Dinner was quiet. But then, after dinner, Grandmother started doing her hovering thing. She's done this for years now -- I remember a long time ago my sister complaining about it -- so maybe she's always done it. But after all the dishes were picked up but before My Fucking Father was done cleaning everything, Grandmother, I guess, went into our very small kitchen and did something either to the wastebasket or in the drawer. I didn't see what happened -- I was watching the Vikings get the shit kicked out of them -- but My Fucking Father turned around to see her bent over something, and that was fucking it.
"Leave it alone!" he screamed at her, "Go to your room!" Grandmother, in a probable combination of stunned disbelief (he yells at her all the time, but never this loudly this close to her face) and absolute indignation at the way he disrespected her, shouted "OK!" at him for the first time in a long time.
That wasn't the end, at least not for My Fucking Father. He turned away from the sink to yell at her, and even though Grandmother walked out of the kitchen, he continued to stare at her. I couldn't see his face from where I was standing (around the dinner table, where the counter and drawers separated us) but I'm sure there was an expression of "What the fuck are you doing?!" that he kept glued to his face.
For her part, that yelling seemed to throw her into very visible, awkward indecision, which I've also seen happen many times. She was in the kitchen after getting up from the table because she was also watching the game; after My Fucking Father's petulant new one-ripping, she walked back to her seat, watched a play, sensed that being in the dining room wasn't going to diffuse the tension My Fucking Father decided to add to the environment, then got up and went to the bathroom. She was there for a long time. I don't think she needed to use the bathroom; I think she wanted to hide.
Afterward, My Fucking Father complained that he had to throw away all the meat she prepared and stored in the refrigerator. And he repeated his demand that I talk to the nurse about shipping her off to the nursing home. As evidence, he pointed to the spots on our laminate table covering on where, he claims, Grandmother put hot stuff. Yeah, that's totally a reason to ship her off to a nursing home. There are a lot of things that worry me about her; his dire belief that she's going to "burn the house down" is, unfortunately, well-founded. But this is obviously a case not of her going because she needs special care but because he's tired of seeing her ass.
---
Just before halftime I hear Grandmother amble down my hall. But this time was different. This time, she didn't want money.
"I want to talk to her in your room," she said. She's never done that before. Never. This has got to be about My Fucking Father over dinner, but I was still floored.
She closed my bedroom door behind her while I took a seat at my bed. And she just vented -- why is he yelling at me, could you believe that?, stuff like that. She then conjectured about moving out. I thought she didn't have any place to go, but tonight she sounded confident that one of her friends, or even my aunt, would be able to take her in. But then she was worried about the PCA money I get from the state; if she moves out, she asked, how I would get my money?
She was really worked up over My Fucking Father yelling at her tonight. I've been that way too after My Fucking Father verbally abused me, too. Just like her, I thought about the future I thought I needed to plan for: the moving out, the asking of friends, the uncertainty. I tried to console her, but goddammit, this is one of those times where the language barrier between us -- actually the one I have with the Chinese spoken in this house -- prevents me from doing so because, in her incessant questions to me, I couldn't understand 90% of what she was saying.
What I understood was her asking me what she should do to not get My Fucking Father mad at her -- "because you see me doing nothing, and he yells at me!" That is true, although she does that hovering thing, which, if you do that over decades, can get to be very annoying. But that certainly shouldn't lead to threats of being shipped to a nursing home. I just told her that she just does busywork like picking shit up and getting in people's way ... well, actually I don't say that because I don't know how to fucking say that in Chinese. I just reassure her that she has done nothing wrong. However, I can tell this could be a case where she could go on for a long, long time, so I decide to see if I can end this conversation early by coaxing her to her bedroom. Maybe then I'll be able to catch the second half of the football game.
Along the way she's bending my ear about My Fucking Father, all the way to her bedroom, where I try and segue into getting her to take the pills she needs to take. I sit down next to her while she's seated in the bedroom, and she keeps talking my ear off. It's getting annoying because I don't know if she knows I can't understand her. But I know what she's going through, so I'm just trying to be as good of a grandson as I could by listening to her. Well, I can't listen if I can't understand, so I just sat, looked down at the bed to her side and let her talk.
The lapses in her memory erupted during the 25 minutes I was there. She kept asking me to ask Mother how she should behave -- more like obey, if you ask me -- around My Fucking Father. I nod that I will, but I won't. I think that she should just forget what happened, not move out, and just stay living here. That's what I do whenever that asshole comes after me. Grandmother can just come out of her bedroom, eat her food, then go back in, doing nothing and saying nothing. Or, she can just go out for dinner with friends every night. Because deep down, he's a pussy; he won't do anything because he's too afraid and lazy to do anything drastic until he absolutely has to.
Also in-between her unintelligible stream-of-consciousness, she regaled me a quick retort where she asked My Fucking Father what would happen to me and the money I got as her PCA if he kicked her out and he replied, "I'm trying to kick him out of the house too!!!" See, that gives me pause. That makes me begin to think of life outside of here, even though I don't want to and know I won't be able to survive. But then, out of inertia and spite, I just go back to breathing deeply, sleeping on it, then either avoiding My Fucking Father or just eating my dinner and leaving without saying a word at the dinner table. I think that's My Fucking Father being an asshole, although I don't want to be blindsided if he truly does have something devious up his sleeve. It also doesn't help Grandmother's insistence that he has designs for the both of us when she repeats this little vignette six more times while I'm just sitting there.
I truly, truly thought that I heard My Fucking Father outside at the kitchen. If he was able to hear us through the cracked-open door. ... I look towards outside and shush Grandmother, at which point she let me go. I did, partly out of relief but also I thought somebody was really outside. But when I leave, there was no one.
By the time I got back to my TV, it was halfway through the third quarter and Chicago was up by, oh, 23 points.
I feel really bad for Grandmother, and I'm worried about her. Being yelled at causes stress, and that isn't good for her body, especially since she's so old. I hope she pulls through. I also hope, even though it's impossible and isn't good when she needs to stand up for herself at a point down the road, that she forgets this and just tools around the house like nothing happened. It's passive-aggressive, but it's the best way to piss off My Fucking Father.
---
I check up on her after I take my shower and clip my nails. Her light's on, but when I open the door I see her lying face up, snoring. It's the second straight day she's passed out with her lamp on.
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