Katie and Gigi’s Conversation

Katie and Gigi’s Conversation

By Jennifer Steinhurst

Katie felt cold. She wondered if Gigi felt cold wherever she had gone. It still didn’t quite make sense to her five (almost six!) year old brain as to where exactly her Gigi, her mom’s mom, had gone exactly.

It was such a sunny, pretty day for everyone to be so sad. Mama was sad, so was Tia Lis and Tio Bernard. Mama and her brother and sister all held hands at the front of the church, standing near the box that had her Gigi in it. The church had been decorated all over with flowers on stands and different pictures of her Gigi when she was Katie’s age all the way up to last week.

She wondered if Gigi was playing harps with the angels or burning in h-e-double hockey sticks. She’d heard people saying both as she had walked around the big room where everyone was eating and saying “I’m sorry” to her mama and Tia and Tio. Most people hadn’t noticed the little girl, face pale against her fancy black dress. She thought her Gigi might be in the happy place that Father Darien was always talking about during church on Sundays. She didn’t want to think that her grandmother wasn’t in the good place.

Now, they were back at the church, and everybody was listening to Father Darien talk about how nice Gigi was. Oh, that was good. If the Father said it, it must be true. Heaven did sound like a happy, pretty place.

Katie was still cold. Her new fancy black dress didn’t have any sleeves. She remembered her parents yelling about the dress.

“How can a child not have a single black piece of clothing? How, Bertrand?” her mama had asked.

“Maud, I don’t know what to tell you. She’s the girliest of princesses. She likes pink. Maybe she’ll go through an emo phase when she gets to high school, but for right now just order something and I’ll go pick it up,” her papa had answered.

And the fancy dress had showed up like magic. It itched and was cold and she really hated the color, but she knew better than to say anything right now. It was the same way with any holiday or church dress. She was just happy that she didn’t have wear any of those sorts of dresses for very long. Or ever again, as she kept growing!

Now, Father Darien was done talking. Oh, goody, this must be almost over. But then Tio Bernard got up and started saying nice things about Gigi, his mama. Katie slumped in her seat, bored already with this whole thing. Her mama noticed and gave her The Look. The one that said many things, but this time meant sit up straight and don’t give me a reason to ground you when we get home. She sat up straight and tried to be still and good.

A very long time later, everybody had finished talking and mama said they were going up to the front to say their last goodbyes. Katie wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but she followed obediently.

Papa picked her up to see into the box, even though she was a big girl and didn’t really like being picked up anymore. Inside the box was a shiny doll that looked like Gigi. Except they had gotten the colors wrong. Her face was supposed to be really dark from the sun with lots of freckles. And her mouth was all wrong; why wasn’t she smiling? Gigi was always smiling.

“Go on, Katie. Say goodbye to Gigi,” her mama said to her. As Katie leaned towards the box, the word coffin popped into her head. Then the word dead. As in gone. As in this doll wasn’t actually a doll, as in this was Gigi’s lifeless corpse.

Katie’s head spun and her vision tunneled. For a moment, she saw herself as an young woman, standing next to a gravestone that read:

Esther Nunez

1943-2022

Beloved Daughter, Wife, Mom, Gigi

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God

She was pouring her soul out to the wintry grave. She was talking about her latest crushes and how she was still too intimidated to ask either Stacy or Jake out. She raged about her exam schedule and worried that nursing might have been a mistake. She bitched about her parents who insisted on staying in the big house, even though everyone had moved out and on. She talked about everyday things and things of both great and no consequence.

Katie watched this grown-up version of herself get off the blanket she was sitting on and quaff the last of her hot toddy.

“Thanks, Gigi. You’re always the most amazing listener and someone I can always count on. Love you.” Dusting the snow from the gravestone, she left a small river stone next to the dozens of other small stones.

“Same time next week?” Katherine chuckled and walked away, bundling herself up tighter against the biting wind.

Katie came back to herself in that moment, staring down at the doll that was and wasn’t her Gigi. Her Gigi was gone, but not gone-gone. She could still talk to her, but not get her advice. She wouldn’t see her smile again, but she could give Gigi smiles every time she visited her gravestone. Gigi wouldn’t be there for her exactly, but it didn’t mean she had to stop telling her about everything that she thought about, or did, or said. Gigi could still be in Katie’s life even though hers was over.

She reached over to pat the hand that was crossed on top of the other inside the pretty coffin. She looked her mama in the eye and said, “don’t worry, Mama. Gigi and I will always be able to talk to each other.”

She squirmed to get down and thus missed the look of confusion and slight horror that her mama and papa exchanged over her head.