College or Cribs

Chapter 27
Monday Afternoon: Then and Now

Chapter Description: In which Chris remembers an afternoon with his grandmother, and realizes being seen as the youngest has its drawbacks, too.

College or Cribs- Chapter 27

Monday Afternoon: Then and Now.

Monday Afternoon- Last Summer

Chris sat lazily on the couch that Monday afternoon. Dad and Roxanne were out with the girls, and he had the house to himself. He had just been out on a date with Sherry the night before, and had slept in till the crack of noon. Life was good.

Then came a knock at the door. Who could that be? Chris looked down at himself. He was still in pajama bottoms and a blue t-shirt. He wasn’t exactly ready to go out on the town, but he was presentable enough for the UPS guy.

Chris recognized the small, frail, silhouette of his visitor through the blurred glass doors before he even opened them.

“Grandma?” Chris asked as he opened the door.

“Chris!” Grandma Cole smiled genuinely; her mouth shaped dentures a little too small for her mouth and her eyes magnified by thick glasses a little too big for her head. She stepped in and gave her grandson a hug, burying her head in his chest- he was a good foot and half taller than her.

“My, you’re looking more like your father every time I see you,” she smiled, pulling back to take her grandson in.

“Even the hair?” Chris asked shaking the mop top he was sporting.

“Especially the hair,” Grandma Cole replied. “You wouldn’t believe it, Chris, but your father was almost a hippy, he kept his hair so long.”

“My dad?” Chris found it a little hard to believe.

“Your grandfather almost believed,” Grandma Cole added, “that your father would be the first male doctor with a pony tail.”

“No way.” Chris definitely couldn’t believe that. Christopher Cole III, M.D. was as clean cut as they came. Army Drill Sergeants had longer hair than Dr. Cole.

“Why’s he keep it so short?” Chris asked, walking deeper into the house with his grandmother.

“I think it was just a phase,” Grandma Cole answered. “Young men rebel against their fathers from time to time.” Dr. Cole as a rebel: That was even more far-fetched than him as a long-haired hippie.

“Well, thanks for coming by, Grandma, but Dad’s not here right now.” Chris told his grandmother, “Can I take a message?”

“Well I’m not here for your father,” Grandma Cole said. “I’m here for you.”

“Oh…” was all Chris said. “Um…well let me get dressed into something more appropriate for visitors or something.”

“Oh nonsense,” Grandma Cole laughed, her silvery curls bouncing as she chuckled. “There’s no reason for that. I just came to give a gift.”

“A gift?” Chris repeated.

“Here,” Grandma Cole reached into her purse and withdrew a check. “A little summer spending money.”

Chris glanced down politely at the check. “That’s more than a little spending money, Grandma.”

“Well I’m going to be dead, one day, Chris,” Grandma Cole said plainly but warmly, “but that doesn’t mean I have to wait to give some of it away.”

“But…I…”

“If the next word out of your mouth is ‘can’t’ young man, you’re going to break an old woman’s heart.”

Chris shut his mouth.

“Good,” she nodded.

“But…why?” Chris asked.

“It’s family tradition, of course.” Grandma Cole told Chris.

“When your father was about your age,” Grandma Cole explained, “just getting ready to apply for med-school, your great-grandfather, the first Doctor Cole gave him some money. Save it. Spend it. Throw it in the garbage. Just use it how you like.”

“And dad saved it.” Chris concluded.

“Oh goodness no!” Grandma Cole practically guffawed. “Your father was never particularly good with money. He blew it all on a down payment for a fancy new car. It’s the Cole wives that have historically been the at home accountants and what not. There was a joke going around at the time that your mother’s degree in accounting made for a marriage of convenience.”

“Oh…”

“But they loved each other,” Grandma Cole patted Chris on the shoulder, sensing she’d spoken ill of the dead. “The point is though, that your father got a little extra spending money from his grandparents, and now it’s your turn.”

“So this is doctor money,” Chris said.

“Not at all,” Grandma corrected him. “You could be a garbage man, and I’d still write you this check. Your my grandson, and I want to know that you’re being taken care of and enjoying your life.”

“Yeah, but money isn’t everything, Grandma,” Chris told her.

“But it helps,” she smiled.

“What about Sammy and Bri?” Chris asked.

“Oh they’ll get their shares when they’re old enough to appreciate it,” Grandma assured him. “But you’re the eldest, and with that should come some privileges, don’t you think?”

“Well,” Chris chuckled, looking down at the check. “When you put it that way…”

“So your father never mentioned this little tradition?” Grandma asked. Chris shook his head. “That’s your father for you. So tight lipped. I swear, on his tombstone it will read ‘Christopher Cole the third: Didn’t Complain. Didn’t Explain.’ " she started moving back towards the door. “Well, I’d best be going.”

“Hey Grandma,” Chris called after her. “Don’t leave on my account. Stay awhile.”

“And do what?” Grandma asked.

“Well,” Chris thought a minute. “Tell me more stuff that I don’t know about my dad?”

Grandma Cole smiled. “I’d like that.”

She stayed for hours and told him stories of a different Christopher Cole, III M.D. than Chris had ever known or imagined. In his youth, he didn’t seem to resemble the tight lipped, almost stoic man that Chris’s father was now; and definitely the disgusted, judgmental, and distant man that Chris would encounter nearly a year later.

Monday Afternoon- This Summer.

Chris sat stewing in his playpen while the rest of the family busied themselves along their daily routines. Dad watched T.V. while Roxanne cleaned up around the house, and the girls played in the backyard. He hadn’t seen Sherry since a little after midnight on the cusp of Saturday night and Sunday morning, and while the rest of Sunday and this Monday morning had been right out of his fantasies- breast and bottle feedings, diaper changes, high chairs, and yes, playpens- Chris still couldn’t shake the feeling of unease since that dream he had had in the church nursery.

He had even woken up in a dry diaper. Chris never woke up dry when he was a baby. How messed up was that? Most people his age panicked when they woke up with a wet bed, he was reading dread portents from a dry pair of Pampers. Life, lately, was…complicated to say the least.

Then came a knock at the door. Who could that be? Instinctively, Chris looked down at himself. He was just lounging around in nothing but a t-shirt that did nothing to cover his diaper. Roxanne wasn’t planning on taking him out on the town today, hence no cover, but then again, who really cared he was dressed like in this reality?

Dr. Cole got up from his easy chair and walked towards the door. Chris heard the door creak open and Dr. Cole’s voice say “Mom?”

A moment later, Grandma Cole walked into the room, beaming with energy. “Oh there’s my little man!” cooed walking up to the playpen where Chris sat. She reached over the absurdly high rails and tousled Chris’s hair. “He has more hair than you do, Christopher.” Dr. Cole just snorted something that might have been a laugh and nodded.

“He might be do for his first haircut soon,” Dr. Cole said.

“Now where are my grand-girls?” Grandma asked out loud.

“I’ll go get them,” Doctor Cole said, walking towards the back door. Grandma, meanwhile continued to coo to Chris and wave to him. Chris for his part, humored her, fake giggling and waving to the old woman.

“My, you’re looking more like your father every time I see you,” she cooed, sure that he wouldn’t understand what she was saying. No further information came from her though. One didn’t tell babies family secrets or speak of times past that they would not understand.

“GRANDMA!” Chris’s sisters shouted in unison as they bum rushed her with hugs.

“Oh, easy girls!” Grandma Cole gave that weary wry smile of hers. “I’m not a young lady anymore. You could hurt me. Oh but you both are getting so big!”

“So, Mom, what brings you hear,” Dr. Cole asked, looking slightly uneasy.

“I just thought I’d drop by to give my grandchildren a little gift,” Grandma said matter-of-factly.

“A gift?” Doctor Cole echoed. Grandma Cole reached into her purse and pulled out two checks. “Mom, you don’t mean…?”

“I do indeed,” Grandma Cole stated, handing a check to Samantha and another to Brianna. Both girls looked at their checks, and their jaws dropped.

“Really?” Samantha gawked.

“It’s not even my birthday,” Bri whispered. “It feels like it is, but it’s not.”

“Mom…” Dr. Cole said, his voice tinged with objection. “Don’t you think the girls are a little young?”

“It’s not my fault, you got married and had children so late in life,” Grandma Cole gently rebuked her son. “I’m going to be dead, one day, Christopher, but that doesn’t mean I have to wait to give some of it away.”

“They’re not even in middle school,” Dr. Cole objected.

“I will be this fall,” Samantha reminded her father. Her tongue withered in her mouth at her father’s glare.

“It’s my decision of when to give the gift,” Grandma said, putting his cole.

“I was in college-” Dr. Cole began.

“Yes, but this way you can be sure that they won’t spend it on a car like you did,” Grandma cut Chris’s dad off. “Anyways, Samantha and Brianna’s hair is just as long as yours was back then.”

“Dad had long hair?” Sammy looked at her glowering father with child-like wonder.

“You mean he hasn’t told you girls?” Grandma asked. Both girls shook their heads. “Well why don’t we take a ride to the bank together and Grandma can tell you all about your father when he was a little boy.”

Dr. Cole stood there, simmering as his mother took his two sisters away. So the old man did have weaknesses after all it seemed. Then it occurred to Chris that he wasn’t going with them. He was no longer the eldest and any bond that he and his grandmother had had, was now long forgotten. He was just a baby, now. The third wheel, not entrusted with family secrets. He looked over and made eye contact with his father. Dr. Cole just shook his head and muttered something about his mother before going back to watch the T.V.

December 5th, 1850. Amherst, Massachusetts

“YOU HAVE HAD YOUR MOON!” the two voices boomed in the young woman’s bedroom. “NOW CHOOSE!”

Emily stood there quivering before the glowing blue quill and the radiating red champagne flute.

Her life had been split in half the last month. It was as if she had been dreaming, but instead of waking up, every few days she’d just find herself in a different dream. In one, she was the finest and most desirable debutant in all of Amherst; every girl’s dream…everything she’d been raised to want to be.

In another dream, she was alone, cut off from the rest of the world. She wasn’t exactly reviled, but had no real personal connections to speak of. It was lonely. It was cold. Yet it offered a type of freedom of perspective that she would never have found otherwise.

Emily, the beautiful bookworm, whose situation in another lifetime might resemble a certain Disney Princess before crossing pasts with a Beast-who-would-be-Prince, was at an impasse. Would she be the socialite or the shut in? The princess, or the poet?

Elegantly, as she had been trained all her life, she glided across her bedroom towards the champagne flute. She held it in her hand and turned it over, almost tempting the liquid inside to spill over.

“YOU’VE CHOSEN!” The voice from the champagne glass boomed in triumph.

“Not quite,” she smiled demurely, throwing the champagne glass to the floor, shattering. “What madness is this?!” The voice pleaded as she walked over the broken glass to take the quill.

Talking more to herself than to either of the cosmic presences in the room, Emily said “Much madness is divinest sense.” With that she chose her new life, completely rejecting the one that society had set in place for her. She would be alone, but she would be alone on her own terms, no one elses.

Emily Dickinson chose the pen. And though she was a complete societal shut-in most of her adult life, she is considered to be one of the most influential American poets today.