Canning Season

Every August, Grandma cans peaches, plums, and the weather. It’s hot and tedious work since we boil water to sterilize the mason jars and lids, but Grandma says opening a nice jar of August in cold February does more for her arthritis than any heating pad.

“You can’t duplicate that warmth,” she says. Even before the lime-colored jars are lined up on shelves in the basement, Grandma rubs her fingers in anticipation and makes me take a couple pints home. Though I’m thirty-six, I admit August will be welcome in a few months when I feel the pangs of arthritis from typing too long at work.

I live four blocks from Grandma, who calls every other day and invites me over for banana split dinners since she’s eighty-five and doesn’t have to justify herself to anyone. Since Grandpa passed away she’s been more flexible with meals and meal-planning, but Grandpa was a meat-and-potatoes guy while Grandma likes being creative. Half the time when I come by Grandma is canning stories, speaking them into sterilized jars and sealing them tight.

“For you to open when I’m gone,” she says.

“We could record you instead,” I say.

She shakes her head. “It isn’t the same. You can play those stories over and over, so you don’t have to listen. A canned story is different. You get it once. Some of them I might have canned a few times. The important ones.”

Does everyone’s grandma start talking like this at some point, in the future tense of not being around? Does every grandkid offer the same uncomfortable smile I give in return? But Grandma doesn’t look uncomfortable, just asks if I can bring more empty jars from the basement since she’s run out again. When I walk downstairs and look at the jars of stories lined up on metal shelves, some of them have a firefly glow. Others look dusty.

Grandma says I must stay for dinner. Macaroni and cheese with buttered crumbs on top. She’d pack my lunch if she could. Caring for other people has been her mission in life, and caring for me has been a way to fill that hole since Grandpa died. Sometimes caring for someone else means letting yourself be cared for, like not rolling my eyes when Grandma reminds me to dress warm on January days when it’s minus ten outside. Caring for Grandma also means nodding yes when she asks me to take her wig shopping since her hair is getting thin on top.

“Half the ladies in Garden Club have a wig,” she sighs. “I suppose it’s time.”

“My other grandma had a wig,” I say.

“I worry people look at me in the grocery,” she says. “The old lady who’s going bald.”

I wrinkle my nose. People aren’t looking at her, they’re deciding what kind of soup to buy, but I don’t argue with Grandma.

“How about this one?” she says as we stand in front of mannequin heads wearing an array of wigs that are gray and slightly poofy. She tries on wig after identical wig.

“That one looks fine,” I say.

“That one looks good,” I say.

“That one looks like you,” I say.

“Make up your mind.” She frowns.

“They’re all nice,” I say.

Grandma sighs. This may be a story canned for later.

“You’ll need to write the stories down after you open the jars,” she tells me when we go out for coffee after our wig excursion. She wears the one she decided was least itchy.

“I thought I was supposed to listen,” I say.

“Listen and write it down,” she says. “They’re stories about everyone. Me, your grandpa, your mom and aunt when they were little, and you and your cousins.” Grandma doesn’t keep scrapbooks, just glass jars. She says everything will go to me when she passes on because I’m the only person still in town who gives a damn about her stuff. It’s a scary proposition to be appointed keeper of her memories.

“Auction what you don’t want,” she says. “Just don’t tell me about it.”

Usually Grandma and I have good chats, but sometimes all she can talk about is my inheritance.

“Can we spend a minute not preparing for death?” I say.

She frowns. “I want you to know everything is taken care of. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not worried,” I say. “How could I be worried with all the jars in the basement? If I have any questions about what you want me to do, I’ll open one.”

She shakes her head. “I want you to savor them and remember your grandpa and me.”

“I don’t want to remember you talking about how you’re going to die,” I say. She wrinkles her forehead and grabs a napkin for her eyes. I sigh, return to the coffee shop counter, and buy a donut for each of us.

“I want to be with you now and eat something bad for me.” I rest my hand over hers, too aware that death is always present, the smiling skull behind our faces that nobody wants to talk about except for Grandma.

On the way home she gives me instructions on how to care for her fifty-odd houseplants: Which ones to water every third day, which ones to water once a week, which ones to water only if the pot feels light, and to open a jar of August for them every so often during winter months. Because I love her I don’t say that I’ll take her plants to the assisted living facility when she’s gone. Under my care they’d die.

Grandma is telling a sex story into a jar when I arrive. At least I think that’s what she’s doing. She puts the lid on when I step into the kitchen, and smirks like she wants me to ask what she was canning. Someday this story will pop out of a jar, my eyes will get wide, and I’ll need to cool off with a jar of February.

“Ready for the dentist?” I say.

Grandma has all her natural teeth. Grandpa had dentures for the last five years of his life and said it wasn’t bad, but Grandma was the one who dropped them in cleaning solution every night. After his stroke she was his nurse, chef, chauffeur, lover, librarian, and out-loud reader. Grandma wasn’t used to being someone’s universe. I think it bothered her more than she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to let someone else take responsibility for those duties. A couple times Grandpa asked me if I thought they should get someone to help around the house for a few hours a week. One of those home health aides.

“No,” said Grandma. “I can handle everything.” It was a matter of pride. She didn’t want anyone else to wipe Grandpa’s ass, but I knew they had rough patches when she was tired and his needs were almost more than she could handle.

Taking Grandma to the dentist isn’t hard since I work at the front desk. While she gets her teeth cleaned I call the insurance company about a patient’s denied claim that needs to be recoded, greet three patients and make sure their paperwork is in order, and reschedule an appointment that someone needs to cancel. I take Grandma home on my coffee break.

“I have enough empty jars in the kitchen for now,” she says. Grandma probably thought of more things to tell me while she was lying in the chair with her mouth open, and she wants to can more August while we have a bumper crop of heat. “Come back for dinner. I’m making waffles.”

Sometimes Grandma is determined to save every story that pops into her head, but she’s had second thoughts about a few of them. Beside the jars of August there’s another shelf that she’s “thinking about keeping.” I haven’t asked about those stories, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised when I come for dinner, hear the crash of breaking glass, and find Grandma in the basement with a torrent of words rising around her. I stand at the bottom stair lost in the swirl of sentences she saved then decided to shatter.

The words are bright pink and burgundy, a story about an argument with Grandpa that happened when Mom was a kid. He didn’t want Grandma to keep her secretary job, scared she’d cheat on him with another guy at the office. She hurled back that he had eyes for her cousin.

Another smash of glass. I’m hit with the blue steam of summer and a Fourth of July picnic when my grandparents had been married for eight years. Grandpa chatted too long with Grandma’s cousin and was too complimentary of her frozen fruit salad. Grandma knew something was up, almost took my mom and aunt and drove to her mother’s place. She said that if Grandpa wanted to shack up with that floozy, he could have her.

A third jar erupts with a story about the day Grandpa was shuffling to the bathroom with his wheeled walker and didn’t make it in time. Grandma yelled at him for making a mess in the hall when he could have used the plastic commode in their bedroom and she would have emptied it out. He cussed back that he’d thought he could make it, and he didn’t want her to carry around his shit. She said that was better than cleaning it off the floor. They both cried after that fight and had pancakes and bacon for dinner.

I’m entranced by the day-glo words of my Grandma’s voice. It almost doesn’t sound like her, especially when she was burning with anger at a younger version of Grandpa. Was their marriage sometimes held together with string and duct tape, frail years when they stayed together because they had kids? I suppose there are many marriages in which people find cracks and must decide whether to reach for the glue bottle or hammer, and she never let on to their difficulties after his stroke—

When Grandma glimpses me on the stairs she’s quiet, but the shelf of questionable stories is bare. I walk over carefully, brushing aside broken glass with my toe, and hug Grandma who’s trembling with memory.

“Didn’t need to save those,” she mutters into my shoulder.

“All stories aren’t sacred,” I say, though people usually aren’t good at knowing what to save and throw away until after the fact. We are left with the jumbled archives of their memory, letters and diary entries and family gossip, a mishmash of words and mysteries to save and sort. I grab a broom from the corner of the basement to sweep up glass. Grandma toddles upstairs and grabs the kitchen broom to help me.

“I’ll buy more jars in February,” she says quietly. “We need to preserve the chill for August when we want the scent of snow. We’ll keep it in the coolest part of the basement.”

I don’t know what I’ll do when Grandma is gone and I’ve crammed all the mementoes I need into the corners of my apartment. Maybe I’ll put in earplugs, open all the jars in the basement, and try not to listen. Maybe I’ll open the jars one by one and hold my breath, wondering what version of my grandparents I’ll find. Maybe I’ll sell the house and leave the jars to people who won’t feel their weight. They’ll pry off a lid and find a hint of summer, or a curious tale from someone else’s life. But now I must sweep shards while Grandma asks if I could find a jar of cherries we canned last July since she’d like to make a crisp.

“I’ll tell you about the year we forgot to take the pits out of half of them,” she says with a smile and a sniffle. “That was a good story.”