She stands on her bandaged tippy toes to reach the back of the bookshelf with her duster. Taking a closer step, the young woman nearly stops her toe for the umpteenth time since she started cleaning, but still refusing to put on shoes. She stops, returns to her usual slouched stance, and sighs, Leonora never enjoyed dusting, but now that she lives on her own, she knows she needs to do it or it will never get done. Leo looks around her new apartment. It’s a small room with a tiny kitchenette in the corner, with a door to the bathroom just off of it. Her twin bed is pushed against the wall in hopes of gaining more space, it doesn’t work. There is a love seat next to the bed, facing the small tv which is so old, it still has bunny ears, DVDs are stacked in tall piles all around the television. A round table is crammed in the kitchenette with two folding chairs pushed in. The bookshelf is nestled by the front door, filled with books. It isn’t much, but it’s her’s.
Leo returns to the dusting when she suddenly hears noise in the hallway outside her door. Being on the fourteenth floor, she doesn’t hear much commotion, so she stops to listen. There is a bang and Leo realizes someone is trying to get into to her apartment. She jumps back and immediately regrets not listening to her brother when he told her to buy a gun.
A quick glance at the deadbolt reminds the scared, young woman she didn’t lock the door when she came in. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. The door opens and a small, frail, yet spunky, young girl walks in.
“Fourteen floors and no elevator! What kind of ghetto slum are you living in?” The small child proclaimed. She has dark brown hair in two braids draping her shoulders with blue bows tied to the end of each braid, her periwinkle dress looking dingy from play and her barefoot feet covered in dirt. The child’s brilliant blue eyes scanned the room with disgust and admiration.
“Hi there, little one.” Leo approaches the child, kneeling on the ground, “are you lost?”
The child ignores her and sits on the boxy sofa, massaging her feet. “Jesus, child, couldn’t you find a nicer apartment? One where your guests aren’t expected to walk up a hundred flights of stairs?”
Leo smiles at herself at the little girl calling her ‘child’ when she looks to be six or seven herself.
“Would you like me to call your mommy or daddy? I’m sure they’re worried about you?”
“Leonora! Will you stop messing around a get me a drink?”
Leo stands straight and still at her full name being used and the little girl knowing it. She hesitantly asks how the child knows her name.
“Because I’m Grammie. Honestly, I always thought you were the smart one in the family.”
“Sweetie, you can’t be my grandmother, you’re too young.”
The child gets off the love seat and looks at Leo, “If I wasn’t your Grammie, would I know the you were born late at night, your family waiting for hours for you to be born? And when you finally came you were so dark, so unlike your brothers, with a whole mess of dark hair, your daddy thought you were a damn Mexican when you were coming out! But you look to much like him for you to be anyone’s other than his. If I wasn’t your Grammie, would I know that you got that scar on your knee because you wanted to do everything your big brothers did? So when they rode their bikes down Devil’s Peak, you followed, even though you were too inexperienced to handle such a hill and you crashed. But your brothers took care of you, and you only think of the crash as a happy one, not scared or sad. If I wasn’t your Grammie, would I know that you lost your virginity when you were sixteen to that black kid at your school? You were always in love with him, since you met in kindergarten, so you were devastated when he asked that bitch Maggie to the school dance and not you. If I wasn’t your Grammie, would I know that you almost failed out of college and graduated with the lowest GPA of your class? Would I know that you lost your job and you have no money to pay for this shitty apartment? Would I know that you’ve been considering stripping, like your slutty neighbor suggested, just so you make ends meet? Well, would I”
Leo is terrified of this child and worried what is going to come next. Could this be her Grammie Constance, back from the dead in the form of a child? It doesn’t make any sense, but she also doesn’t know anyone else who would know all of this information about her. Her diary doesn’t even have this much dirt on her.
“But, how?” Leo asks
“I came to visit you.”
“Why do you look like that?”
“This was the form available, but I like it.” The child starts to twirl to make her dress swish.
“Why? Of all the things you could be doing in your afterlife, why would you come visit me in my ‘ghetto slum,’ as you called it?”
The child stops twirling, walks to Leo, grabs her hands and looks into her eyes, “I wanted to tell you that I am proud of you.”
Leo, the woman who never cries, welled up––her crotchety, old grandmother, who never had the time to compliment anyone, is proud of her. She got down on her knees so she was face to face with the child.
“You––you’re proud of me?”
“Yes. I am so proud of you and you will make it through these tough times. You can do it, I believe in you. You just have to believe in yourself.”
Leo starts crying as she hugs her grammie.
“You will find a job,” Grammie tells her as she strokes her hair, “you will get out of this rut. And you will go far, farther than I ever went. Farther than any of us ever went. You are the black sheep of this family because you are the one that will be a success.”
The small child gives her twenty-four year old granddaughter one last squeeze before letting go. Grammie walks towards the door to leave the apartment and fades with each step she takes. By the time she reaches the door, she is already gone.
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