers to Louise.
At first they said that she was fine.
Or they assumed that she was fine.
They said they had no reason to suspect that she was not fine.
Except that she’d gotten up and walked out in the middle of her surgery and could not presently be found.
From the menagerie of family that had gathered, my pushy aunt spoke up. She said that sounded crazy, that her mother was not the type to leave without thanking her hosts. That she’d always felt it was impolite.
Grandma was very polite.
The doctors apologized. They said they’d only turned their backs for a second, which they did all the time in surgery, and she’d just up and left, which they said was very rare.
It’s odd behavior, for a patient, they said.
Making it more odd was the fact that she was dead asleep and her chest had already been parted with a saw, both of which usually limited people’s mobility. But they were quick to assure us that she would certainly be found. That everyone was looking. That they wished to finish the job, not to mention the fact that she was in possession of a rib spreader that they very much wanted back. Apparently these items did not come cheap.
So our family took seats again in the sad little room that hated hope and we waited. They turned the hospital upside down and shook out all its pockets, but my grandmother did not fall out. They looked under cushions, and rugs, behind doors and curtains, without ever finding a trace. There were false alarms. But the movement in the dumpster behind PEDIATRICS turned out to be a cat. The bloody person at the candy machine in EMERGENCY just a stabbed man with a sweet tooth. The old lady covered in red wandering the ICU had merely spilled her V8.
A family of strangers, we passed the hours mostly by staring at one another. My pushy aunt was a fan of these gatherings. A master of schedules, a creator of calendars that could make one cry, she liked nothing more than getting the family together. But she loathed confrontation and took everything interesting and made it bland in the name of peace. Discussions were discouraged. Outbursts were outlawed. It’s a reunion, Sarah, she was fond of saying to me, not a debate. In the silence she would smile. To her this was the language of harmony.
Her husband, my uncle, was by contrast a deliriously fun fellow. He taught physics and told stories and remembered embarrassing things we’d all done when we were young, but his wife was his Novocain and in her presence the most he could manage was a numb smile.
My other aunt and uncle had come in from out of town. They dealt with their pushy sibling by moving far away and returning only for holidays and hospital stays. With them were my cousins, twins who spoke solely to each other in a secret language known only by identical young princesses. I knew them merely as the ever-growing beauties who’s frozen faces stared back at me from the Christmas cards on mother’s refrigerator. They always smiled in their photos. Never in person.
And then there was my mother, a frazzled and frayed woman who’d been granted none of her older sister’s organizational ability. She kept copies of copies of copies of her keys and lost them around town like she was spreading apple seeds. I often expected to come home and find that strangers had let themselves in, unlocked the liquor cabinet, and taken our car out for a spin. Most of her sentences started with, have you seen my, and ended with, now I’m going to be late. But she knew her sister well enough not to make waves where the family was concerned. Like everyone else, she adopted a sort of forced catatonia to keep our gatherings pleasant.
When the dead air became unbearable someone finally broke it by wondering aloud what we could do. Pray, my pushy aunt replied. Just pray. And then the silence she so loved returned, now brilliantly reinforced with purpose, and sacrilegious to break.
A lawyer got word of our plight and offered to help. My aunt said she didn’t want to make trouble, but he assured her that losing old ladies was wrong, and that we needed to make sure the hospital didn’t go unpunished. She didn’t want to argue, so she let him go to work.
He made some calls. The media swallowed the hospital like a mudslide. And they didn’t come alone. Firemen, policemen, dogs, psychics, anyone with a talent for finding lost things. They joined the nurses and doctors, and again the hospital was inverted, and again it was shaken, and still my grandmother was nowhere to be found. So the looking spread until people all over the city were checking their closets and clothes hampers, under their beds and couches, looking for any sign of my missing grandma and the expensive rib spreader. But despite a population with peeled eyes, there was no sign. Not on, or under, above, or behind, not beside, or inside, or next to anything. Grandma had vanished. Grandma was gone.
For more than a week we lived there, a prayerfully silent congregation in a church of plastic chairs and People magazines. My out of town uncle was the first to suggest it. His family had lives waiting in another state, lives that were vacant, lives that no one was keeping warm. There was nothing more that they could do. It was time to go back to our homes, jobs, schools, pets, our own untended lives. The doctors promised to keep looking. They promised she’d be found and that we’d be the first to know. And just like that our vigil ended. Like that we abandoned our post. We left the hospital and returned to the world, and we did it without Louise.
For a while there was something about her on the news, about how she and the rib spreader were still missing, about how the search was as focused as ever, about how there was still nothing new. But eventually the news moved on. Other people went missing, people closer to their core ad demographic, and my grandmother was forgotten in favor of younger people and fresher tragedies.
Our lawyer stuck by us for months. He called or came by nearly everyday, updating us on the fact that there were no new updates. He shared our worry. He felt our pain. And then a judge threw out his case, saying that the hospital only had to help those who wished to stay, they couldn’t stop you if you wanted to go. After that the lawyer disappeared. Our family couldn’t help but worry. We were losing people like pennies.
Eventually there was no news at all. Each of us had to remind ourselves that she was gone. With her photo removed from the papers and TV I had to draw her on the missing posters in my mind. And it was when I tried to draw her, this old woman with a misbehaving heart and mistreated lungs, a seventy year old in a gown with a gaping wound and expensive hospital property, who was possibly asleep and possibly awake, that I realized I didn’t really know her at all.
A haystack of holidays together and the things I’d learned could be counted on one hand. I knew her mailing address. I knew her favorite ornament on the tree. I knew she’d gained such mastery over her microwave that she set incredibly precise times for the things she prepared. 1:32 for hot chocolate. 4:13 for popcorn. 6 seconds for an Oreo cookie. That was it. That was all. Our conversations were restricted to school and holiday plans. When we tried to move beyond, the weight of time between us quickly ground things to a halt. It was like an archeologist trying to discuss pop music with the iceman she’s unfrozen. The chasm of ages just too wide to cross. Only now that she was missing did it dawn on me. Only now did I see. I didn’t know my grandmother as well as she knew her own microwave.
By the time I got my aunt’s invitation to the family fourth of July, the hospital was coming down with amnesia. Whenever I had a hole in the business of my life I would call or stop by to see how the search was coming. They looked at me like I was crazy.
Your grandmother? Surgery? Are you sure? That doesn’t sound very likely. Not very likely at all.
When we gathered among the sparklers and streamers I thought for once my family would have something to share. We would pass around watermelon and outrage, pounding our fists at the way Grandma’s trail had been allowed to grow cold. But my family would not partake of my anger. With the exception of the stone-faced twins, they wore only smiles, and my aunt was pleased as punch.
It wasn’t that they didn’t care, they said, but that with time, they’d become increasingly convinced that Grandma was fine, that’s she’d simply gotten away. They remembered now how she’d protested the surgery in the first place, how she’d always hated hospitals. They decided she’d probably just had enough and saw an opportunity to leave. She was in Vegas they imagined, remembering how she always loved the slots. Or Florida, they said, remembering her fondness for the water.
Miami, my uncle suggested. She loved the colors.
And like that they’d decided that she was well, and unchained themselves from worry. They were free to pass hot dogs and beers and watch firecrackers wound the night sky.
I pointed out that Grandma had been split wide open. That her ribcage had been sawed in half.
Oh she could have stitched that right up, my aunt said raising her foot. See these socks? Darned when I was eleven. This button? Might as well be welded on.
But her insides were all cut up. Part of her stomach was gone.
Oh she’s plenty handy. After dad died she never once called a plumber. She could hook all that back up, lickety split.
It didn’t matter what I said, they had an answer for everything. She was too tidy to leave blood or mess behind. She hadn’t contacted us because she was settling in. She wouldn’t want the family to visit until she’d gotten everything just so.
She’d call, or write. There was nothing to worry about.
My aunt grew tired of my questions, and handed me some pie.
Here, Sarah, she said, it’s a get together, let’s all just eat in peace. And then they turned their heads to the bleeding sky and I was all alone.
While the rest of my family imagined my grandmother happily wandering through postcards, trolling the beaches and hitting the casinos, I closed my eyes every night to visions of her staggering around, her chest gaping, her legs weak, her mind filled with chemicals, and her sewing and handywoman skills useless to save her. This woman I’d hardly considered for nearly two decades now haunted me relentlessly. Questions bubbled and popped until my head was a rolling boil. I tried to free myself like the others, to answer the din of churning inquiry with palm trees and neon buffets, but my nightmares were impervious to my best efforts at wishful thinking.
By now the hospital’s amnesia had become full blown Alzheimer’s. I was from outer space. My words were a foreign language. My pleas for information garnered only choruses of furrowed brows. I asked could I please at least have a look around.
Sure, they said, knock yourself out, and then they watched me go as if I might try to fly, or walk away on all fours.
I combed the hospital’s insides, imagining my grandmother darting into elevators and staggering out of back doors. I studied every tile, canvassed every doorway as if it held all the answers I was seeking. But my examination left me empty. The bowels of this building were sterile and white, and those who passed left nothing behind.
I moved through the neighborhood again, going door to door describing my grandmother and her condition, where she lived, and how well she could use a microwave. I found only blank stares.
So I went to Las Vegas, with its buildings dressed like glowing pimps, and shook them down, one by one until I was convinced that this city of sin had nothing left to hide. I made sure all the slots managers had my grandmother’s photo. I told them she was a notorious thief, that I should be notified the moment she appeared, and they all nodded and promised to comply.
And then I boarded a plane for Miami and rummaged through the colorful buildings and beautiful people. I found a man trailing a metal detector down the beach and asked if he’d ever come across anything resembling a rib spreader.
No, he said regarding my photo, but I’d like to.
And I searched and I searched. Until I ran out of beach. Until I ran out of money. Until, finally, I ran out of strength. It was only then, as the sun drown in the ocean my grandmother loved, that I began to face what I had known for far too long. For the first time since she’d gone missing, I dropped my head and began to cry.
At Thanksgiving my efforts were not hailed as heroic, but deplorable.
Why can’t you just let her be? Don’t you think she deserves to recoup on her own?
Several members of the family had fallen in love with the idea of Grandma in Vegas and blamed me for ruining it. Even they conceded that had she gone she’d surely have hit the slots by now. Their case could still be made, but it was complicated and weak, and it was simpler just to suggest that she’d gone to Miami, or some place I hadn’t yet been able to thoroughly cover. Someone conveniently remembered her fondness for Mexico, and this was added to the list of possibilities.
Again I battered them with questions, but their faith would not waver.
People under stress had lifted cars and trees, bent metal and broken rocks, they said. When you think about it, walking out of a hospital isn’t even all that amazing.
I ignored their objections and vowed to keep searching. When we had cursed each other in all the ways we could imagine, a silence finally descended. It was silence not even my aunt could enjoy.
I took two jobs to finance the next leg of my journey. By day I washed dishes, and at night I sold Christmas trees. It was backbreaking labor, but I didn’t care. With every dirty plate I grew closer. With every pine I tied to the roof of a car I became more resolved. The tickets would cost me a fortune, but I would save every nickel and hug every dime. Money didn’t matter. My mission was what kept me strong.
I was no longer looking for a something, but a nothing. My goal not to find her, but to get others to admit that she could not be found. It was a search whose proportions knew no borders or bounds. It could take months or years or all the rest of my days. But when I closed my eyes and I found myself haunted by her memory, I knew it was worth whatever it cost, whatever I had, so long as I didn’t have to bear the burden of the truth alone.
I was not invited to Christmas. I was blamed for the death of Thanksgiving, and my aunt refused to let me murder this holiest of holidays. She’d grown to hate me for my questions, and I hated her for her replies. So the woman who planned everything to within an inch of its life, whose mind was a rolodex made of gray matter, somehow forgot to send me an invitation.
I went anyways, knowing that the only present I was going to receive that year was the look on my family’s faces when they saw my tickets for Mexico City.
My presence unnerved them all, but none more so than my aunt. She quickly cranked up the carols and began to pass pies and cookies in heaps, hoping that if she could get something in every mouth then no uncomfortable words could be exchanged. But the candy cane she forced between my lips could not quiet me. I simply produced the tickets and placed them on the table for all to see. Then it was everyone else who was struggling to speak with their mouths full. Rage and crumbs flew like bullets.
Where’s your respect, young lady?
Can’t you see she’s better off?
Why won’t you let an old woman be happy?
What gives you the right to find someone if they don’t want to be found?
I hunkered down amid the barrage of insults and cookie shreds. For the first time I could see they felt my anger, that they were beginning to understand the shape and size of my pain. But before I could even begin to enjoy it, my uncle hoisted me up and pulled me away.
He sat me down in his office and sighed as he leaned back in his chair.
Why can’t you let it be?
It isn’t right.
Why?
It doesn’t make sense.
Does it have to?
Yes.
Why?
I miss her. I want you people to miss her too.
We miss her very much.
You think she’s on vacation.
What’s the difference?
You shouldn’t be allowed to forget.
We haven’t forgotten. We just don’t know where she is. You want to believe she’s in a ditch. I want to believe she’s in Monte Carlo.
She was missing her stomach.
We’ll see her again.
When? Where?
Hard to say.
I still have questions.
Questions are fine. But maybe we need some questions without answers, some answers without questions. Maybe it’s like matter and anti-matter. If they all find their partner, they just destroy themselves and there’s nothing left. It’s the ones that get away that make life interesting, that give us something to see.
I was napping in my uncle’s office when my aunt cried out with excitement for us all to gather round the tree. I lumbered in and found her holding a card above her head as the rest of the family crowded in.
I have a letter from Grandma!
The faces lit up. The family leaned forward. My aunt cleared her throat.
Dear family, I hope you’re all well. Sorry to have gone so long without writing, but I’ve been settling in. I know it was rude to walk out without notice or goodbyes, but I decided I’d had enough of hospitals and doctors, and that it was time for me to move on. I’ve found a place on the ocean and am feeling fine. I see the sunrise every morning and watch it set every night. Hope to have you all out as soon as I get everything in order. Please be well, and God bless. Have a Merry Christmas. Love, Grandma.
My aunt lowered the paper and looked directly at me. Well, there you go Sarah. You can’t much argue with that.
She handed the paper to my mom, and the group began to pass it around, while avoiding handing it to me.
May I see, I finally said.
The room went silent and held its breath as my aunt handed me the card.
It was a generic beach scene, just a palm and some water. There was no postmark, no return address. The handwriting didn’t look anything like the frilly script of a forty year secretary that I remembered scrawled in all those birthday and Christmas cards I’d collected over the years. It looked more angular and frenzied, more like the calendars and announcements my aunt was so fond of putting together. I studied it and studied it, looking for anything that would allow me to believe in its authenticity and all that it had come to represent. But there was simply nothing there. I knew she hadn’t made it down the street, let alone to this beach. I could point out all these shortcomings, but why? There would always be an excuse, there would always be an answer. I watched my family watching me, waiting, wondering if this would finally be the end.
I put the card on the mantle and turned once again to face them. Well, I said, as they steadied themselves for another round, isn’t it time to eat?
Yes, my uncle said with a gaping smile. Yes it is.
That was the last time we all got together. Grandma had been the glue. Without her we weren’t so much a family as we were simply related. We passed our holidays in scattered clusters and only saw each other on our Christmas cards.
There was an unspoken agreement between us all, and Grandma’s whereabouts were never again discussed in my presence. I would offer no more evidence, and they would supply no more speculation.
I didn’t make it to Mexico until many years later on my honeymoon, and by that time Grandma had all but disappeared from my mind. Which was why it was so surprising when I saw her on a beach in Ixtapa. She was wearing a red dress and reading a book, and from our boat I’d almost have sworn that it was her. For a moment I considered diving in or telling my husband to turn for shore. But then I thought about questions, and answers, about matter and anti matter, about surgery, about rib spreaders, and I decided just to wave.
The old lady raised a hand and waved back and my husband said, do you know her?
I’m not sure, I said, and we let the breeze take us out to sea.
©2005 by Kyle Killen
