Up With The Chickens

Eliza woke well before sunrise, at first dreaming of, then humming along to an oldie but goodie from her favorite songbird. Karen Carpenter’s contralto cooed through “We’ve Only Just Begun.” It lulled Eliza out, then in, then back out of dreamland. She rubbed her eyes and smiled for the she she’d used to be. It had been everyone’s wedding song back then, though it had always seemed theirs alone. Still half asleep until the final stanza, she sighed, sat up, and clicked off the clock alarm. Its digital display read 5:25, the earliest hour she’d seen in ages. She half-expected Big Red to cock-a-doodle, but time had silenced him long ago. Eliza scootched her walker over and used it to bolster herself to full vertical. The more than a murmur of arthritis from her hips reminded her she was far removed from that long-locked, white-laced, blushing bride. No matter, she’d take every day she got. 

“Look at your old girl Eddie—I’m up with the chickens today,” she chuckled. Eliza pulled her index finger to pursed lips, then tapped their bedside wedding photo, depositing a smooch on the face of her forever beau. Up with the chickens had been a real thing for them, not just some silly expression. They’d spent close to forty years running their family farm. That included the aforementioned chickens, as well as pigs, and just under two hundred rotating acres of corn and soybeans. It sounded big to outsiders, but country folk knew it was barely enough to eke out a living, even back in the Seventies. By the Mid-Eighties, corporate farms had begun swallowing up the Midwest and beyond. Still, they got by. Mother Nature wasn’t much help. Central Illinois was drought one year, flood the next. The needle always hovered between feast and famine, though closer to famine than they’d ever let on in front of the kids.

Eliza had sold off the farmland after Ed died but kept their three-acre homestead. Ed and his brothers had built the modest three-bedroom ranch over the grave of her great-grandfather’s dilapidated old two-story. She’d never leave it while there was breath in her lungs. Now, in 2018, their youngest young-un was just shy of thirty, and about to become a mother herself. Eliza could hear Michelle up and rustling about her childhood bedroom. Michelle’s flight was 9am, but the airport was an hour away. Michelle would pad in extra time for TSA and for traffic, not that there was generally much between here and there, but just in case. The forecast was calling for light snow, according to Accuweather on the 6 o’clock newscast. Light snow, maybe traffic, better safe than sorry, she’d told Michelle.

“Better safe than sorry,” Michelle had repeated the night before, then kissed Eliza goodnight.  

“I won’t wake you, Mamma, you get your rest.” Eliza had nodded in acquiescence but set her alarm once Michelle padded off. 

All I do is rest, Eliza had thought, what with her mid-morning nap, afternoon nap, and she fell asleep at least twice during “their” movie. 

“Ooooh honey, let’s watch Beaches,” she’d said, and Michelle had pulled the well-worn tape from the shelf, unsleeved it, then fed it into the VCR. Michelle had handed her the clicker, but Eliza barely made it past pressing play. Her eyes grew heavy during the opening credits. She must’ve dozed off sometime after the characters met as little girls. She watched a shy Hillary meet spirited C.C., but the next thing she knew the characters were twenty-somethings, played by Barbara Hershey and Bette Midler. Eliza awoke again as Hillary lay dying at the beach house. Eliza’s eyes blurred. Two minutes total of airtime of a movie she’d seen countless times, and still she wept. 

“It’s my favorite,” Eliza said.

“I know Mamma. Mine too. ” Michelle handed her mother a tissue, then dabbed at her own eyes, eyes that also turned to faucets with every viewing of their shared movie. 

“I first took you to see it at the Roxy,” Eliza said, and they laughed at the oft-told story of how she’d talked Ed into a Saturday matinee and had gone into labor mid-movie. Michelle entered the world a few hours later, and “Beaches” became their mother-daughter movie. 

Eliza had wanted to tell her at the movie’s end, but couldn’t make the words come out, so instead she’d told her the Roxy story again. And then she’d just been so tired. Her eyes were so heavy, her shoulders so heavy, and dang if she didn’t have to pee. She pushed herself up and scooted towards the bathroom, her legs warm and wet about ten steps too soon. Eliza’s face caught fire with embarrassment. 

“Oh Mamma, it’s okay, I got it, ” her daughter said calmly. 

Michelle cleaned up both Eliza and the floor. She’d helped Eliza pull on one of those old lady diapers, which was even more humiliating, if you asked Eliza. Though if you would’ve just put your diaper on earlier, you wouldn’t have piddled on the floor, she chided herself as her daughter tucked her into bed. 

 “I wish you’d let me get you some help. Just a couple days a week? Mamma?” 

“Oh I’m fine. Your aunt stops by all the time, too much if you ask me, and the neighbors check in on me.” Tell her, a voice said. She couldn’t tell her daughter she had help, too much. A nurse came every Monday and Wednesday, home health care aides on Tuesdays and Fridays. A bather. How could she tell her daughter she had a bather? How could she tell her she’d agreed to home hospice just over a month ago?

Kidney failure. A lifetime of diabetes had taken its toll. 

“We could start dialysis,” Dr. Morgan had suggested.

“Yeah, how much time will that give me?” 

He’d studied his shoes for a moment. She’d noticed, and with that, she knew. His eye contact returned. “Not so much, and maybe not so pleasant.”

She respected his honesty, and pushed for more. “And without it?”

“Not so much time either, but you’ll mostly just be tired. More and more tired. There won’t be a lot of pain, but what there is we can manage for you.”

Eliza had agreed that day, but hadn’t had the heart to call and tell her daughter. She’d been searching for the right words since, and never finding them. Then, yesterday morning, Michelle appeared like magic, flying in from sunny Scottsdale, in the winter no less. It was a glorious surprise on its own, but Michelle brought an even bigger one. 

“You’re finally going to be a Grandma,” Michelle had practically sung, “Oh I wish Daddy could’ve lived to see his first grandbaby. It’s a girl Mamma.” Michelle was five months along, had waited until the supposed safety period, and then another, afraid to jinx it, afraid to be both receiver and bearer of bad news. 

Eliza had wanted to make a celebration dinner, but didn’t have much on hand. Eggs, Ensure, and leftover casserole her sister had dropped off. Michelle ran into town, brought back a pizza from the new Casey’s Get and Go that took over Mr. McMillon’s full-service station. All the old mom-and-pops had slowly been replaced. Still, Eliza thought it the tastiest meal she’d had in years. 

Back in the darkness before the dawn, Eliza shuffled towards the kitchen, hoping to scrounge up some eggs (she had to settle for store bought these days) and toast for her darling daughter. She walk-rolled through the narrow hallway, family photos lining both sides. Her eldest Rick had come just long enough after the wedding to not seem suspicious, and Jimmy had arrived a few years later, a Bi-Centennial baby. It was more than a decade later, in 1989, when Michelle made her way into the world. She wasn’t an “oops” as folks used to say, but a happy surprise, and had brought news of her own happy surprise in person. Neither of the boys had given her grandchildren, “not yet” she said year after year, never losing hope, though it was starting to wane. It sprang anew with Michelle. 

Eliza had whispered a silent prayer then and there. Just four more months, please. I want to see my grandbaby. She repeated the prayer at bedtime, then once more upon waking, though she didn’t want to be a bother. I don’t want to be a bother, she appended the prayer, but please. Reality tugged at her apron sleeves as she put the kettle on for tea. She knew she was getting weaker, and when had she ever taken so many naps. Matter of fact, her eyes were feeling pretty heavy. She’d just make a quick skillet of eggs and pack some snacks for Eliza. It was a long flight back to Phoenix. 

Michelle made it through security with time to spare, and settled into a seat near her gate. She’d been so sure she had heard her mother up and about that morning. Her suspicions had been confirmed with the whistling of the tea kettle, though her spidey senses bristled as the whistle grew louder and shrill. Michelle rushed to the stove and turned off the gas. Her mother was sitting in the living room, fast asleep in her chair. 

“Mamma,” she’d whispered, then louder, but her mother didn’t answer, just let out a light snore. Michelle giggled, then covered her mother with the fuzzy throw blanket she’d pulled out for the flight. Eliza was still sleeping a few minutes later, but Michelle found the “Make a Note of It!” pad her mother had kept by the old wall phone for about a century. She hadn’t the heart to write goodbye, or even utter it to her napping mother.

“I love you. I’ll see you soon Mamma, ” she whispered and left the note that said the same, next to a cup of cooling tea . She smiled as the sun rose along the country road, and grew sentimental as snow flurried around her on the traffic-less highway. 

It wasn’t until she lifted her roll-aboard into the overhead bin, that Michelle noticed it. The outermost pocket protruded more than normal, and rectangularly. She unzipped and pulled out a worn Beaches VHS tape, on it a note: “For the next generation. I love you. See you soon.”

Eliza and Michelle got up with the chickens and without saying goodbye, said their final goodbye.