Ghosts in October

Jeanie’s friends show her videos of dance recitals and flag football games, and she oohs and aahs in all the right places, but the goddamn grandbabies are getting on her nerves. She wants it to be her turn.

She wishes she had somewhere else to be—a nursery school, a soccer practice, a Read With You and Me class—but nothing is keeping her from standing in these aisles. She squeezes the watermelon. She smells the cantaloupe. She opens up the bag of grapes, samples a few, and checks the egg cartons to ensure none are cracked.

Because she’s not ready to leave, she stops near the restroom in front of a bulletin board coated in advertisements and reads each of them. Free books. Tutors. Dog Walkers. If Jeanie wanted to, she could learn how to crochet, write, or make sushi. If she stands still long enough or prays hard enough, perhaps she can be anything. She looks down at the cart where a toddler’s legs are supposed to poke out and swing back and forth, but there’s nothing there but empty space. The problem with wanting is that it isn’t always enough.

Jeanie thought she raised her children to be kind, upstanding citizens, but she’s clearly being punished for her selflessness. Her daughter and son are too focused on themselves, and their careers. It’s not like they’re going to be the president of the United States one day. They don’t have to be the best at their jobs. They do enough. And God forbid they date someone longer than two weeks. 

Her daughter once broke up with a perfectly nice boy because he grew a mustache. A mustache! Over the years, her husband’s forehead had lined, and his belly had softened. Her hips had widened, and her entire face needed to be lifted. If they begrudged each other for every little change, the two of them wouldn’t have lasted a week.

But her daughter argued. “He looks like a seventies porn star.”

Jeanie suggested buying the guy a razer, but her daughter just said, “Mom, you obviously don’t understand.”

But she understood perfectly. Her children were selfish and never gave anyone a real chance. She might have grandchildren someday, but it would probably be when she was too old to know who they were or when her back or hands were so riddled with arthritis that it would be impossible to pick them up.

Her son said she did too good of a job. “It’s not my fault; no one can live up to you.”

He laughed and hugged her so hard that afterwards her ribs ached. But it wasn’t the least bit funny. She was the only person on the entire planet over seventy without any grandchildren.

When they were in elementary school,she had cut their sandwiches into hearts in February, into ghosts in October, and into beach balls and flip-flops in May. She wrote them notes like, Have a good day, I love you, and remember, you are the only you, and it is wonderful. She sewed costumes. Yellow feathers that cut the ends of her fingers every time she pressed her hand against them. She stuffed envelopes when the school asked, and sold raffle tickets, but she didn’t complain. She was a good mother.

She championed global causes too. She donated canned goods to food drives, and had conversations for thirty minutes a week with a woman named Ursula from Peru in an effort to help improve her English. This week, Ursula told Jeanie about a “rabid jackal-biting persons.” It took Jeanie twenty additional minutes to understand that the “persons” was Ursula and the jackal was the neighbor’s dog, but she never once said, “I’m sorry Ursula but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I have to go. You live your life and I’ll live mine. Take care.” That was the problem with her children’s generation. They had no qualms about quitting.

Jeanie lifts older notices off of the bulletin board. There are two-for-one haircuts, packages for swim lessons, and an advertisement for a flea market at the church in Little Italy on the 14th through the 16th. The last slip is a photo of an antique piano with the words “for sale” written in hot pink on top of the keys. Jeanie’s heart lifts like the paper. She pulls a tab with the seller’s phone number on it and tucks it into her pocket.

She’s sure her grandchild would be a talented pianist. Her children didn’t have the temperament. They never practiced when she asked them to, and she got tired of asking, but either you were born a musician or you weren’t. And her grandchild would be exactly like her favorite female pianist, Mitsuko.

Jeanie doesn’t realize she’s said the name out loud until the man nearby says, “Excuse me?”

The man is tan, with sideburns that extend to his chin. He looks young, but everyone looks young to Jeanie. If she were forced to guess ages at an amusement park, she’d get fired after a day for giving away too many prizes. There are young people with weathered skin and old people with foreheads like still ponds. The man in the supermarket doesn’t have a ring on his hand, but her husband lost his wedding ring in the ocean twenty years ago and never got a new one, so maybe it doesn’t mean anything.

She smiles and repeats herself. “Mitsuko.” And suddenly she can see the three-year-old with her son’s dark brown hair and her daughter’s green eyes. She can hear the child tapping out a beautiful melody. “My granddaughter,” she gestures toward the hidden advertisement as if the stranger has x-ray vision,“would love a new piano.”

And in that moment, she was born.

All of Jeanie’s friends have mementos with their grandchildren’s names on them. Betsy has a necklace with tiny monogrammed shoes; Carolyn has a bracelet with a rattle; and Marybeth has a wallet decorated with each of her grandchildren’s faces. Jeanie deserves to have something.

She orders a key chain charm with a large cursive “M” from an online boutique called Tina’s Tiny Treasures. No one asks her what the “M” is for, but her answers are locked and loaded.

“It’s for mother.”

“It’s a meditative tool to keep you calm and centered.”

“It’s short for Your Majesty.”

Now, every week, she fills her grocery cart with mini donuts, muffins, and marshmallows. She grabs treats that will fit perfectly into Mitsuko’s tiny hands. In front of the celery, she talks in length about her incredible granddaughter; in the cereal aisle, she tells the stockboy that Lucky Charms is her granddaughter’s favorite; and in front of the mops and a package of dusters, she says to an older woman, “I don’t know why I bother. Grandchildren are so messy.”

The woman smiles and says, “I know I have three of them. How many do you have?”

“Four.”

And at 4:10 in the household aisle, her second, third, and fourth grandchildren are born.

“My son has one and my daughter has triplets.” She says. “Can you imagine? I don’t know how she does it.”

The woman laughs. “Oh my, I can’t imagine. Thank goodness she has you.”

Jeanie unbuttons her cardigan to reveal the Number One Grandma t-shirt she found on Amazon.

“They got me this. Isn’t that the sweetest thing?”

The woman smiles. “Well, you deserve it.”

Jeanie pats the woman on the back. “It takes a village.”

The woman nods. “You said it, sister.”

And that night, while her husband is sleeping, she thinks of the woman’s words and orders three pairs of “The World’s best grandma” socks because one day that’s exactly what she’ll be.