Grandma Millie (Part II)

Many of us are shaped by our elders. For some of us, that shape is round!  (Part II of II)

When Grandma picked me up at the airport, I was taken aback.  She walked with a cane and looked as if a stiff breeze might blow her over.  She'd never been what I would call fat, but she'd always had a sturdy build.  Anyway, I loved it.  Her smothering hugs always made me feel warm and secure. 

This time, when I hugged her, I felt as if she might break.  

Grandma seemed equally alarmed by me.  She expected a girl, but a woman had arrived in her place.  I was eighteen now and, though I wasn't much taller than I’d been the previous summer, one inch may have well been three when combined with her fragile stoop.

The drive to the farm was mostly quiet.  We engaged in polite conversation, but there was no girlish banter.  No talk of "stuffing me silly" or "putting meat on my bones" or any of the playful back-and-forth that made my heart race and my face flush.  We were both too busy wrestling with our newly shifted dynamic. 

After arriving at the farmhouse, I unpacked my suitcase and took a quick shower to wash away my travel.  As I combed my wet hair in the bathroom mirror with a towel secured above my breasts, I felt the familiar tingle that accompanied my visits to Grandma Millie as surely as sunburns and bug bites. 

I wasn’t sure why.  I hadn’t had anything to eat, and my shower hadn’t revealed anything beyond the womanly curves that I—and most of the boys in school—had been noticing for months.  That’s when a shiny glint near my feet caught my eye.

The bathroom scale. 

If Peter Parker had Spider-Sense, what did I have?  Feedee Feelings?  Pudgy Premonitions? 

Maybe it was just keen eyesight.  The decades-old cabinet door had warped slightly, prohibiting its full closure.  In the opening, the steel of the grandma’s 60s era scale repurposed the dingy yellow overhead light into a homing beacon.

My heart pounded in anticipation as I removed the device from its resting place and restored it to life after a year-long slumber.  I had no trouble seeing the numbers this time.  My stomach was relatively flat and, thanks to the squeeze of grandma’s terrycloth towel, so were my breasts.  Nevertheless, the final resting spot of the spinning dial made my head spin just as much as it had the previous summer.

143.

I checked the small dial at the base of the scale to make sure I hadn’t left the scale adjusted to a higher resting weight.  Nope.  It was set to zero.

How was this possible?  Not only had I not lost the weight I gained the previous summer, but I had gained another ten pounds!

In retrospect, it made sense.  I had gotten taller, and my middle had leaned in favor of fuller breasts and wider hips.  My nighttime workouts had also added more muscle to my frame. 

None of this mattered to me, however.  I came to one simple conclusion based solely on the dancing digits of an antiquated scale--

I was getting fat.   

Ordinarily, that thought would’ve returned me to the shower for a second session, but there were no pleasant shivers this time.  Any titillation was blunted by feelings of confusion and anger.  Feelings that intensified when I exited the bathroom, and a familiar scent hit my nose.

"What are you doing?" I said, storming into the kitchen still wrapped in my towel.  

Grandma turned to me with a bemused expression.  She held the spatula in her hand like a reporter's microphone, as if she were about to interview the girl who just asked the world's dumbest question.  "Cooking your welcome meal."

"No, Grandma, I don't want it," I said, taking the spatula from her hand.  "Besides, I should be cooking for you.  You need to rest."

Grandma looked like I had slapped the spatula across her face.  We stared at each other against the staticky backdrop of popping grease…then she turned and doddered into the hall.  The slam of her bedroom door a few seconds later was her only statement on the matter.

She didn’t re-emerge for the rest of the night.

I tried to salvage what Grandma had started, but to no avail.  I just wasn’t in her league as a cook. The meat was tough and gristly, and the soggy breading fell off the steak in clumps.  I ended up dumping most of it down the disposal. 

There was plenty of other food I could’ve eaten for supper, but I went to bed hungry and feeling sorry for myself.  Eventually, I cried myself to sleep.       

It was going to be a long six weeks. 

***

Grandma spent the next day in bed.  “My hip hurts,” she said, but offered no other explanation and accepted no offers of pain medication.  She also stubbornly turned her nose up at the meals I brought her.

“You have to eat, Grandma.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“Fine,” I said.  “I’m going fishing.”

Only I didn’t go fishing.  I sat on the sofa watching TV. 

I worried about leaving Grandma alone, but there was more to it than that.  In the weeks leading up to my visit, thoughts of activities I normally reveled in brought none of the usual anticipatory joy.  I was driving and dating.  Why hike a hill in search of treasure when I could drive to the mall and search for a dress to wow Jeff Smith?  Why sit in the heat trying to catch fish when I could grab the eye of a cute boy from the air-conditioned comfort of a club?

Depressed and with nothing to do--at least nothing I felt like doing--I snacked.  It wasn’t done clandestinely to satisfy some mysterious primal urge but in the open out of pure boredom.  The results, however, were the same.  By the third day, my clothes were already getting snug.  

At least it perked up Grandma. 

“We can drive into town for more of those.”

I was on the sofa, watching TV and eating from a box of Little Debbie Snack Cakes, when Grandma suddenly appeared behind me.  Maybe not so suddenly.  She’d been there long enough to know the box in my lap was empty.

“Feeling better?” I asked, swallowing the last bit of cake.

“I am.”  She leaned heavily on her cane as if gathering the strength to say what she wanted.  “I’m sorry I’ve been such a Grumpy Gus.”

Apologizing didn’t come easily in our family.  Mom never did.  If she were to hit me with the car, it would somehow be my fault.  “You were in my blind spot,” I could hear her saying.

“You don’t have to apologize, Grandma,” I responded with a forgiving smile.  “Just let me help you.  That’s why I’m here.”

Grandma nodded tersely.  “Fine.  You can help me with my hip exercises.”

And that’s how it went for the next few days.  I cooked.  I cleaned.  I made sure Grandma took her medicine, did her exercises, and made it safely to and from the bathroom.  She wasn’t always happy about it, but she allowed it.  Had fate not intervened yet again, our uneasy alliance might have lasted the rest of my trip. 

At least, I assume it was fate.  The thought of it being anything else is just too terrible.

***

One morning during my second week, I awoke to the sound of Grandma banging around in the kitchen.  The refrigerator door was wide open, and she was plucking vegetables from the crisper and plopping them on the counter.

“What are you doing?” I asked, wiping sleep from my eyes.

“Good morning, sweetie!”  Grumpy Grandma was gone.  So was her cane.  When I inquired about it, she said, “I don’t need it.  I feel great,” and continued to pull produce from the fridge.  Never mind that the doctor told her to use it for at least three months.

“No, Grandma,” I said, shutting the refrigerator door.  “You’re not cooking right now.”

“I want to show you how to make my famous chicken soup.  It needs to simmer all day.”

Grandma’s chicken soup was legendary.  The recipe had been passed down for generations.  A few of the ingredients and amounts had been lost in translation (Grandma’s grandma had immigrated from Czechoslovakia), and the yellowed, grease-splattered recipe card looked like something Indiana Jones might discover in a tomb.  Still, Grandma deciphered its Sanskrit-like scribbles deliciously every time. 

Had I not been so groggy, I might have acquiesced to the honor, but I was tired, and Grandma was injured. 

I stepped between the old woman and the fridge.  “It’s going to have to wait.”

Hurt flashed on Grandma’s face, but then her drooping eyes caught sight of my stomach bulging against the front of my nightshirt.  “You’re right, dear,” she said sweetly. 

Her gaze shifted from my pot to a much larger one resting on a shelf above the refrigerator. 

“Before we go back to bed, would you mind fetching me that for later?”

I sighed a dramatic teenage sigh and grabbed an old A-frame stepladder that had been placed beside the fridge.  It was good I’d gotten up when I did.  Grandma was probably planning to retrieve the giant container herself.  

Clambering up the rickety device, I was surprised to find that I could almost reach the pot without climbing to the top.  I was getting tall! 

That’s when my foot broke through the wood, and my pride was replaced by pain.

***

The rest of the day was a painful blur of flashing lights and hospital whites.  That night, back on the farm, I slept fitfully, slipping in and out of consciousness.  At some point, I awoke to Grandma conversing with my mother on the kitchen phone.

 “…She’s young and fit.  The doctor says she’ll be healed by the time college starts…No, she can’t travel by plane until the cast comes off…Eight weeks…And she’ll need crutches for a few more after that.” Grandma laughed.  “All the boys that are chasing after her may be able to catch her when she gets home.”

***

The next morning, Grandma brought me breakfast in bed: fried eggs, bacon, sausage, and biscuits with gravy.  Along with the meal, Grandma delivered a pharmaceutical buffet of candy-colored steroids, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories.      

“Eat up,” she commanded from the edge of my bed.  Her order was direct and non-negotiable.  “You need your strength.” 

“I’m sorry, Grandma.  I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

The white-haired woman waved away my concern.  “Nonsense.  A little fall isn’t going to slow me down.  I’m a tough old bird.”

Tears welled in my eyes.  “It sure slowed me down.” 

“That’s OK,” she said, giving my knee a sympathetic squeeze.  “Most visits, I hardly see you.   You’re always running hither and yon.  It’ll be nice to have you to myself.  I may not be as much fun as fishing or catching fireflies, but I’ll try.”

“Eh,” I shrugged.  “I’m not as into that stuff as much as I used to be.”

Grandma loaded up a forkful of greasy goodies and maneuvered them towards my mouth.  “I suppose it’s only natural for you to outgrow things as you get older.” 

How right she was.

***

Summers on the farm were always a blur, and this time was no exception.  However, instead of the usual breakneck pace of sundry outdoor antics, my days after the accident were a hazy malaise of naps and sleepy PBS film fests.  Grandma worried she’d be poor company, but I was almost no company at all.  I was basically a zombie. 

And a needy one at that.  To her credit, Grandma didn’t seem to mind. She indulged my pleas for everything from pillows to pain pills as well as my inane questions.

“Why am I so hungry?”

“That’s the steroids.”

“Why am I so sleepy?”

“That’s the muscle relaxers.”

“Why am I getting so fat?”

I actually didn’t ask that last one.  Even in my drugged stupor, I knew the answer.

From the moment I woke up, Grandma Millie kept food within easy reach.  After a big breakfast in bed, we’d move operations to the living room, which was arranged like Mission Control.  The television remote was on a TV tray alongside a liter bottle of Coke, a cup filled with ice, and a small ramekin containing a colorful assortment of pills.  On the sofa sat my mission mates: Little Debbie, Mrs. Fields, and the deliciously enigmatic Entenmann.      

My mission, which I had little choice but to accept, was to eat.  It wasn’t implicitly ordered, but it was implied under the guise of “keeping up my strength” or “taking my medication on a full stomach.”  It made sense to me.  Besides, I had nothing better to do.

After Little Debbie, Mrs. Fields, and Entenmann had been lost in the call of duty, Grandma would resupply me with burgers and French-fried reinforcements come lunchtime.  She’d sit with me while I ate, cutting tiny bites from a bunless burger of her own, as we watched reruns of Antiques Roadshow, The Joy of Painting, or Downton Abbey. 

Of the three, Downton Abbey was our favorite.  The costumes were exquisite.  Sybil's harem pants, Mary's wedding gown, and, of course, the hats.  Oh, my God, the hats!  They wore hats for every occasion.  The only time I ever wore hats was to keep the sun out of my eyes.  (On the farm, I usually wore one of Grandpa’s old trucker’s caps, a dingy yellow one emblazoned with Official Bikini Inspector.)

It wasn’t just the show’s opulent attire that made me “ooh” and “ahh,” however.  The dichotomy of the Crawley family nibbling crumpets and sipping tea in their Sunday best, while I gorged pork rinds and guzzled soda in my underwear, generated tingles in areas apart from my injured ankle.  Whenever grandma excused herself to use the bathroom or fetch me more food from the fridge, I’d send my greasy fingers exploring beneath the wool blanket I used to cover myself.  They’d navigate my swelling flesh and, if I was feeling particularly bold, might even slip past the tight security of my elastic waistband border.  Each day, the obstacles facing them grew and so did the circuity of their route.  And while the arduousness of their journey made the triumphant plunge at its conclusion even more satisfying, it exhausted me. Afterward, I usually slept until Grandma woke me for dinner.

Further contrasting the refined Crawley family was my noisy chewing, belching, and farting.  For grandma’s sake, I tried to make sure the latter slipped silently into the sofa, but there was nothing I could do about the smell.  For a week or so, she scolded my social transgressions, but then she stopped, only flashing an occasional evil eye at particularly egregious offenses.  Eventually, she stopped even doing that.  Either she had become desensitized to it or was beginning to realize that her ballooning gimp of a granddaughter was a lost cause.

That latter possibility sent my digits darting back beneath my blanket.

The only bodily function grandma happily acknowledged was hiccups.  “Means you're growing,” she’d say with a smile.  And I was, too.  By leaps and bounds.  Of course, I wasn’t leaping or bounding anywhere.  In the past, pounds found it difficult to hit my moving target, but now that I was stationary, their attacks were landing from all sides. 

Apart from my blind probes beneath my blanket, I tried to ignore the damage they were doing.  Whenever I shed my ersatz skin to hobble to the bathroom, however, I noticed the deepening depression I left behind in the cushions, felt the brush of my widening hips against the cold porcelain of the sink, and sensed the sideways glances from the stranger in the mirror. 

My reticence to face my reflection affected my hygiene.  I routinely skipped brushing my teeth and showers, which were already difficult in my cast and medicated condition, became even less frequent.  Of course, this made the occasional glimpses I did get even more ghoulish.  My bright smile yellowed, my lustrous hair grew matted and lifeless, and my sharp features softened to the pallor of uncooked dough.  I had felt like a zombie ever since my injury.  Now I was beginning to look like one. 

Grandma kindly filled me in on other changes. 

One day, after claiming I had “gotten gamey,” she demanded I remove my nightshirt for a sponge bath.  It was hard to argue.  I’d worn it several weeks in a row, and the fabric, which previously draped loosely off my figure, now gripped it like a second skin.  It was stained with food and sweat and, though I had grown accustomed to it, had the intermingled odor of each. 

After peeling the garment from me like an overripe banana, I lay down while Grandma ran a warm washcloth over my naked body.  Her expression remained neutral as she scrubbed me with the same intensity she had scoured me for ticks the previous summer.

“You’re getting tiger stripes,” she said, finally breaking the silence.  Her proclamation had the untroubled tone of someone predicting rain after observing clouds. 

I craned my neck to see what she was talking about.  Vertical red lines had erupted below my belly button on the left side of my abdomen.  They looked like claw marks my fingers might have made during one of their expeditions.  

“Here, too.”  Grandma transferred the cloth to another crop of rosy blemishes erupting on the opposite side.  She buffed at them like they were scratches on a Ferrari.  Needless to say, they didn’t disappear. 

As I strained to see beyond my belly, Grandma diddled the skin bunched beneath my chin.  “Waddle! Waddle!”  

“Grandma!”  I cried, collapsing back onto the pillow.  

“Flip,” she commanded with a smile. 

Face-down in the mattress, I couldn’t see the changes to my backside, but Grandma clued me in anyway.  Not verbally, like she did my “tiger stripes,” but the way her damp cloth lingered in folds and recesses that hadn’t traveled with me on the plane.  Grandma spent most of her time in these areas, cleansing them of sweat and crumbs and whatever else had accumulated there besides calories.  Even the parts she glossed over alerted me to my body’s changing topography.  The way the cloth bumped across the backs of my previously smooth thighs.  The height of her hand as it crested over my bum.  And the shiver-inducing ascent up my spine to cleanse a fat roll at the base of my neck.

“All finished,” she said, giving my bum a playful smack.   “Feel better?”

“I do,” I said.  And I did, though it took a disconcerting amount of effort to flip back over.   

“Good.” Grandma used her cane to retrieve my discarded nightshirt from the floor.   “Dinner will be ready soon.” 

“Are you going to wash that?” I asked as she shuffled off, my nightshirt extended on the end of her cane like a talisman to ward off odor-adverse spirits.

“Wash it?  I’m going to burn it.” 

I smiled, thinking it was a joke, but I never saw the shirt again.

***

Despite the amount I ate and slept to “keep up my strength” and “restore my energy,” I grew progressively weaker as the weeks went by.  Grandma, on the other hand, seemed to be sipping from the fountain of youth.  

I suppose, in a way, she was. 

She awoke at 5 AM to make breakfast, and while I ate, she would prepare the living room for my extended stay.  After getting me settled, she’d sometimes "sit for a spell," but more often would drive into town for medicine or provisions.  She’d ask if I wanted to come, but I never did.  It was too much effort.  Besides, I didn’t have anything left in my suitcase that fit anyway.

Grandma always looked relieved when I’d demur.  Perhaps it was nothing.  Or maybe she didn’t want her crippled blimp of a granddaughter slowing her down? 

After returning, she’d prep in the kitchen until lunch was ready.  It was only then that she’d finally relax for a meal and an episode or two of Downton Abbey. 

One day, as we watched Lady Sybil squeeze into a corset with the help of her attendants, Grandma commented, “Maybe I’ll get you one of those my next time in town.  Hide how healthy you’re getting from your mother.”

Ordinarily, Grandma’s euphemistic affirmation of my increasing “health” would have sent my fingers scurrying beneath my blanket at the earliest opportunity, but the way she said it was unsettling.  As was how I’d occasionally catch her staring with a goofy, faraway grin. 

“What?” I’d ask after finishing whatever I was stuffing my face with at the time.

“Just impressed with how grown up you’re getting,” she’d say, before redirecting her gaze back to the TV.

Sometimes she’d gape at exposed appendages that my blanket no longer sufficiently covered.  My thick thighs.  My jiggly arms.  Or my burgeoning breasts as they peered above the forest of fringe like wary beasts.  After either pulling the blanket up or pushing it down, as the case required, Grandma would snap from her trance.

“Time to make dinner!”

There was no slowing her down after these voyeuristic shots of adrenaline.  If I objected or offered to help, she waved me off.  To be fair, my offers of assistance were as lazy as I was.

“Be sure to use your cane.”

“I don't need it.  Besides, I thought you were using it?”

That shut me up.  I had, indeed, been using it in the close quarters of the bathroom, where my crutches kept banging into things.  The thought of my septuagenarian grandmother buzzing around unencumbered while I scuffled around on a cane made me swallow my pride.

Along with a few more donuts.

***

Despite zero effort on my part, my ankle gradually improved, and without the need for constant pain medication, my brain fog began to lift.  By the sixth week, most of my discomfort came from the squeeze of the cast, which, unlike the rest of my clothes, couldn’t simply be shed once outgrown.  By that point, my plaster boot and my wool blanket were my only attire--the former a fixed medical necessity and the latter a final concession to modesty.   Neither did their jobs very well.  The cast pinched my foot in perpetual sleepy tingles while the blanket covered my ballooning body about as effectively as a table runner. 

I was finally hungry for activities besides eating, however.  One afternoon, out of boredom, I pulled an old photo album off a bookshelf…

And that’s when a picture of what was happening to me began to develop.

I recognized most of the people captured in the faded and slightly fuzzy photos.  There was Grandpa Dan dressed in overalls, smoking beside a pumpjack.  That looked dangerous.  As did an image of Grandma Millie deep-frying a turkey in a giant steel drum.  No wonder life expectancy was so much lower back then. 

As I flipped further back, the photos got older and the faces less familiar.  Fortunately, Grandma had written inscriptions beneath most of them.  There was my Uncle John at age seven, looking dapper on his first day of school.  And Aunt Joan, Mom’s older sister, holding a Raggedy Ann doll at age four.  There were Christmases and cousins, and church picnics…

What I didn't find were photos of my mom.  

“Why are there no photos of Mom?” I asked when Grandma came into the room.

“Of course, there are,” she said, sitting beside me.  She flipped through the pages one at a time.  “Hmmm.”  

About halfway through, her finger landed on a group photo around a Christmas tree.  “That’s her!”

“Where?”

“Right there.”

Squinting, I could see a girl’s partially obscured face floating in a sea of appendages and ugly Christmas sweaters.  It could have been anybody.

"She's being shy," Grandma said.  "Let’s see if we can find a better one.”

Grandma continued to flip through.  Just when it looked as if she wouldn’t find one, she harpooned a photo with her finger.  “Thar, she blows!”   

Actually, she said, “There she is!” but if anyone merited a whale-sized warning, it was the fat girl in the picture.  I had originally glanced past the photo, thinking it was Grandpa Dan changing a tire on his truck.  Now I realized the spherical object beside him wasn’t a truck tire--it was my mother in a black dress. 

“Wasn’t she a peach?” Grandma asked. 

As round as one, I thought.  The photo didn’t have an inscription, but she appeared to be about seven.

“I made her that dress.  Do you like it?”

I nodded politely, but her attire made her look like a tire.  No wonder she’d been so shy in the Christmas photo.  People probably mistook her for the tree.

“You remind me of her a lot," Grandma continued wistfully. 

I swallowed hard.  I wanted to point out that no teenage girl wants to be told they remind someone of a spherical seven-year-old, but I bit my tongue.  It was the least fattening thing I’d bitten in weeks.

Once I was aware of my mom’s shape and shyness, and how grandma liked to dress her in urban camouflage, I spotted her in other photos.  She’d be behind a table, or lurking in the shadows of siblings, or blended against heavy machinery.  It was like a game of Where’s Waldo? 

Where’s Whale-do? 

Thar, she blows!

It might have been amusing a month ago. 

***

The next morning, after Grandma got me settled on the sofa, she headed for the garage with her purse dangling from the crook of her arm and keys jingling in her hand. 

“Can I come?”

Grandma looked surprised.  She had abandoned the formality of asking me if I wanted to accompany her to town and seemed ill-prepared for my sudden request.

“I…I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetie.”

“Why not?”

“You need your rest.”

“That’s all I’ve been doing.  I need a change of scenery.”

“Do you have anything to wear?”

Grandma was as aware as I was that nothing in my suitcase would fit me.

“You could get me something.  I could wait in the car.”

“Honey, it’s 100 degrees.  Eat your snacks.  Watch some TV.  I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Wait!”

The gears of the garage door drowned out my protest.

I scrambled to my feet and limped after her; my shrinking blanket held like a cape around my neck in my right hand, and Grandma’s cane clutched in my left.  By the time I reached the garage, however, the metal door had shut, and Grandma was gone.    

“Fuck!” 

I threw Grandma’s cane toward the sofa.  It bounced off a cushion and into the TV tray, toppling both it and its contents onto the floor. 

“FUCK!”

Clambering toward the mess, my injured foot struck the base of the coffee table. 

“FUCK!”

I collapsed face-first onto the sofa.  Writing in agony, I blindly probed the shag carpet for pills that had been tossed from the fallen ramekin.  I found four.  I couldn't tell what kind they were through my watery eyes, but I didn't care.  I swallowed them dry and prayed for medically induced relief to kick in. 

***

When I awoke, the sunlight had faded, and so had the pain in my ankle.  For a brief second, I thought the whole thing might have been a bad dream. 

Then I saw Grandma’s smiling face.

“Hello, sleepy head.  You made quite a mess while I was gone.”

I lifted my head.  It felt as heavy as the rest of me.  The carpet had been cleaned, and the fallen TV tray was righted and restocked.

“Sorry about that,” I said.  My head and eyes once again surrendered to gravity.  “It was an accident.”

“I see,” Grandma responded.  Even in my groggy state, I could tell that she didn’t believe me.  “Do you like your nightshirt?”   

“Mmm-hmm.”  I was vaguely aware that I was clothed, but I didn’t bother looking.  I was just too sleepy. 

“Isn’t that cow pattern perfect?”

A surge of energy suddenly lifted my eyelids.  “Why?”

“Because we’re on a farm, silly.”

Sure enough, the cream-colored nightshirt was splotched with asymmetrical black blobs.  They looked a little like food stains.

Grandma frowned at the garment’s fit. “I probably should have gone another size up.  I forget how grown up you’re getting!”

I swallowed hard.  “Don’t you mean fat?”

“Oh, honey,” she said, patting my leg.  “You’re not fat.  You’ve just blossomed into a woman.  And women have hips and butts—” Grandma smiled and began to tickle me— “And bellies and great big udders!”

I erupted in fits of indignant laughter.  “Grandma, stop!” 

She didn’t.  She kept poking at me as I struggled in vain to protect myself. There was too much ground to cover, and Grandma kept finding squishy gaps in my defenses. 

“Please, stop!”  Somehow, through my tears and my body’s convulsive fits, I slapped Grandma’s hand.  “I said, stop!” 

Grandma recoiled from the tickle-fest.  “Ow!”  She shook the hurt from her fingers, but it remained in her eyes. “I didn't realize you were so sensitive.”

My instinct was to apologize, but once again I bit my tongue.  Maybe this was why Mom never apologized.  She’d used them all up as a child.       

“I think someone’s a little cranky,” Grandma said, rising to her feet.  “You’ve had a big day.  Why don’t you take another nap, and I’ll wake you when dinner is ready?”      

I didn't want a nap, and I didn't want dinner.  I wanted to go home.   

But I nodded anyway. 

Then I nodded off.

***

“I made you a smoothie,” Grandma said, noticing me stir.  She was in her recliner, watching a game show.  “I’m not going to bother with big meals if you’re just going to blame me for making you fat.  Besides, I’m already on thin ice with your mother.”

The TV tray beside me had been cleared of everything except a giant glass with a straw sticking from the top.  I had planned to refuse whatever Grandma prepared, but the smoothie looked refreshing and the only thing I’d eaten since breakfast were the pills I had dug from the carpet. 

“Thank you,” I said, lifting the glass.  Grandma didn’t reply.  She was obviously still upset from the slap and the tipped TV tray.

I took a sip.  Pear, of course.  There was a pear tree on the farm that I would sometimes help Grandma harvest, and the rest of my visit would be spent finding creative uses for them all.  Pear pies, pear ice cream, poached pears, pickled pears--whatever we could come up with to satisfy grandma’s “waste not, want not” mantra.  After several summers of pear everything, it was far from my favorite fruit, but the smoothie itself was tasty.

At that moment, I decided my last two weeks on the farm were going to be different.  I had gained a substantial amount of weight, but with my ankle almost healed, I could cut out the pain meds and start getting some exercise.  Maybe if I substituted a few more meals with smoothies, Mom might even recognize me when I get off the plane.  

Unfortunately, my optimism vanished with the smoothie.  As I slurped the final sip, brain fog rolled back in, and my self-help plan was abandoned in favor of a half-dozen chocolate chip cookies Grandma brought me for dessert.   

***

The last two weeks passed in a foggy flurry of sleep, smoothies, and sponge baths.  One day spilled into the next as easily as dribbles from my smoothie cups spilled onto my nightshirt.  

At least they blended with the cow pattern.  Grandma was right, it was perfect.  

I was vaguely aware I was still getting fatter, which I couldn’t understand since I was mostly drinking fruit smoothies.  Nor could I comprehend why I was still so groggy when I wasn’t taking pain pills anymore.

I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to solve these mysteries, but in my addled state, I didn’t have the strength to confront Grandma or even ask questions.  What was the point?  She’d just rationalize it and deflect blame.  “I wouldn’t have to grind pills into your smoothie if you didn’t spill them on the floor,” or “My smoothies wouldn’t make you fat if you didn’t eat all those potato chips and drink all that soda in between them.”  And she’d be right.  At least enough for heavily-medicated me.

So, I silently shoveled in whatever bullshit she fed me.  

***

“What do you think?”

The morning I was to have my cast removed, Grandma entered my bedroom holding what appeared to be blue curtains.

“Are those for the living room?”

“No, this is for you, silly.  It’s a dress.”  She held it in front of her with both hands, disappearing behind the wall of fabric.  “You’ve been sleeping so much, I’ve had plenty of time to sew it.  I hope I got the size right.  I started it several weeks ago and…well…why don’t we try it on?”

The thing was hideous.  The bulky material was bound together by quarter-sized silver buttons that ran between a lacy white collar at the top and a matching white band along the bottom.  It looked like it should be hanging from a shower rod.

“Get up!  Get up!” Grandma urged.  “Let’s see if it covers all your bits and bobs.”  Apparently, she’d incorporated some of Downton Abbey’s old English vernacular into her vocabulary. 

I shrugged and threw back the covers.  Rising sluggishly to my feet, I bent forward and extended my arms over my head like a chubby Supergirl so Grandma could corral me in her curtain dress. 

“No,” she said.  “It buttons up the front, so it should be easy to put on.  After all, I won’t be around to help you next time.”

Did I hear right?  Did she really expect me to wear this monstrosity when I got home?

Despite having been designed to require minimal sartorial assistance, Grandma insisted on dressing me like an oversized Barbie.  The monstrosity fit fine over my arms—Grandma had seen enough of my “guns” to know to leave some room in the sleeves—but we ran into trouble buttoning it over my belly.

“Suck in,” Grandma said, stretching the fabric tight.  There was an inch of pasty white skin separating the button and the hole. 

I did as she directed.  The inch vanished but reappeared in my chest, where the gaps between the already secure buttons grew.  This was bad, particularly since I’d given up my bras weeks ago.

“Grandma, I can’t wear this.”

“Would you rather wear something else?”

That shut me up again.  I hadn’t thought about what I’d wear to the appointment.  I hadn’t thought about much of anything for a long time. 

“Fortunately, I have something that will help.”  Grandma scurried into the hall.  She returned a moment later with a device I recognized from our favorite show.

“You bought me a corset?”

“It’s not a corset.  It’s called a ‘Tummy Trainer.’  Isn’t that cute?”

I held out my arms like a Vitruvian mannequin as Grandma manipulated my excess flesh into the Latex and Velcro contraption.  If Lady Sybil had access to such modern materials, she wouldn’t have needed so many attendants.

“There,” Grandma said, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow.  “Let’s try now.”

With my hips cinched and my stomach squeezed, the buttons finally closed and looked like they would remain so as long as I didn’t do anything rash, like sit, eat, or breathe.

“Perfect!” Grandma said triumphantly.   

She guided me to a vanity in the corner of the room.  It was draped with my old clothes, ostensibly so they could air dry after washing, but they'd hung there for weeks.  As Grandma removed the articles one at a time, my reflection pieced together like a horrible puzzle—

The shapely eighteen-year-old who’d arrived on the farm ten weeks ago was gone.  She’d been replaced by an amorphous mass I didn’t recognize and didn't want to. 

“Beautiful!” Grandma gushed.

I was anything but beautiful.  I looked like the blueberry girl from that old movie.

Grandma wrapped her arm around me.   As she gently squeezed the fat pinched between the Velcro flaps of my Tummy Trainer, she smiled into the mirror, admiring her handiwork.  

Both the gown and the girl beneath.     

***

Like everything else, the trip to the hospital was a blur.  Even in my dazed state, I couldn’t help but notice the sideways stares from nurses and the attending doctor.  It was the same one who’d treated me before, but the way he kept checking his chart I don’t think he remembered me at all.    

After my cast had been removed, he frowned at the purple splotches that ran from my toes to the back of my knee.  “I don’t like the look of your leg,” he said.  I could tell by his disgusted glances that he didn’t like the look of my anything.

Still, all things considered, he let me off pretty easily.  

“Try not to put excessive weight on it for a few more weeks.”

Translation: Don’t gain any more weight, tubby!

“The swelling and discoloration should subside with increased activity.”

Translation: Get your fat ass off the couch!

“Now that the ankle is almost healed, pain medication should be mitigated.”

Translation: No, granny, I won’t refill your drugged-up Granddaughter’s opioid prescription.

Despite the doctor’s thinly veiled rebukes, I felt good as we left the clinic.  No more cast, no more medication, and very soon, no more grandma.  Tomorrow, I’d be on the plane back to my life.  The imminent reactions of classmates, friends, and especially my mother to my appearance cast a small pall on the proceedings, but the breeze against my leg blew away all my other concerns.

I even refused Grandma’s offer of a post-op stop at Burger World.  

***

I decided to take a shower on my final day on the farm.  Free of the cast and sedation, I felt confident I could do it by myself.  The last thing I wanted was another grandma-guided sponge bath.

“Don’t worry, dear.  I laid out everything you’ll need.”

There was expectant excitement in Grandma’s voice as I waddled down the hall to the bathroom.  It was just a stupid shower.  She acted like I was about to head off to college. 

Yet, for some reason, I felt similar exhilaration.  In retrospect, it’s easy to understand why.  It was more than a simple shower, after all.  It was a benchmark on my journey back to independence. 

As promised, Grandma had prepared everything for me.  A fluffy, white terry-cloth towel was folded on the edge of the bathtub, on top of which lay an unopened bar of soap.  Inside the tub was one of those rubber slip-free mats, while a comfy-looking bathrobe—probably one of Grandpa’s old ones—hung from a hook outside.

One thing I didn’t expect to see was the bathroom scale.  It had been removed from the cabinet and placed on the tile floor at the base of the tub.  I’d practically have to step on it to get in.

Maybe that was the plan.

Before I reached the scale, however, I had to pass the mirror.  For weeks, I’d avoided my reflection like my mom avoided calls from creditors.  Eventually, however, we'd both have to pay the piper. 

I decided to get it over with.

During my frozen face-off with the fat girl staring back, I could only think one thing: Thank God I’m leaving.  I could still detect hints of myself behind the limp, lifeless hair, yellowing teeth, and doughy complexion, but a few more weeks on the farm and the vivacious teen who had arrived would be gone for good.

As it was, the hole I’d have to dig myself out of seemed insurmountable.  Sure, I’d gained and lost weight with every visit, but this was more than a few excess pounds accumulated on vacation or the results of sporadic gluttonous explorations of my burgeoning prurient interests.  

This was obesity.   

My sharp features had softened so much that I looked as if I were melting in the summer heat.  My high cheekbones had shifted southward, and the delicate waddle grandma diddled a few weeks ago now drooped in a ring of fat that haloed my entire jawline.  It made my radiant smile, which I had always taken pride in, look lazy.  Instead of brightening up the room, it sagged in a dingy yellow.  It wasn't helped by my pasty complexion, which, devoid of color, caused my stained teeth to catch the eye as easily as they trapped junk food.  Even my button nose and delicate ears seemed to slump on my fattened face.

Things were even worse below my thickened neckline.  My breasts had grown, but not pleasantly.  Rather than rounding into lush mounds that might distract from damage elsewhere, they sagged limply against my chest.  Secondary lumps bunched above them near my armpits, creating a misshapen appearance that diminished whatever allure their increased size might otherwise have brought. 

Further mitigating their prominence was the protuberance of my belly, which shoved my overmatched breasts aside like a bully.  It pushed past them a good six inches before crescendoing at my belly button, where it was bisected by a horizontal crease that looked like a mouth.  With my breasts flopped above it like a pair of lazy eyes, and a jungle’s worth of “tiger stripes” erupting like whiskers on a jowly chin below it, my entire torso resembled a grotesque cartoon character. 

Buried beneath my cartoonish figure were my neglected nether regions.  I lifted my lower abdomen in my hands, bringing a smile to my belly button face and a scowl to my own.  I never dreamed I'd have a FUPA, but there it was.  The good news is nobody could see it.  Not even if I were naked in front of them. 

Of course, who’d want to see me naked? 

My hands slipped lower, and I began probing the shadows for answers.

KNOCK! KNOCK!

"Everything OK?"

"Fine, Grandma.  I’m fine."

"I don’t hear the water running."

"I’m fine.  Jesus, Grandma, please leave me alone."

"OK."  She sounded hurt.  "Holler if you need me." 

Then she left, taking my masturbatory moment with her.  

I tried to continue my mirrored self-inspection, but it was difficult having such a large body in such a small bathroom.  Even with my back against the wall, only parts of me appeared in the mirror at once.  When I faced it, my hips extended beyond its borders, and when I turned to the side, my belly and butt similarly vanished.

I’d need to be in the next county to fit, I thought.  I was already wet, and I hadn’t even turned on the shower. 

The close-ups that were reflected looked like crime scene photos: My belly, clawed red with stretchmarks; my calf, black and blue from the squeeze of my cast; and my ass and thighs, dimpled and riddled with cellulite.   Ugly snapshots of abuse.  All self-inflicted. 

Last summer--when I foolishly thought I was getting fat--my figure had remained pristine.  The pounds were accepted by my blossoming body like clay applied by a Renaissance sculptor.  And while it had been disconcerting to see curves and slopes where there had been none previously, that was a small hurdle compared to the ruinous roadblock of flesh I now faced.

Disgusted, I turned toward the scale, leaving my shelf-like ass behind to moon the mirror.  As it waxed and waned in and out of frame, I stepped on the antiquated device.   

The dial exploded past my erstwhile pinnacle of 143, racing past numbers I figured I'd only ever reach by tweaking the counterbalance—150, 160, 170—and into true fat girl territory—180, 190, 200. For a brief second, the dial boomeranged below that sizable threshold, giving me hope that, for all I’d gained, at least I wasn’t over 200 pounds.

Then it settled on 202.

I squatted the best I could to check the counterbalance dial, hoping it might be off by a few pounds, but it wasn’t.  It rebounded squarely to zero as soon as I stepped off.  To make matters worse, I noticed printing on the base of the scale:

Max. Weight: 280 LBS.

Not only did I weigh more than 200 pounds, but a few more weeks on the farm and I’d be too fat for the scale.  Heck, I might even break the thing.

The thought repulsed and aroused me in equal measure.  Heart racing, I hurriedly turned on the shower spigot.  I felt ready to explode in every way possible. 

I’d satisfied myself in that shower more than a dozen times through the years, but I was determined that this time would be the last.  My weight had climaxed, and so would I, one final time.  Then I would get healthy.  It might be ugly for a while--I could only imagine the grief I would get from my mother--but I’d be home, and my ankle would be healed.  I’d bounce back like I always did, one step at a time.

Unfortunately, my first step into the tub was a slippery one.   The shower curtain rod, which I foolishly grabbed to catch myself, collapsed under my weight and sent all of it onto my injured ankle.  It buckled, and I collapsed.  My butt slammed the edge of the tub and, after teetering there for a second, I toppled in amid torrents of pain and ice-cold water. 

I cried out in agony and frustration.  Grandma would find me, but she wouldn’t be able to get me out.  Not with me weighing 203 pounds and wedged into a tiny tub.  She'd need to call the paramedics.  Maybe even the fire department.  At that point, the only guy to ever see me naked was Jeff Smith, and even then, it was in the dark in the back of his car. Now, I’d be ogled in broad daylight by a brigade of repulsed firefighters.  

Only the pain of my reinjured ankle and the knowledge that Grandma would enter at any moment kept me from redirecting my humiliation into self-satisfaction. 

As I stared at the ceiling, waiting for rescue, my eyes caught the plastic shower caddy suction-cupped to the tile wall above the tub.  It contained an assortment of shampoos, body washes, and conditioners…

And an empty bottle of baby oil that had been tipped on its side.

***

That night, as I slipped dreamily in and out of consciousness, I once again overheard Grandma’s phone conversation with my mother.

“…I warned her not to take a shower, but she’s stubborn.”  Grandma laughed.  “I wonder where she gets it.  Anyway, they recast her ankle.  No, she can’t travel.  I know.  Don't worry.  She’s a smart girl.  A missed semester of college shouldn't hold her back.  No, she fell asleep right after supper.  She still has her appetite, thank God.  Don't worry, dear.  I'll have her healthy as a horse in no time.”          

THE END