NONFICTION
The Absence of Everything
by Kristina Moriconi
I stop by for my afternoon visit, unannounced and more than forty-five minutes late. My grandmother is sitting at the kitchen table, the early afternoon sun pouring in through the window above the sink. I look at her through the torn screen door and I can see the years disappearing into the blue-gray pools of her eyes.
She has remembered to set out two teacups, one for herself, the other at the same place where I've sat to sip afternoon tea every day for nearly seven months. The teacups are part of her collection, bone china brought back from faraway places. Hundreds are stacked eight or nine high on shelves inside the china cabinet in the dining room. Matching saucers sit beneath most of the cups, but some sit inside one another, arcing upward into leaning towers.
My teacup is from Japan, white with gold along the rim. Tiny hand-painted gold flowers adorn the outside of the cup and sit like scattered sequins in the curve of the saucer. Inside the teacup, on the bottom, the delicate features of a Japanese woman have been rendered in a portrait that can only be seen when held up against the light. I raise the cup and tilt it toward the sunlight; each day I do this my grandmother asks what I am looking at inside the cup. I remind her and turn it for her to see. She stares into the cup as though it holds the whispers of a once-guarded secret. Her gaze slides away from me and from the cup, fleeing back to the safety of the napkin she folds and unfolds across her lap.
I fill the teakettle with water and turn the knob on the stove until the clicking stops and a purple flame curls along the edges of the cast-iron. I sit beside my grandmother and reach across the table for an orange in the painted fruit bowl. In the same instant, she reaches for the orange and places her hand on mine. I feel the cool silkiness of her skin. I see her fingers twisted into crippling knots. She lifts my hand and gently places it down on the linen tablecloth. She cups the orange in the palm of her hand and begins peeling it, placing the pieces of thick skin in the saucer around her teacup. She peels the thin membrane from each individual section of the orange and hands the juicy flesh to me, the sticky sweetness dripping from her fingers onto the tablecloth.
I stand when the teakettle whistles and wash my hands in the white porcelain sink. I slowly pour the hot water into each of our teacups, steam rising up to fog my grandmother's glasses. I return the kettle to the stove and notice the sun has scorched the assortment of African violets on the windowsill. The flowers have wilted, their leaves brown and shriveled. My grandmother has stopped pulling the shade down to protect them from the sun. They are her prized possessions. I press my finger into the parched soil and in the odd corners of that bright afternoon I embrace the inescapable truth about forgetting.
I sit down again and watch as my grandmother folds the napkin in her lap, running her fingers along the edge of each new crease. She lifts her eyes, settling them on the teacup in front of her.
"I'm thirsty," she says. And I wonder when she drank last. The uncertainty trembles between us.
I remove a teabag from the packet and let it sink into the steaming water. "It's hot," I remind her. "Let it sit a while."
She asks if I will cut the crumb cake she has left out on the counter. I nod and walk across the kitchen. Beside the toaster, an Entenmann's box sits open, ants climbing over the crumbs spread across the shiny Formica surface.
"Help yourself," she says.
I sweep the crumbs and the ants into the empty box and crush it into the trashcan. I wonder when my grandmother ate last.
I open the refrigerator to get the milk for her tea. A blue dishtowel is wedged between the milk and the orange juice. I remove the towel and the half-gallon container of milk. The sour smell escapes as soon as I lift the cap. I look inside and see white clots floating on top of the cloudy liquid.
I slide into my seat and reach out for my grandmother's hand. I trace the blue veins close to the surface of her skin, the lines diffused like the brushstrokes of a watercolor. I look up at the soft creases on her face, the sadness swimming in her eyes, and I can see the absence of everything.
"Mom-Mom," I say, still holding onto her hand. "Do you think it might be a good idea to look for a new place for you to live?"
"This is my home," she says. "I've lived here for forty-five years. Where else would I go?"
I lower my eyes and lean forward into the space between us. I feel the despair as if it were my own.
When I leave, I worry that she will not remember to lock the door. I worry that she will wake in the middle of the night and feel scared, or worse, that she will wander off. I turn the car around and drive back up the hill of her driveway.
I walk through the unlocked door and sit down beside her. I look out above the sink, past the violets, to the sky. I watch a single cloud swallow the sun, the shadows shift in the quiet room, and I know the intransience of nothing anymore.
Kristina Moriconi holds an M.A. in English from Arcadia University. She is in the M.F.A. program in Creative Writing at Goddard College and is currently working on a collection of essays. She lives in a small suburb of Philadelphia with her husband and two daughters.
Copyright 2006, Kristina Moriconi