Fragile Things

A story about my step-grandmother

An exact replica of Grandma`s tea set. Taken from: https://shafa.ua/uk/home/posuda/stolovaya/chajnye-servizy/173981462-serviz-perlamutrovyy-farforovyy-chaynyy-serviz-s-lepninoy.

Out of my grandfather’s four weddings, I only ever attended one. For the first one (to my grandmother), I hadn’t managed to be born yet; for the third, no one was invited; and for the second, my mother refused to let me go. None of our relatives showed up back then, which was a shame — they say the party turned out loud and joyful.

I had nothing against Irene (or Aunty Ren, as I’d called her from day one, no matter how much my mother bristled at it). I mean, sure, I understood why the neighbors gossiped behind her back and why the relatives stiffened at the mere mention of her name. Someone even made up a story that my grandmother died because of Aunty Ren— that she’d suffered too deeply from Grandpa’s betrayal. That was nonsense, of course. Grandma died because she was ill. As for Grandpa bringing Irene home once he was a widower— well, who else was he supposed to bring?

Even Mom used to say: it’s not for us to judge. And my aunt once said that Grandpa was chronically unable to be alone (I loved that phrase; it became my favorite way to explain him). But if they were so understanding and non-judgmental, then why was I the only one to visit him after the wedding?

Mom chalked it up to her frequent business trips — claiming she had no one else to leave me with and that “this was “better than nothing.” By that disdainful “this,” she obviously meant Aunty Ren. Afterward, she’d interrogate me: what they’d fed me, where they’d taken me, where I’d been put to sleep. I loathed those conversations because, regardless of my answers, they always ended with Mom’s contemptuous little sniff— as if to say, what else could you expect from a woman like her!

I felt truly sorry for Aunty Ren. There’s no winning against the ghost of a first wife (yet another line I’d pinched from my aunt). Grandma had been the very image of a lady: elegant, cultured, and almost impossibly delicate. She kept the house, just like herself, in immaculate order; she never raised her voice and never breathed a word of complaint about her husband. In fact, she never complained about anything at all — until the very end, when the illness took hold.

I adored braiding her silky black hair into thick plaits. There was a quiet comfort in holding her fragile, bird-claw hand while I drifted off to sleep. Nothing has ever matched the fragrant, sweet vanilla of her baking. To this day, I’ve never tasted better.

It was so easy for everyone to love Grandma. Aunty Ren, though… she was probably loved only by Grandpa.

She was simply ordinary. Her hair was cropped short for convenience, and instead of floor-length dresses, she mostly wore jeans. There was no lipstick or perfume in her bag. Instead, she owned a creaky old bicycle, which she rode to every shift as a nurse’s aide. Taller than Grandpa, solid and broad-shouldered, she was as sturdy and warm as a rugged old tree.

I saw how hard she tried. She’d ask what I liked to eat, how I was used to spending my time, how things should be “properly” arranged in Grandpa’s house. Grandpa, meanwhile, remained set in his ways; he distanced himself from the domestic details, burying himself in his work or the morning paper.

So it was Aunty Ren who took me to the market for new sneakers or T-shirts. Whenever she called me ‘granddaughter,’ the vendors would stare in disbelief; she looked far too young. She tended to me in all the small ways: drying and braiding my hair, painting my nails, keeping me supplied with favorite chocolates. She even walked me to the pharmacy for my first pads and showed me how to use them — just as she must have once shown her own daughter.

Her family lived a half-hour bus ride away in a neighboring town. Once, Aunty Ren took me with her. The house was soft with moss and tucked deep in the wild thicket. Her gentle, blue-eyed mother was all merry wrinkles and a toothless smile. And then there was her daughter — the one people whispered was Grandpa’s. Of course, that was pure rubbish. The girl looked exactly like Aunty Ren, just without the glasses. She was visibly her mother’s daughter, and no one else’s.

We made dumplings with raspberries and watched old comedies on TV. Aunty Ren called Grandpa to tell him we’d be staying over the night, but for some reason, Grandpa wouldn’t hear of it. He sped over immediately in his precious car, kicking up a storm of dust and scattering the neighborhood cats.

He and Aunty Ren had a long, loud row by the gate. Then Grandpa barked at me to get in the car. I burst into tears like a little kid, but didn’t dare to argue. We drove away, leaving her standing there; she didn’t come back for a whole week.

Maybe that was the start of the downhill slide, though I wasn’t ready to see it. When Aunty Ren finally returned, she was still painting my nails, frying cutlets, and reading my poems in the evenings. Nothing had changed except that she moved to the sofa in the living room, leaving Grandpa to snore peacefully in his half-empty bed. There were no more fights.

A few months later, a serious illness put me in the hospital for weeks. My mother was wasting away, torn between work and sitting by my bed through the worst nights. She was turning grey before my eyes and wouldn’t have lasted much longer if, one day, Aunty Ren hadn’t burst into the ward like a whirlwind.

Mom attempted a feeble protest, but Aunty Ren cut her off, abandoning her usual pleasantries:

“Look around — I don’t see anyone else lining up to help! Does she have another grandmother? No? Then go home and sleep, because if you don’t, she won`t have a mother either!”

Mom blinked in confusion, silently stroked my head, and left. As I drifted into a medicinal haze, I gripped Aunty Ren’s broad, soft hand; it was my only anchor to reality.

I don’t remember how long she stayed by my side, whether it was days or weeks. Grandpa’s calls to her were dry and brief; they spoke only of me.

The summer after my illness was intense, wild with adventure. I’d slip out the door the moment I woke up and return only at dusk — hungry, dirty, and happy. In the dim, cluttered kitchen, Aunty Ren would be quietly waiting with a warm dinner. Her large eyes behind the thick lenses of her glasses shone strangely, as if reproaching me for being away so long.

She and Grandpa had started fighting again. I’d bury my face in the pillow to stifle the nausea that their shouting brought on. She began barging into my room every morning, checking to see if I was still there or already gone. Sometimes she’d tearfully beg me not to leave her alone — grabbing my hands and blocking the front door with her body.

Her hysterics drove me mad. It would have been better for everyone if she’d just gone back to her family for a while, the way she had before. When Aunty Ren was at work, Grandpa and I settled into the quiet peace of indifferent coexistence. But the shift always ended, and she always came back — permanently irritable, exhausted, and pitiful.

One evening, she threw another scene — an explosion of jealousy over a woman I didn’t even know. She wailed and hurled things, smashing Grandma’s ‘special’ tea set — the creamy, glossy porcelain with powder-pink rosebuds. I had adored that set; it was so graceful and doll-like. Grandma had once promised it to me for my wedding day. It was agonizing to realize my childhood dream had been shattered into shards.

I was already running to my room when there came another sound — a dull, wet thud, like water bursting from a garden hose. Aunty Ren`s wailing cut out instantly. Grandpa slammed his bedroom door, locking it from the inside, and a cold, hostile silence took over. I dug myself into the deepest burrow possible under my blankets and didn’t come out until morning, still bitterly mourning the ruined tea set.

“Is it very noticeable?” Aunty Ren asked me innocently the next day, carefully touching a swollen cheekbone the color of an overripe plum.

“You can barely see it,” I lied confidently, and ran out to play.

By evening, Mom’s old car pulled up to Grandpa’s fence. It swallowed my suitcases and drove me back to the suffocating city apartment. I was furious with Aunty Ren, as if it were her, and not me, who had called Mom and forced the summer to end.

She and Grandpa divorced, having lasted less than three years. A few months later, we were stunned to learn that Grandpa had married a third time — secretly, in a ceremony without witnesses. His new wife was younger than Mom, pretentious and entirely self-absorbed. The beautiful rooms of that house — once so soulfully nurtured by Grandma — were now rotting and fading, suffocating under a thick layer of dust. I refused to stay there even for a single night.

Mom says I owe Aunty Ren nothing and shouldn’t beat myself up. Whatever Grandpa’s choice was, we have to respect it. That’s all well and good, but Aunty Ren won’t stop calling. It grates on my nerves. I’ve changed my number twice, but she always finds me.

Every time an unfamiliar set of digits appears on the screen, I just know. I decline the call, but she dials again and again, again and again, until I explode in a blind rage and hurl my phone against the wall just to make it shut up. I don’t want to talk to her. The truth is, I’m afraid to.

Because what would I even say?