February 16, 2020

My right foot pounded out of the blue; I knew without a doubt someone had just died. You see, my grandmother had been a quite a superstitious woman. And for your foot to start hurting, without you injuring it, meant someone died, a number called home. I wonder, “Who answered the call?”

I shrug it off and continue on my way to the grocery store. I mean eating was still required for the living. I mean I’m cheffing it up tonight. I’m stuffing X-large shrimp with crabmeat tonight. I’m collecting mixed greens, shelled pistachios, Gorgonzola cheese, sliced red grapes, chopped pears, shredded carrots, and dried cranberries in a large bowl. I’m dropping a spoonful of a wonderful, palate balancing sherry balsamic vinaigrette into the same bowl, covering the top layer of ingredients before it is flipped and twirled and tossed, fully dressing the salad.

As I round the last aisle of the grocery store, in search of the delicious dressing, my phone buzzes. I dig for it in my oversized purse. I scrape my hand back and forth on the inside. I remove keys. The buzzing grows in strength. I find my wallet and tampons and pens and lotion and tissue, but I still can’t find the damn phone. It’s like a fucked up game of hide and seek. Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Bzwahahaha. It’s like the stupid thing is taunting me, laughing at my inability to pull it from this stupid shopping bag with straps. Then of course it stops.

I drop everything back into the bag, saying forget it. “Now where is that salad dressing I like?” I furrow my brow as I scan the rows of a thousand and one different types of ranch- bacon, blue cheese bits, lite, fat free. “Fat free ranch?” Yeah, right.

I slide down to the balsamics, the cream free choices of flavor. I soon as I grab the dressing I want, the stupid phone groans. I find it this time. I’ve missed three calls from my mother.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” I ask after dialing her back.

“Rosie just died,” she says rather calmly.

“Oh…are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I went to see her in the home yesterday. She wasn’t doing well anyway so it wasn’t a surprise,” my mom’s cool, almost nonchalant.

“I’m sorry to hear that. When’s the funeral?”

“Her real kids are saying next weekend, but you and I both know it’ll be at least two weeks because Rosie ain’t have no damn insurance. They gone say all the kids should put in to bury her.” I hear her light a cigarette. I imagine her long fingers finagling a Virginia Slim from its pack as she’s lying on her back in the waterbed staring at the ceiling fan, the cordless phone pinched between her left shoulder and her cheek. I imagine a paper bag next to her filled with the chewed off tops of jalapeno peppers.

“How do you feel about that?” I head over to the seafood section. I glance at my reflection in the glass display, my face over the shrimp.

“I ain’t contributing shit,” she exhales into the phone. I hear her spitting into a bag. I shake my head, as she confirms that she’s still eating raw jalapenos after the doctor told her to stop. “Spicy food and ulcers do not mix,” he’d said. “I’m only here once doc, and I’m going to enjoy it while I am,” had been her reply. I brought up the conversation afterwards and was told to live my life while she lived hers. And that was the end of the discussion.

I continue to stare into the raw seafood filled case, wondering if my mom’s features – her broad nose, thick lips, and naturally arched eyebrows – in my face will become more dominant. I remember posting a pic of my mom when she was 24 on my Instagram page and having my friends think it was me before reading the caption, “Mommy when she was my age.” Their comments saying, “ooo, thas yo twin,” “she spit you out,” “no denying that’s yo mama,” “I had to do a double take,” and my favorite, “feel like looking in a mirror huh?”

            “All the kids she kept and raised need to contribute. Shit, she was they mama. Not mine,” she spit out.

            I’d met Rosie maybe twice that I can remember. Luckily my mom didn’t look much like her. I assumed she resembled her father, but I’d never met him. She’d only met him once.

            “I understand,” I pick my words carefully, “do you feel anything for her?” I point to the x-large, headless shrimp and motion to Tony, the seafood guy, with two raised fingers. He nods and smiles at me. I come in at least once a week and he’s always the person to help me. I grab the Louisiana Spicy Crab Boil. It’s the perfect seasoning for the shrimp.

            “You mean like Granny? Hell no!” she simmers down. “But I feel something. Like any possibility of her ever being more than a face that I’ve expected so much from will never happen. She’ll never live up to that expectation and I just gotta accept it.

            “A part of me always wondered about that. How it would be to have the person that packed me around in her stomach for nine months care more about me than herself. But shit,” she exhales, “she gave me up at three and a half weeks. And she went on to have five more kids. She kept them. All of them.” Her voice drops an octave as if she were hardening herself to these emotions, suppressing the resentment.

            “But she’s dead now and I’m fifty-nine years old. I let go of her ever changing long time ago. Shit, hope is an emotion best put to practice with things that are actually of importance. I had Granny and she loved me like she birthed me,” she says with certainty.

            Tony hands me the shrimp and winks at me. I nod and smile and drop the package into my basket.

            “I love you too, old lady,” I say sweetly.

            “You betta! And I ain’t old,” she chuckles into the phone, allowing the sentimentality to leave the conversation. I laugh with her.

            “Yeah besides that, I called to see if you would come down for the funeral. Hell, I know this will be the closest thing that side of the family will ever have to a reunion,” she blows out.

            “I can’t afford the ticket home,” I say.

            “That ain’t what I asked you,” she curtly responds. “Will your job let you off?

            “It shouldn’t be a problem.” I head over to the checkout. The line is short.

            “Well, let me know once you’ve talked to them,” she pauses, “Thank you.”

            “Thank you, mom, for everything. I love you.”

            “You’re welcome.”

            “Well, I’m about to checkout. Let me call you when I get home from the grocery store.” I place my items on the conveyor belt.

“Okay, hunnie. Oh one last thing, I’m proud of you, just in case you didn’t already know. Love you too, bye.” She hangs up before I can respond. I smile and drop my phone into my purse. As the items travel closer to the cashier, I scramble through my purse in search of my wallet.