The Waffle Maker

“I can’t see it, Gran!” I shouted at the floorboards of the attic.

“It should be in the left corner, maybe on top of the boxes.” She called back sweetly.

I cursed myself as I ran into another cobweb on my left. It was my fault that I suddenly craved waffles and accidentally told this to my very old, very sweet Grandma. Now I was on my fours, deep in decades worth of dust and junk, in an attic that has never been cleaned in its existence. I itched to scrub down every inch of it and organize it to my satisfaction. I didn’t even want the waffles anymore, but I didn’t want to hurt my Grandma. I held the flashlight in my mouth and was sifting through a pyramid of boxes when I spotted the yellow of a round metal sitting on top of the mound.

“I think I see it! Is it yellow?”

“Yes, yes! That’s it.” She clapped excitedly. I chuckled lightly and grabbed the iron and pulled. The cord was stuck between boxes and brought them all down with a crash. Below me there was a shout of concern.

“Are you okay, Sue?”

“Yeah,” I coughed, digging myself out of all the junk. “But I made a mess here. I’ll sort it out, Gran.”

“Ohh don’t worry about it, Sue. Nobody even goes there. Just come down carefully.”

Torn between her words and the desire to bring a hose to this room, I climbed back down to my waiting Grandma.

“Really” I said, handing her the waffle maker. “I’ll be quite happy to clean the attic, Gran -” 

“Nonsense! I will not make my grandchild work when she is visiting me after so long! Leave it, I’ll get someone to do it. Come on, I’ll make you waffles.”

***

“What are we doing?” My Grandpa peeked into the kitchen.

“Waffles!” I shouted, holding up the piece I was about to eat. He reached over and let me feed it to him.

“I keep messing them up.” My Grandma whimpered.

“What are you saying, honey?” He replied, trying to chew the rock hard piece, “These are as good as ever.”

“Yeah, Gran,” I agreed aggressively, surrounded by a bunch of half-burnt, half-cooked batches, “These are the best waffles I have ever - they are not bad.” I trailed under her gaze.

“That’s it!” She declared, “I am done with trying to make them. Get dressed Sue, we are going to the cafe.”

With that, she turned away from the messy kitchen, undoing the apron as she left the room. Chuckling, my Grandpa reached for a burnt piece of waffle on my plate.

“She never was good at baking.” He said with his mouth full. I smiled admiringly as he picked another piece.

***

I had had too many waffles to ever to look at another. At the insistence of Grandma, however, I carried two more for later. I resolved to never tell her again if I am craving any food. When we reached back home, I declared that I was going to sleep, and headed to my father’s old room. I settled in the bed for a siesta, wrapping myself in the blanket like a cocoon. I closed my eyes, comfortable in the soft bed and lazy with gluttony.

Then I thought of the attic. I looked up at the ceiling. It was right above me, junk strewn around all over, getting dirtier by the minute. I shook my head and closed my eyes again. I am here to relax, I told myself. And Grandma probably doesn’t want me snooping around.

I turned to my side and lulled myself, putting away the images of the dingy, dust-covered room, with rotting wood, rusting metal, walls of cobwebs, and centuries’ old dead spider decaying everywhere. Did I just hear a mouse scurrying around?

“Damn it” I said softly, getting up.

***

I couldn’t hear either of my grandparents anywhere. Perhaps, they went to take a nap too. I picked a broom and a dustpan, and tiptoed back to the attic. The stairs of the attic were still down, so I did not create any noise as I climbed up. There was no bulb there, but the flashlight I was using earlier was still on the floor. Okay, I thought to myself, I’ll just clean the floor, remove the cobwebs, and go back.

I put the flashlight in my mouth and started gathering the boxes I had knocked over earlier. I gathered loose sheets of papers, notebooks, and diaries in the box. Overwhelmed by fastidiousness, I didn’t pay attention to what I was putting away till a piece of paper fluttered down from a diary. I picked it up and saw that it was a very old black and white photograph of a couple standing close to each other. Holding it closer, I saw that the man was a very young Grandpa. Excitedly, I looked at the woman, although she didn’t look like my Grandma at all. Thinking of asking Grandpa about her later, I tucked the photo in my pocket and started to look into the contents curiously for more photos. I spent more than an hour looking around, but I could not find any. I pulled out the photo out of my pocket, quite forgetting about the dust and the cobwebs, and climbed down the stairs.

The woman in the photo stood arms-in-arms with my Grandpa, and they were laughing happily at the photographer. I turned the photo over, and my heart jumped to find hand-written words there.

Dear John,

I wish I had returned your love in the past

But lately I long you to be closer than apart

So if you’ll still have me

I’ll happily give you all my heart.

Yours truly,

Ellie

8th Oct 1964

I read the words again and again, not sure how to feel. I had definitely crossed a threshold of privacy, but the photo had fueled in me curiosity beyond measure. I kept going back to the photo, looking at the man that I called Grandpa and the woman I knew nothing about. I longed to know about the woman. How did my Grandpa know her, and how did he come to marry Grandma?

“What is that?”

I jumped. I was so engrossed in the photo that I did not see my Grandma approach me.

“N-Nothing.” I stammered, trying to hide the photo.

But she had already seen what I was holding. Her face turned red as she spoke softly in a voice devoid of any warmth.

“I told you to leave the attic alone. Why were you snooping around?”

“Sorry Gran, I didn’t mean to - I was just trying to clean.”

“I told you there was no need.” Although still stern, some warmth was returning to her voice, perhaps at my apologetic face and tone. I apologized profusely. I had no doubt that I had hurt her by coming upon this photo but a small, selfish, obsessive part of me mused that she knew about Ellie and Grandpa, and the existence of this photo.

I followed Grandma around for the rest of the afternoon, helping her with her chores, trying to improve her mood, and hoping that she would forgive me about earlier. In the evening, Grandpa returned from his walk with arms full of vegetables.

“I thought we can cook pasta for dinner.” He announced, leaning to kiss my Grandma on the cheek. Grandma smiled and nodded enthusiastically. But I saw her smile fall as she turned away, lost in thought.

***

“Gran, who was Ellie?”

It was a few days after, and I still burned with curiosity. Blurting it out like that was perhaps not the best way to approach the subject, and I very much risked offending my Grandma again, but I could not resist. At my utterance, Grandma briefly paused pruning her flower. Then, as if I had not spoken at all, she resumed. Minutes passed and neither of us spoke. She continued her pruning, and I followed her around with a bag of waste.

“El was my friend.” She spoke quietly after a while.

I tried to look at her, surprised at her response, but she faced away from me. Her fingers worked mechanically at the bushes.

“Your friend!” I exclaimed. Then, trying to tone down my shock, I continued, “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her in over 60 years.” She replied.

“She and Grandpa -” Grandma turned towards me, her face pink. I quickly backtracked. “I mean, it seemed like they were pretty close.”

She gave a dry chuckle, trying to hide her embarrassment. “They were almost engaged at one point.”

“WHAT!” Unable to resist myself, I pulled out the photo and read the words So if you’ll still have me… Grandma reached out and took the photo from me. She let the pair of shears fall to the ground beside her, and gently held it in front of her. She wiped the tears in the corner of her eyes, caressing the photo, almost willing the girl to come alive in her garden. Some moments later, she looked back up at me. As if unable to resist any longer, she burst into a story.

“I met El when we were sixteen. My parents had just moved to the same town she and John lived in. She was my neighbor and we immediately took to each other. She was so smart. And funny. She made me laugh so hard. But more than anything, she longed see the world out there. Explore it, be something in it. She introduced me to John a few weeks after I moved to the town. In fact, this is the first day, I met him.” She waved the photo at me.

“You - clicked this?”

“Yes,” She smiled, “My father had just gotten a camera and I offered to click a photo of my new friend and her boyfriend.”

I chuckled. “And then?”

“John liked - loved El. Worshiped the ground she walked on. I had never seen love like that. He wanted to marry her, and I believe she wanted to too. But the day he proposed, she could not say yes.”

Grandma cleared her throat and gazed long at the photo, immersed in the past.

“She ran away in the middle of his proposal, never let him finish. She ran away to me. She said, Sarah, I don’t know what came over me. But I kept thinking whether this is all that my life will be. And I could not think anything else. The next day El left for her Aunt in the city.”

Still glazed with the memories, she bent and picked the shears again.

“John came every day asking for her. At first, he would just go by her house, watching her window for any signs from her. A couple of days later, he would seek me out and beg me to tell him if I had heard from her. I consoled him, told him that she would be back.

“But days turned into weeks and El did not return. She wrote to me once, telling me that she was going to get enrolled in a college soon. Meanwhile, John and I had started spending more and more time together. We mostly talked about Ellie. I still consoled him, even assured him about her feelings. But soon, we were talking less and less about El and then none at all. And before I knew it, I was starting to fall for him. I guess I always was falling for him. Maybe because I longed for the love I saw in his eyes for El.”

She paused to prune a rose bush.

“And then, almost a year after she had left, El returned. I was ecstatic to see my friend, and we spent the afternoon together, looking at photos. When she came upon this one, she gazed at it long, and then asked if she could keep it. I felt a pang of fear and jealousy, but I agreed. Maybe because I felt too guilty to admit to her that I was in love with John.”

The shears hung forgotten in her hands, the rose bush half trimmed.

“That week, Ellie and John met like old friends. They laughed and exchanged stories about their lives. The day before Ellie had to leave, I helped her pack and I saw this photo and her inscription. Frightened at the prospect of losing him, mad with jealousy, I stole the photo.”

At the last word, she gave a sob. I reached over and hugged her. I was quiet the whole time but I still had no words to offer her.

“I kept thinking of giving it to him several times during our courtship, even on the day of our wedding. But I loved him and I was too fearful that I would lose him. So I tucked it away and tried to forget about it. Maybe I did forget about it. But I have always carried the guilt for depriving my husband of his true love.”

***

I spent the rest of the days trying to put Ellie and the photograph from my mind. Grandma returned to her normal demeanour soon, and neither of us spoke of it for the remainder of my stay. We spent majority of the mornings improving our waffle-making skills, and by the time I was ready to go back to the city, we had pretty much perfected it.

Despite my protests, Grandpa insisted on driving me to the train station. As I was putting away my luggage in the back of the car, Grandma hurriedly went inside and came back with the waffle maker. Shouting down my objections, she insisted on cramming it in my already overflowing suitcase. I hugged her goodbye, perhaps longer than required, and promised to come back soon.

***

Grandpa and I sat on a bench in the platform, waiting for my train. 15 more minutes. We talked about my college, and his plans for the guest bathroom. After a while, we fell into silence. Then, I spoke.

“Grandpa?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you tell me about your ex-girlfriends?”

He looked at me, surprised. “What brought this on?”

“Just curious.”

“Well, there was just one before your Grandma. Her name was Ellie.”

My heart pounded. Sleekly, I said, “Ellie? How was she? Tell me about her?”

“She was your Grandma’s friend, and my first girlfriend. I almost married her -”

“Really?” I feigned surprise.

“Yes, but it did not work out.”

The train entered the station. I cursed it for arriving so soon, but we got up and busied ourselves with boarding me into it. Once settled, we said our goodbyes at the door of my compartment. My Grandpa was climbing down to the station when I spoke again.

“What happened with Ellie, then?”

He smiled at me from the platform. “Well, she left for her college. After some time, I started hanging about with your Grandma. And we fell in love.”

I smiled. “That’s sweet, Grandpa.”

“I haven’t seen her since she left for college - I think about 60 years back. She did visit a year after that though." He smiled wryly, "Told me that she still loved me.”

“What?” I almost jumped off the train at his words. “What did you say?”

“What do you mean what did I say,” He chuckled, as the train started to move, “I told her I was too damn much in love with Sarah to ever look at another woman.” 

***