Grandpa had done. It was clear that she had heard much about me
from my mother and father in the past five years.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “I’ll forget everything my dad has said
about you, if you’ll forget everything he’s said about me.” She laughed,
closing her eyes and throwing back her head in a way that nearly broke
my heart, she looked so much like my mother.
I stayed with Angie until the funeral.
In the days before the service, my mother’s siblings began to gather
at their childhood home. They were my aunts and uncles, but some of
them I hadn’t seen since I was a child. My uncle Daryl, who I barely
knew, suggested that his brothers and sisters should spend an
afternoon together at a favorite restaurant in Lava Hot Springs. My
mother refused to come. She would not go without my father, and he
would have nothing to do with Angie.
It was a bright May afternoon when we all piled into a large van and
set off on the hour-long drive. I was uncomfortably aware that I had
taken my mother’s place, going with her siblings and her remaining
parent on an outing to remember her mother, a grandmother I had not
known well. I soon realized that my not knowing her was wonderful for
her children, who were bursting with remembrances and loved
answering questions about her. With every story my grandmother
came into sharper focus, but the woman taking shape from their
collective memories was nothing like the woman I remembered. It was
then I realized how cruelly I had judged her, how my perception of her
had been distorted, because I’d been looking at her through my father’s
harsh lens.
During the drive back, my aunt Debbie invited me to visit her in
Utah. My uncle Daryl echoed her. “We’d love to have you in Arizona,”
he said. In the space of a day, I had reclaimed a family—not mine, hers.
The funeral was the next day. I stood in a corner and watched my
siblings trickle in.
There were Tyler and Stefanie. They had decided to homeschool
their seven children, and from what I’d seen, the children were being
educated to a very high standard. Luke came in next, with a brood so
numerous I lost count. He saw me and crossed the room, and we made
small talk for several minutes, neither of us acknowledging that we
hadn’t seen each other in half a decade, neither of us alluding to why.