Chapter 5. Did you have a happy life? (Patreon)

When Clara got home, her mother stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. She stood in the middle of the entranceway. Purposeful, like she'd been waiting for the sound of Clara coming home. She looked concerned and angry at the same time. 

"Who did that to your face?" she said. Clara touched the bruise around her eye. She kept forgetting that it was there. It was tender to the touch. When she pressed on it, she saw Phil above her, hauling back for a punch, a familiar look of calm on her face. It was that calm in the middle of violence that Clara recognized. That she felt connected to. 

"Clara," her mother said.

"My friend Phil," Clara said. 

"A friend!?" 

"She wasn't my friend when she did it," Clara said. She smiled at her mother. It wasn't something she could explain to her. Maybe to Nan, but not to her mother. "I went and talked to her and we worked things out."

Her mother was still in her office clothes, her hair hanging down blonde to her shoulders. Always just right. It was impressive in its consistency. She looked exactly the way she had looked this morning. Except for one thing.

Around her neck, on a delicate silver chain, her mother was wearing a small white gold ring. Clara remembered the feeling of the ring slipping, slick with congealing blood, out of her grandmother's vagina and into her palm.

And there it hung, proudly on display. It should not be there. Her mother should not have it. Should not be wearing it so casually. Making friends with Phil had gone so well. Clara did not want to lose that feeling of calm. But here was her mother wearing a ring that she had no right to even hold. 

"That's new," Clara said, and her mother looked down as though she'd forgotten the ring entirely.

"Oh! It's beautiful, isn't it? Mom gave it to me today," she said. "She surprised me with it. A family heirloom."

"A family heirloom," Clara said. It bothered her that Nan had given her mother the ring. Clara didn't want it for herself. That wasn't it. But the ring had come from that secret morning ritual. Her mother had nothing to do with it. Her mother wasn't part of any of this. She was just a woman that Nan and Clara lived with. 

Clara stopped herself. She didn't mean that. That wasn't true. She loved her mother. It was a shock to see her wearing the ring. 

"I don't normally wear white gold," her mother said. 

"What?" Clara leaned forward to look at it. "Oh it looked like rose gold to me. Must be the light."

She took her shoes off, and smiled. "It's beautiful," she said. Then she slipped past. Clara left her mother there at the bottom of the stairs, admiring her ring.

In her bedroom, Clara opened the knife roll on the floor. She put the ring out of her mind and let herself focus on the knives, and on her day. She thought about the closed, careful expression on Phil's face. The way her eyes had seemed to see Clara for the first time. She pulled the nickel out of her pocket and put it in beside the other coins. Then she rolled the knives back up, tied it closed, and hid it under her bed. She pushed it back to the wall. Everything in its place. When she sat back up, her brother Gordon was standing in the doorway. Tall, awkward. Looking nervous, like always.

"Can I help you?" Clara said.

"What happened to your face?" Gordon said. Clara sighed.

"I got punched," she said. "What do you want?"

"Why doesn't Nan like me?"

"Nan likes you just fine," Clara said. "Why do you think she doesn't? Because she didn't give you a pretty gold ring?" Clara came around the bed. Nan's birthday was tomorrow. Was this why everyone was interfering? Normally a week could go by without any of her family mentioning Nan to her.

"She doesn't talk to me," Gordon said. He stayed in the doorway. He never set foot in Clara's room. He was very careful where he went in the house. Like he'd established the boundaries of his territory. Where he was welcome and where he was not. He was certainly not welcome in her room. "When I tried to bring her breakfast this morning, she just looked at me like I was a stranger."

"She eats at night," Clara said. "You know that." Gordon looked more uncomfortable. He shifted his weight, like he wanted to leave. This wasn't about breakfast at all.  "What is it?" Clara said. "Spit it out."

"And I'm not in the will," her brother said quietly.

Clara started to close the door on him, but stopped. 

"Who told you that?" she said.

"I heard mom and dad talking about it. They said they don't think any of us are in the will. Just you." And there it was. Her grandmother's birthday was tomorrow. A reminder that Nan was older. A reminder that soon what was hers would be theirs. And they couldn't wait. They were circling. Impatient. Snatching up small shining bits of gold. 

"Nan doesn't even have a will," Clara said.

"Yes she does."

"She doesn't. Have you seen it? Have they?"

"No, but…" Gordon looked uncomfortable again. "I mean, she's old." 

This time Clara did close the door.

When she was sure Gordon was gone, Clara went up to Nan's room. She stepped on the creaking part of the step, out of habit. Announcing her presence. She didn't like to startle Nan.

Her grandmother was sitting at the chessboard, wearing a clean, but tattered nightgown. She was sitting up very straight, the way she always did when she heard Clara coming. 

"Why do you do that with your back?" Clara said, sitting down. "Sitting up straight, like a soldier. Like it doesn't hurt. You don't have to strain yourself on my account." Nan didn't have to pretend around her. People got older.

"Don't be rude, Clara," Nan said. But she let her shoulders sink a little. Closer to normal, but not quite. "Posture is important."

"To who?"

"Me," Nan said, quietly. 

They sat, each arranging their chess pieces on the board. Clara put the bishop on the knight square, and then noticed it. She fixed it, and then realized that she'd been right in the first place. She wasn't thinking straight. She was angry, she realized. She fought to keep it out of her voice.

"You gave mom the ring," Clara said. 

"I overheard them talking about inheritance," Nan said. "It made me realize that I should be more generous. You can't take it with you, after all. They won't let you." 

"Nan," Clara said.

"Oh, I washed it. Don't be a prude. Should I throw away a perfectly good ring because it was inside me? Where do you think your mother came from?" She had the white pieces all in place. 

"It came off a dead person, Nan." 

"You'd be surprised how much jewelry comes off a dead person. And do you think she'll have a problem wearing my jewelry when I'm dead? I can guarantee you that she will not. I heard them down there today, bickering about my will. Trying to bully each other into confronting me about it." Nan coughed into her sleeve. A small cough that got bigger and angrier. Clara reached out for her, but Nan waved her off. "I'm fine," she said. "Just a tickle in my throat all day."

Clara was saying all the wrong things. She tried again.

"I just thought this was all our secret. It made me upset to see her wearing it." Clara flushed. "I felt stupid," she said. "Jealous."

"Do you want a ring, too?" Nan laughed. "You know I have plenty more."

"Don't tease me," Clara said. "I don't care about the ring. I shouldn't have said anything." 

Nan looked at her for a long time.

"Are you happy?" Nan said. Clara didn't hear the question the first time. She was going around in her head. Feeling stupid. Feeling jealous. "Are you happy?" Nan said.

"Are people supposed to be happy?"

"I'm serious. Do you feel like you've had a good life?" Nan looked tired and frightened at the same time. It was a strange expression that Clara didn't understand.

"What brings you joy?" Nan said. "Sunrises? We could go and watch the sunrise together tomorrow. It's my birthday and I want you to be happy. Is it wrong to want some memories of you that aren't soaked in blood?"

"Watching the sunrise would be nice," Clara said. "Sure." She didn't dislike sunrises. But it would be the company that she enjoyed. Spending time with Nan made her happy.

"That's an unenthusiastic yes," Nan said. "Then what do you like?"

"I love spending time with you," Clara said. "I like that I help you with your secret. I like knowing you need me. Or want me here. I enjoy the feeling of that trust. That makes me happy."

"A life should have secrets," Nan said.

"It should."

"But we already do that. What else? I want a happy memory of you." She kept using that word, memory. It felt out of place. Was she worried about dying, too? Had her mother and brother's vulturing gotten to her? 

"Knives," Clara said. "My knives make me feel calm and quiet. Happy." She thought about it more. Happy was as good a word as any. It was more than that, but she wasn't sure how to explain that part to Nan. So she didn't. "I like the feel of a new knife in my hand. Good craftsmanship. Strong steel. I am happy when I get to feel that feeling." Another pause. She didn't know what else to say.

"Knives," Nan said.

"Knives," Clara said. "They are the most perfect thing in the world."

"Okay. Knives it is." 

Nan looked down at the chess board. 

"I don't like chess," she said. "Did you know that? I'm good at it. Not great, but good. I've never read a book. Never had a teacher. But in school, I won games. I dated men who always wanted to play. It made them happy. So I played. I kept playing a game I didn't enjoy, for years. And then I just didn't know how to stop. Your grandfather came along, and he loved chess. He loved it, and I loved him. So I played."

Clara's grandfather was long dead. Nan never talked about him, and Clara felt no sense of loss at having never met him. She didn't feel bad about that. She had Nan.

"My whole life I've been playing this stupid, useless game for other people."

"I like playing chess with you," Clara said. 

"I know you do," Nan said. "So I play chess for you now. I hate chess, but I love to make you happy. I love you and I want you to live. To keep on living. So I've been playing this game for your whole life."

"I didn't know." Clara didn't apologize, but she stopped setting up the pieces. More talk about death. She wanted to kill her family for putting her Nan in this mood. She seemed so sad. Like after tomorrow they would never see one another again. "I won't die if we stop playing chess, Nan. I want you to be happy, too." 

Her Nan looked up, and after a moment she tried to smile. It was very small and it flickered the way Clara had never seen a smile flicker before. It was there one moment, then gone. Then there again. Like the ghost of a smile. It was like watching a smile dying. 

Then her grandmother stood up.

"You're a sweet girl," Nan said. "Let's go talk to your mom. She wants a will, I'll write her a will."

Downstairs Clara's mother and father were sitting at the kitchen table. They were always at the kitchen table. Or on the couch in front of the television. They were always posed somewhere in the house, like a family. Nan and Clara sat down at the table too. Clara sat as far from her mother as she could. Her parents looked startled.

"Is everything all right?" Clara's father asked.

"Bring me a pen and some paper," Nan said. "I'm ready to write my will."

But they didn't bring a pen and paper. They brought an envelope with a "Will kit" in it. 

"We've had it for a while," her father said. "I, uh. I was thinking about writing my own will." Clara's mother rolled her eyes. 

"We bought it for you," she said to Nan. "I think it's great that you're ready to write your will. You aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but it's good to think of the children, just in case. You're making the right decision."

"Can we just move this along?" Nan said.

She opened the envelope and pulled the papers out. Clara watched as her grandmother found the page where she was supposed to write all the will-type things. Who gets how much money. Who she loved most. Dead people math. Clara did not look at her parents. 

Nan read aloud as she wrote, in big block letters.

"To my grandson Gordon, I leave one hundred thousand dollars, to be kept in trust and given to him in the event of his twenty-first birthday. I leave everything else I own, including my collection of rings, my house, and the remainder of my money to my loving daughter."

No mention of Clara's father. No mention of Clara.

"Where do I sign?" Nan said. Clara's mother showed her where to put her initials. Where to sign. Nan scribbled like she didn't care.  "Clara, will you be my witness?"

"Is she old enough?"

"She's sixteen," her father said. "I don't think that's old enough."

Clara signed on the dotted line, anyway. She wanted this to be over. Nan did too, it seemed.

"Are we done?" Nan said, as Clara's father read over the will. 

"It looks good," he said. "And we can always get Frank to sign as a second witness when he comes over tomorrow."

"That's fine. That's all fine."

Nan stood up again, holding on to Clara's shoulder for support. She looked at her family, and straightened her back again.

"Come along, Clara," she said. "Let's go play chess."

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