The Goodbye

Alicia was almost done sorting through her grandmother’s mahogany highboy. She was surrounded by neat piles of memorabilia that corresponded to various family members. All the old studio photographs, lovingly hand painted by her grandmother, would go to her uncle. The threadbare yellow silk box with the heirloom pearls would go to her sister. The old, tarnished silver baby spoons and baptism dresses would go to her niece.

Alicia’s own pile was relatively small. There was a glass butterfly music box, once belonging to her mother, that played “Memories” in high-pitched plinks. There was also a rather large, wilted cardboard box. This box, she knew, contained her grandmother’s wedding dress. It was a plain box instead of a decorative dressmaker’s box because her grandmother and great-grandmother had sat at a sunlit kitchen window in rural Oregon, carefully sewing it themselves. Alicia had only seen it once, as a young child, but her grandmother had seen her awe and excitement even then and promised it to Alicia when she died.

Alicia closed her eyes against the stinging tears. The room felt so empty. The last time she had sat in this same room it had been filled with sound and life. The steady pause and hiss of the oxygen tank. The television blaring at max volume some movie on the Hallmark channel. Alicia wasn’t ever sure if this was because her grandmother particularly liked the Hallmark channel or because she didn’t want to bother with the remote control, but either way, there it was, permanently fixed. Shouting over all that din would be her grandmother, excitedly relating her newest piece of news. Towards the end, her stories tended to amble and double back on themselves with no real direction, but Alicia always listened closely anyway. She loved the deep, honey sound of her grandmother’s voice. She always had.

Now, all Alicia could hear were the stumbling sounds of her own breathing. It had only been three weeks ago she had been here for the last time. The day after her visit, the facility had informed her that they were shutting down due to an outbreak of COVID19. An irresponsible visitor had brought it into the facility and infected a patient. Alicia’s grandmother had been tested immediately and wasn’t sick, but they had to lockdown all the residents. They were just so vulnerable. The owners had assured Alicia that she would be notified if there was any serious change in her grandmother’s health.

But her grandmother was moderately deaf and often confused. She could not use a computer or a telephone without assistance, assistance that the staff could not supply, overwhelmed as they were with the work of protecting their charges from sickness. Her grandmother had no idea why the visits abruptly stopped, why she was suddenly alone and seemingly forgotten. She stopped eating. Alicia got the call on a Thursday night that her grandmother wasn’t doing well, and that she would now be allowed in to see her. But it was already too late. Alicia’s grandmother died early the next morning. Alicia never got the chance to hold her and hug her one last time. She didn’t get to say I love you or goodbye.

And now she was sitting on the floor of her grandmother’s bedroom, largely stripped clean, as she sorted through her grandmother’s most prized and personal possessions. It seemed like such an invasion of her grandmother’s privacy. She almost expected to hear her grandmother’s angry shout to stop meddling with her things. Alicia paused and listened so hard, but there was only silence and condemnation.

Alicia saved her box to be opened last. It did not disappoint. The wedding dress looked just as she had remembered it, years ago. It hadn’t yellowed at all but was still the same muted ivory that she remembered. There was a thin strip of plain white lace that lined the yoke of the neck and the wrists of the long sleeves. Alicia lifted the simple dress out of the box and held it up to the light. Suddenly, she heard a muted thump.

Looking at the floor, she saw that something had fallen out from the folds of her grandmother’s wedding dress. Carefully laying the dress back in its box, Alicia picked up the thing off the floor. Instantly, it was familiar. She had seen her grandmother carrying it tightly in her folded hands many times through the years. It was her little black book. Unlike the dress, the book showed the heavy signs of age. The binding had torn and split many times in the past and been hastily repaired with scotch tape that had itself, turned brittle and yellow with age. The book was bulging with paperclips and slips of varicolored paper. The only thing holding the book closed was a series of red and green rubber bands that clamped the book so tightly there were gouges that marked their trail.

Alicia carefully removed the rubber bands one by one, so as not to further damage the book. Some were old and brittle, breaking away from her hands with a tired sigh. Others were newer and sprung willingly free from their taut trap. Once Alicia was able to open the book in her lap, she could see from the first page that it was a journal, of sorts. “Alice’s Notes” was written boldly across the front page in her grandmother’s blocky script. The first note was a stapled receipt for a wallpaper hanger dated 1974. The receipt was one of those carbon paper sheets that left a faint black stain on Alicia’s fingertips. So, her grandmother had begun this journal back when she had bought her last house. The wallpaper was the first improvement she had made to her brand-new home.

Flipping quickly through the pages, Alicia landed on one dated November 1988. This date was scarred into her memory forever. Alicia removed a memorial announcement from its paperclip and opened it, knowing who she would find inside. It was her mother. For a moment, Alicia was transported to that day when she sat small and inconspicuous in a chair, listening to a stranger talk about her mother. She had been angry that the minister pretended to know her mother when he was just reading from a script prepared by the family. She had also been terribly frightened. She was only 13. What would happen to her now? The handwritten note beneath where the memorial invitation had sat said it all. November 1988: Alicia comes to live with me.

It was the best thing that had ever happened to Alicia. Moving in with her grandma had made her feel so safe and taken care of. Alicia loved her mother fiercely, but she had been an alcoholic and unstable. Many times, Alicia had come home from school to find her mother passed out on the floor. It was Alicia who cleaned up the mess. Alicia who helped push/drag her mother to bed. Alicia who completed her homework, made her own dinner, and then put herself to bed. Alicia had been so tired of being the adult in the relationship. That’s why she had been so excited to move in with her grandmother. Her grandmother had made Alicia breakfast every morning before school and had a snack waiting when the bus brought her home. Her grandmother had given her a childhood back. She had felt so happy sometimes, that she also felt guilty. Had she somehow wished her mother dead?

Alicia quickly replaced the memorial announcement and began flipping pages again. It was like a diary of her life’s memories opening up before her. January 1994: Alicia’s first date. An awkward picture of a young Alicia in a floral dress was stapled to that page. June 2000: Alicia graduates from college. There was the commencement announcement in her college’s colors of blue and silver. Finally, the book fell open to the last recorded memory. November 2018: Trip to Bank. The date was only a few months before the tragic fall that broke her grandmother’s hip and necessitated her being moved from her home to an assisted living facility. She had never written in her journal again after that. Beneath the date there was only a stiff white envelope, the kind used for wedding invitations. Alicia opened the envelope easily after realizing it wasn’t sealed.

Inside was a stack of new, green $100 dollar bills. Alicia pulled them out with some difficulty as the stack was thick and wedged tightly in the envelope. When the money finally rested stiffly in her hand, she had no idea what to do. She quickly searched the room around her and the doorway for movement. She felt like she had been caught stealing. Why had her grandmother gone to the bank and hidden this much money in an old journal? What was she supposed to do with this money? Looking for answers, Alicia slid her fingers back into the envelope and found a small, folded piece of lined paper, the kind pulled from a personal flip book, taped to the back. Slowly and carefully, she worked her fingers around the tape and pulled the little paper free.

“Dear Alicia, I put this envelope here for you to find. I’m not getting younger and my mind seems to leave me sometimes. I need you to know how much you mean to me. You feel more like my daughter than my granddaughter. You have been so good to me, taking care of me over the years. I am so proud of the woman you have become. I don’t have much in this world to give, but I took $20,000 out to give to you. I also give to you all my love and my happy memories. Grandma

Her grandmother must have hidden her black book in the wedding dress, knowing that when she died, Alicia would be the one to find it. There were no tears, no words. Alicia lovingly replaced the note and the money back into the envelope. She closed the bulging book and stretched the rubber bands around it. Then she closed her eyes and hugged the book so tightly in her arms that she could feel the edges pressing into her skin. It was as if the book was hugging her back. Alicia held onto that moment for as long as she could make it last. Then she whispered into the empty room, “Goodbye Grandma. I’ll always love you.” But now the emptiness was gone.