When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books to read now .TXT) 📗

She puts out her cigarette in the Niagara Falls ashtray, white ceramic with the gold edging long since worn away. A souvenir from my parents’ honeymoon. I remember a picture of them from that trip. Sitting in some tourist restaurant, young and tan, each holding a lit cigarette. Almost smiling.

Johnny gets on his knees for a minute to trace the spirals of smoke rising up from the ashtray. “Yeah, Granma, please come. I have a bow tie and oso shiny shoes.”

She puts another Newport in her mouth, talks to me and ignores Harry while she lights it. “So what, you think this is your happily ever after? Good luck with that.” She inhales deeply and sips her beer. Vanna turns two more letters. “That’s a ‘J’ like my name,” Johnny says, returning to his spot by her feet.

“OK, Ma, fine. Fine you don’t want to go. But I don’t want to hear for the next ten years about how you weren’t invited. We asked and you said no.”

Silence. Harry puts his hand in mine. We all watch as Pat Sajak jokes with the audience. He’s gray now but still handsome, trim. I check the time. Might as well set it up now so she can take me down. I know what her response will be but I say, “You could do it for Johnny, you know? It’s a big deal for him.”

“Why, because you think Johnny has any idea what’s happening? He’s friggin’ three years old. You think he’s gonna remember this?”

I look down and Johnny is still petting her slipper, not watching the TV but listening to us talk, his eyes focused on the carpeting. “Granma, I’m five now, five and then six is next. I’ll remember. I’ll remember you.”

“OK, Ma.” And I walk back to the kitchen, lean against the counter. Through the hatch I watch her ignoring Johnny, filling the room with smoke. Harry leans against the wall near her chair, careful not to block her view.

“You’re so dramatic, Gigi,” she says to the TV.

“Donna, we just thought you might like to be there and that we should ask you in person,” Harry says.

“You’re getting married in City Hall. Big whoop. You couldn’t spring for something nicer than that, Harry? That’s a red flag right there, Eugenia, if you ask me. Why don’t you stop by the DMV while you’re at it, renew your driver’s license real quick.” She waits. But I stay quiet. Let her keep going.

“There’s no telling you anything, Eugenia. You have to fall on your own fucking face to learn. So go. Get married. But don’t come crying to me when it hits Shit City.” Johnny’s little shoulders flinch as she talks. He tries to rescue the situation, the way an adult tries to distract a crying child, and he says, pointing at the TV, “Granma, look. ‘P’ for Pop-Pop.” That’s what he calls my dad.

“I assure you, Donna, I mean to take care of them. That’s all I want to do. I love Gigi and Johnny. I know that a City Hall wedding is perhaps not your ideal, but in the interest of time and getting the necessary visas and other—” I stand next to Harry and put my hand on his chest to stop him. I know he’s trying but there’s no point.

“Ma, you understand we’re leaving, right? We get married, we wait for the visas and then we’re gone. You get that, right?” Tears come on suddenly when I say “gone” but I have to save them for when she won’t see. Tears because I hate being here and because I don’t want to leave.

“Yeah, I get that, Princess Di. I get that you got a rich boyfriend and you think you’re better than everything and everyone that you grew up with. Yes, you’ve made that very clear,” she says over her shoulder, still focused on the spinning wheel, sipping beer.

“What’re you talking about? When did I ever say that, Ma?” I have to get her to the end, let her say what she needs to say.

“It’s what you didn’t say, Eugenia. Have you ever thanked me for everything I did for you? Did you ever say, ‘Thank you, Ma’? No. And now look at you. Picking up and going, like you got nothing tying you down here. You think you belong with him? You think you’re going to take this kid over there and what, fit right in? Go ahead. But I see through you, Eugenia, and you’re not doing right by your family. An ungrateful bitch by any other name is still a heifer. Look that up. I think Shakespeare said that.”

“Ma…Ma, I swear to God!” I tremble in anger, itemizing in my head all the bills I’ve paid for them: the car insurance, the heat, the electricity. For years. Years and years since before Frankie died, when I was still a kid, when I didn’t even live here, I gave Frankie whatever money I could because I knew that if the choice was between beer and food that week then the beer would win and Frankie wouldn’t have enough to eat. And Johnny, wheezing in that stroller where Michelle left him, Ma just sitting there smoking cigarettes waiting for me to figure it out. Never once saying I had done a good thing.

I want to hit something, throw something, scream. I fly toward the back of her chair, to kick it, to punch it, to yell at it, but Harry catches my wrist and braces me. He looks in my eyes and whispers, “You don’t have to any more.”

He puts himself between me and Ma’s chair. In a tone I’ve never heard before he says, “Donna, it must be very taxing, always begrudging your daughter her happiness. I’m sorry you don’t feel that you can attend tomorrow, but if that’s the case then that’s entirely down to you. Gigi and Johnny and I are going to be a family whether you wish us well or