A Child of Pain: Part 3

Elisha pushed her chair nearer to her grandmother’s bed and gently rested her head on the mattress. She sighed. She felt tired as it had been a hectic week.

She had gone to see her grandmother in the nursing home where she found the older lady on the floor. Grammie Willie had fallen out of her bed. The staff had called an ambulance which then brought her to the hospital. Elisha who visited her every evening before going home had gone with her and when they had found out that the old lady had suffered a stroke and had to be hospitalised, she had gone to her grandmother’s bedside every day.

Elisha sighed again, closed her eyes, and promptly remembered the years gone by.

On that fateful afternoon when her mother Tiffany returned, Elisha felt like it was the end of her world. Her happiness and everything else that matters were coming to an end. She fell to the ground released by her mother from a vice-like grip and laid there stunned, looking at the sky, gasping.

“Tiffany…” Grammie Willie had uttered, her voice full of sadness.

“Oh…don’t you Tiffany me, old woman. I know what you are…o yes! My father left because he could not stand to be with you anymore! You were having an affair with that woman, weren't you!!” Tiffany raged.

“It was not like that Fannie…even if you hate me, don’t think it was like that. Your father left us for different reasons…” Grammie pleaded.

“Oh please!! Cut that out…I don’t believe a word you say. I know that Gloria woman was here…she was your best friend, wasn’t she, Willie…she came here to console you, didn’t she….by getting into bed with you….!”

“No…! it was not like that at all….”

“Liar! You stupid liar!”

“Listen Fannie….listen,” Grammie yelled as she strode towards her daughter.

“No, you listen, Mother! You give me the money for that…that…”

“Fannie….I was never with Gloria. She came to visit us when I called her. Your father was leaving me  and I had to have someone to talk to…”

“Liar…!! I won’t listen to your lies anymore…!!”

“It's true, Fannie…please listen! Your father had to go…he was sick, Fannie. He could not live with us any longer. He had leprosy, that’s why he left…and he never returned. He was in Foreign Service, remember…. He loved us, Fannie, but he had to leave.”

Tiffany stared at her mother and she was quiet for the longest time. She screamed. Her scream was so loud and forced that she did not sound human at all. She then ran towards the older woman.

Elisha had grabbed the knife that had fallen near her and ran…screaming too.

Her mother kept on running towards her grandmother but looked back, and that was when she fell as her platform shoes gave way on the soft soil. She fell towards Elisha and on her with a resounding whump.

Elisha felt the breath squashed off her and everything went swimmy for a while until her Grammie got her out from under her mother.

“Oh Elly….oooh Elly…!” her Grammie moaned, as Elisha looked at the red liquid on her hands and chest.

Her mother moved and whispered "Gimmie that…” and Elisha looked down at her. Her mother grabbed the knife that was still in her grasp, and then she hid it under her.

“Go awaaaayyyy!!” her mother screamed, throatily and went still.

A neighbour who heard the screams ran up to see what was going on. Seeing the woman on her stomach with blood seeping out and the older woman cradling a dazed child and rocking her back and forth a few yards away, she summed up that something very wrong had occurred. She then called an ambulance.

Elisha did not remember what occurred after that, but the funeral was almost lonely. Only Grammie Willie and her cousin Joe and his wife came. Elisha was sent to her best friend Sheena for the day. But Sheena had told her that her mother was a suicide. Elisha did not understand that either.

The episode was only mentioned years later when Elisha was going to college and leaving the house for the first time.

Her Grammie had said, “You know I will never really know if your mother ran to me to reconcile or to strangle me. But in the end, she was an angel. She loved us, deep within her, she did.”

Elisha had merely nodded.

On the hospital bed, Elisha smiled in her sleep, as her Grammie Willie opened her eyes and her hand moved to stroke the long curly hair. Wilhelmina breathed her last, as her beloved grandchild dreamed of Elysian Fields.-ends