By Annalee Hardison
It’s Easter vacation weekend in godforsaken Springfield Ohio and my tiny little seven-year-old body is wedged in between my sweet but weathered grandparents in their enormous car. It is a lilac-colored Cadillac with dark purple velvet interior and faux marble trim on the dashboard and surrounding accoutrements. It is quite an extravagant car in comparison to my grandfather Ray’s meager beginnings. I am in the front seat of their luxurious car holding my grandmother Doris’s hand and admiring her warm, kitten-soft skin. She is dressed in her ultra-Sunday best and bathed in a cloud of Giorgio of Beverly Hills perfume so thick I can actually taste it.
I am about to vomit.
As my queasiness builds, it also doesn’t help me that my sister is in the backseat with our parents gobbling up a copious amount of Easter candy and I am nauseous from the stench of it all. Jellybeans, squishy sugar-coated Peeps, Jordan Almonds, and the worst candy to ever exist in the history of mankind: Cadbury Eggs. Chocolate covered egg-shaped confections filled with stagnant white and yellow gritty frosting that were, no doubt, spawned in hell and had a taste like if Satan’s anus had been temporarily dusted with powdered sugar.
My situation is not helped by my hardheaded grandfather’s refusal to turn on the air conditioning. “It wastes too much gas” he states matter-of-factly, barely hiding his ornery disdain for being interrupted after my mother’s request to turn it on, because one look at me and she knows I am seriously queasy. My grandfather then resumes his lecture on the evils of the Freemasons, the Shriners, and other such brainwashing cults to the entire car, I know in my 7-year-old wisdom, that no one is listening to him. My grandmother gives my hand a reassuring squeeze and whispers to me that we’ll be at their church in a minute, then continues to stare passively out the passenger side window.
Having only a fourth-grade education, but determined to make something of himself, my grandfather Ray eventually became a bit of a real estate tycoon in the modest town of Springfield and surrounding areas as a young man. He is now retired to enjoy the fruits of his well-earned labor. My grandmother Doris was a farm girl and the only member of her large family to graduate high school. Quite a feat back in those days especially since educated girls were considered dangerous, because “being too smart causes ya to be BARREN,” according to the backwoods-dwelling, slack-jawed yokels of rural Ohio. And for that reason, my grandmother was considered an outcast among her own family. They met when my grandfather asked his best friend if he knew any “good girls” after Ray had had a few years of “wolfing around” and being quite the lady’s man. His friend introduced him to his sister, my grandmother. They dated for a spell and Doris, being acutely aware of my grandfather’s ‘wolfish’ reputation, ignored him at first, causing him to pursue her relentlessly until they fell in love. And that was that.
I loved visiting them because the likelihood of me getting yelled at by my parents is nominal because my mom and dad like to pretend they have a perfect marriage, and a perfect life and perfect children whenever we’re around my egregiously white-trash relatives. Comparatively speaking, we kind of are better than them but that’s only because both my parents did well in college and actually graduated, have “white-collar” professions, a nice house and valuable assets… whereas my mom’s other brothers and sisters have what could be referred to as “checkered pasts” colored by multiple divorces, run-ins with the law and imprisonment, no formal education and a dash of substance abuse problems. Their spawn, my cousins, are even worse than them.
I already want the church service to be over before we even get there because I know it’s going to be an extra-long boring sermon, complete with mentions of the “blood of the lamb,” resurrection, ‘fire and brimstone’ and how everyone who isn’t a Christian exactly like the people in the congregation is going to hell for being hedonistic sinners. I am seven years old and open minded enough at that tender age to know that’s complete and utter horseshit. But I don’t dare say it, lest I be endlessly lectured and possibly spanked.
I also know from experience that the children’s church is going to be an exercise in futility as well… lots of singing children’s hymns designed to mimic the regular hymnals and parrot the virtues of conformity and not questioning authority. The pulsating knot of hot-sick in my stomach continues to churn relentlessly as I am wilted and feverish, sweating profusely in the close confines of the stale air of the enclosed car. The starchy tight frilliness of my new lacey Easter dress is stiff and unrelenting in its polyester encasing on my tiny skinny body. It is a beautiful white straight jacket of pastel flowers and ribbons, my bright white tights are sheathing my legs in discomfort as the Band Aids on my knees are being pulled taut, revealing the tender scabs underneath them, causing a slight oozing of pus that, once dried, will adhere to the tights and cause more pain upon removing them. And my brand-new patent leather Mary Janes are so stiff and tight I can barely wiggle my toes. I cannot win in this fight with my new clothes. I look cute, and that’s all that matters to the outside observer. I have nothing to look forward to on this holy day, because after church it’s back to my grandparent’s stately home for Easter Brunch and I resolutely dread it. Although I know the food will be plentiful and delicious, I anxiously anticipate the mean-spirited antics from my (practically inbred) cousins.
No amount of my grandmother’s exceptionally yummy mac and cheese will be enough to cancel out the impending terror that awaits me at the kid’s table. With the exception of a few older cousins, Julie, Scott and Howie, my other cousins are pure dumb evil. And since I am the youngest and most naïve of all the children, I know I will be the target of their planned maliciousness. To add insult to injury, I also know my sister Molly will be the ringleader of their ungodly malice towards me. She’s only 4 years older than me but manipulative enough to know if she heads-up the bullying, she will also escape my cousin’s vile and cruel hijinks.
We finally pull into the church parking lot and I’m nearly in tears of happiness as the sickly green pallor of my face subsides once the fresh air cools upon it. My grandmother gives me a kiss on the cheek after wiping my sweaty brow and tells me I look very pretty. I thank her but know this is not enough to quell the impending doom of the dreaded kid’s table. I feel like she can sense my anxiety about the other children, but I can’t exactly ask how she could ever love those assholes especially when I am very clearly her and grandpa’s favorite. I am always extremely sweet, polite, smart, funny and unlike my spawn-of-hell redneck cousins, I have never tried to beat the stuffings out of anyone. They, however, cannot say the same. Nor do I make bad grades in school and never once have I smelled of motor oil, rancid cheese, and infected earwax. My cousin’s unfortunate greasy stench can permeate through anything but thank god, it is not hereditary.
I stand there with my grandmother looking at me as the mild chaos around us rumbles and blends with the usual confusion of a large parking lot. Not-very-polite beeping of horns and people congregating in large groups and all our other relatives in their cars coming towards us as I yawn and fretfully pull at the puffy sleeves of my dress. My grandmother knows I am stressed out because my cousins all act the same every year and she can see the simmering terror in my young eyes.
She takes my hand, whispers something to her daughter, my mother, and announces that she’s taking me to the restroom and to not save her a seat in the congregation because she forgot she volunteered to watch the babies in the church’s nursery today. My mom gives me a sly wink and turns her attention to my dad and sister as they are fussing over who ate the last of the god-damn Jordan Almonds. My grandfather is currently in a bluster over gas prices, inflation, the damn Democrats in the White House and other such trivial nonsense with the rest of the men in his church peer group. My grandmother’s grip on my hand is firm but tender and she apologizes for him not turning on the air conditioning in the car. We skirt the edges of the large crowd spilling into the main entrance and walk down a flower lined pathway to the back entrance.
She opens the door for me, and we disappear down another large corridor in the air-conditioned crispness of the quiet hallways that envelops me like a welcomed frosty hug. My immense nausea has completely evaporated now. We duck into a spacious dressing room usually reserved for a bridal party getting ready to get married at the church. She sits me down on an overstuffed peacock teal velour loveseat and tells me she’ll be back in just a moment. I gather my thoughts and calmly relax against the soft cushioning of the couch and breathe a deep sigh of tranquil relief. I am thinking my grandmother has to have a tinkle in the adjoining bathroom and then we’ll go to the nursery to see the babies in a minute. But she returns after a few minutes with two large glasses, one with ice water for me and iced tea and lemon for her. She also has a new coloring book, crayons, and a “Ladies Home Journal” tucked under an arm. She picks up a stray clipboard from the mirrored dressing room table and hands it to me along with the crayons and coloring book.
I take it with a confused look and ask, “When are we going to see the babies?” and she gives me the most warm, gentle smile I’ve ever experienced in my life.
“I thought we could have a little time here with each other, because it’s so crowded and loud everywhere else. What do you think about that?!” She says as a large smile spreads out over her lovely soft face. She is positively beaming with love and tenderness for me. She snuggles in beside me and gives me a kiss on top of my head and tells me that any of the colorings I do we can give to the babies in the nursery on our way out, but I tell her I want her to keep them forever.
We spend the next 2 hours talking and coloring in soft and tranquil air-conditioned comfort. She occasionally shows me the cartoons in her magazine, and I tell her about my imaginary friends. We color pictures together and hers are the most beautiful and vibrant I’ve ever seen. I ask her if I could have them? She says, “Of course you can!” I crawl into her lap for a big hug. She calmly and carefully asks me about how fretful I was earlier, and I tear-up and then sobbingly confess to her my dread about my mean and nasty cousin’s relentless picking on me. She holds me closer and soothes my slightly disheveled hair. She swears she’ll give them a “good talking to” and make sure they never, ever make me feel like that again. “They have no right to treat you that way!” she says with a bit of resolved anger in her voice, and I know she means it. Grandma Doris doesn’t get angry often, but when she does you better straighten up and act right. She holds me until I fall asleep and then gently wakes me up about an hour or so later when it’s time to go.
I tell her I’m not scared of the kid’s table anymore and grip her hand tightly as we walk out to meet the rest of our family. I feel an invisible wave of strength and maturity vibrate through me that makes me feel a little bit taller and wiser. She gives me a look that says she is not messing around, and I know none of the cousins will ever pick on me again.
Annalee Hardison is a Creative Writing major currently attending LGA. She plans to become a professional author. She has loved writing since winning first place in a short story contest in elementary school when she was in 2nd grade for writing and illustrating a story about “Lulu The Magical Flying Turkey.” It was a nonfiction masterpiece about a re-imagined first Thanksgiving in which no animals were harmed or eaten, and no humans were killed prior to the egregiously racist and whitewashed story of Thanksgiving we know today.
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