Edna
Sheethal Ayalasomayajula
It was a lot of work waiting around for someone to die. Time moved like sludge, and everyone was waiting for that moment, that big kick of the bucket, to skim the scum gently and let things flow onwards. People were already preparing for the eventual dam-burst, hushed whispers arguing over the phone with loose-lipped lawyers. But they never could keep their volume down enough, so we all heard, and we all pulled our phones out to make our own inquiries because if they’re doing it, I might as well.
Uncle had pulled me aside one day, towards the beginning of the wait, his grip a little too tight. You get her jewels, he’d promised, all her jewels.
And though I didn’t particularly like jewelry and the scratchy weight of gold, I’d grinned big and asked how long was left. Not long. Not long.
My great-grandmother was holding on to her thread of life with every last bit of spite left in her body. And it was commendable, to see such a gnarled, wrinkled husk of a soul snap so quickly as relatives waited on her, arm and leg. She knew, like we all knew, that the gathering was more a hunt, like when lions in a pride gathered to watch the sickest stray from the herd. In this case, though, she had been the head lioness, and the pride had turned on her, waiting for the slightest breath to steal from her body, ready to pounce. Less of a hunt, and more of a scavenge. We were a family of coward-vultures.
Great-grandma took faith in knowing the family’s desperation, and her demands piled frivolous burdens on the heads of the most ambitious. Her bath temperature had to be run to a certain degree, her food prepared a certain way, and if not, a torrent of the most hideous insults would come hurling down at whoever had dared mess up.
I’d seen many good cousins fall to her knife-like tongue, and I’d laughed as each and every one scurried out of the room with about as much courage as a mouse. To me, her behavior seemed perfectly reasonable. She was, after all, a great-grandmother, toeing the line of senile and sage-like with morbid agility and a geriatric two-step. Her words usually slipped off me and dripped to the floor while other relatives looked on with thinly-veiled trepidation.
“Can’t even cook? Which man would ever want to marry you?”
“I dunno,” I mused. “Maybe I’ll marry a man who can cook. Maybe I’ll marry a woman.”
And I served her an egg, sunny-side up, the edges burnt to a delightful char that stained her teeth black as she chewed thoughtfully. I bowed on the way out of the room, hair wet with the unburnt food she’d thrown at me. She was surprisingly strong for someone so close to death. I let the shower run and watched the last of the hot water swirl down the drain.
“You’re a horrible child.”
The other relatives found the ability from deep within to tolerate that cursed tongue that could hurl words like spears. I’d had a lifetime to build my face, and I just nodded apologetically, watching my great-grandma shiver violently from her wheelchair, the frames creaking as more blankets were piled on.
“I really am sorry.”
And the crowd dispersed, pleased, and eyeing the way the bones jumped around under great-grandma’s skin. She’d been strong, but a cold at her age was nothing short of a death sentence. That day, as I made her breakfast, the church bell from the closest town rode the wind and echoed through the floors, slow and solemn.
____
The family estate was big, and the house overlooked the sea. It had been built some centuries ago to cater to a particularly sickly child in our lineage, and I swore that the upholstery bubbled with tuberculosis so I never sat down. Great-grandma hated the ocean, as did I, but for her sake, to escape the leering vultures, I kidnapped her and rolled her down the grass to watch the waves hit the cliff we were so nicely perched on. It was scenic, dismally so, with a slate-gray sky and an angry, frail thing shaking like a leaf beside me atop this big rock throne. She looked small, minuscule, and I knew I could crush her like a bug if I wanted.
“Uncle said I’d get all your jewelry if I stayed out of his way.”
Great-grandma barked, “Did he? And what does he get?”
“The house,” I motioned with a shrug. “The money. Maybe a family, since he’ll have a house and money.”
She sniffed, indignant, and I mirrored it, the seat of my pants getting wet from the ground. I’d put my foot in front of her wheels, purely precautionary, to avoid a tragic accident, and it was very slowly going numb.
“He thinks he’ll get the house?”
And she cackled like a witch, voice lost in the breeze. I watched her like I had when I was little, wondering how someone could stay a hundred forever. Not forever. She was going to die one day.
“Well,” Great-grandma nodded, knotting her fingers together in a firm pretzel, “You’ll need an awful lot more than jewels if you’re going to marry a man who can cook.”
“Or a woman,” I added.
“Especially that.” She grimaced, and I smiled.
“Edna!”
We both turned with matching scowls.
“Me?” Great-grandma asked, her lips flattened in a thin line. “I hate that name.”
“No, no.” Uncle pointed at me. “Little Edna.”
I stood, nearly six feet tall, and made sure the brakes on great-grandma’s wheelchair were on because I hated that name too.
“Don’t go anywhere,” I pointed at her with a stern finger, and Great-grandma sighed waving me off.
She settled back into her wheelchair looking out over the horizon and waited for the sun to set.
Sheethal Ayalasomayajula is a sophomore at Rutgers New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences. She is a cellular biology and neuroscience major who has always had a passion for writing and storytelling.