Nancy Hope

Nancy

"What the ef?!!"

Nancy

There was power in the old woman’s voice.  Even while it cracked through the narrow larynx and bubbled through phlegm.  Agnes Rodriguez, Nancy’s grandmother, flexed her hand when it left the statuette then felt her thin gray hair.  As if regaining consciousness of her two audience members she said, “oh and you two look hungry.”  Sara, Nancy’s sister-in-law, had been disinterested through the body of the story but returned to attention during its finale.  Nancy was next to her on the soft couch laden with an out of date floral design she hated.  The couch’s plastic cover had been removed, folded as best as it could be, and lay beneath the table that held the many American figurines.

“Yea, that could do me well,” Nancy answered alertly. She had been an avid listener to the story of her grandmother’s success years ago out at sea.  The old woman had a history with tuna and whale fishing that was lengthy and epic.  The most recent story she told was of how she met her first love.  She had met him at sea but saw him fly overboard, “and sink beneath the violent, curious dark waves of the Atlantic.”

The tales her grandmother told were giving her the same chills that her dreams of late did:  shouting through water and darkness she could never get Seamus’ attention.  The two would be high in bright clear water then he would begin to sink.  She would grab his hands even though she knew it would take them to the dark.  She did not want to go deeper but the thought of staying in the water alone frightened her more.  “The longer I looked the more I wanted to go in after him.”  Her grandmother had said walking over to the figurines. “Why didn’t you?” Sara asked.  How couldn’t you? Nancy thought.  But when Sara asked, “Why didn’t you?” it was all over.  A pale gentle smile formed on the woman and she said, “Oh and you two look hungry.”  Sara looked disappointed but Nancy knew the answer was as deep and dark as the Atlantic that swallowed their grandmother’s first love.

Sara returned to her laptop as their grandma prepared steamed vegetables.  Carla, Nancy’s mom, and dad left three days after they arrived.  For the next week the power and mystery of Agnes Rodriguez took in and awed Nancy and seemed to hardly phase her sister-in-law.  Sara saw Agnes as a cold and bitter woman.  She didn’t’ stay with Nancy and Agnes for most of the time and instead was alone with her laptop or asleep.  Why did she stay in the first place, Nancy had asked herself more than once. 

Despite Sara’s view of Agnes, Nancy had seen her grandmother in a different light.  She saw the woman as wise, candid, and tactful.  The stories she told and the comments she made were certainly cold but were also echoes from the past.  The woman had come from cold times, Nancy rationalized.  The world that now surrounded the 84 year old was as delicate as she was.  Most surfaces were covered with various figurine, her favorite being tiny chubby American-made Porcelain children.  There was crystal-ware carefully placed within a high oak cupboard, a wall-to-wall dark green rug covered the floor, and thick noisy plastic furniture covers rested atop her chair and beneath the table.  That was her new world; her old world was cold, wet, and salty.  It was filled with the sweat of crew members and their cruel sense of humor.  “A joke isn’t a joke,” grandma had said about their crude japes at each other, the world, and her, “but it’s a flash into their soul that you’d otherwise never be allowed to peer into.”

Agnes returned with a covered pot and set it on the dining room table on top of an oven mitt.  More often than not Sara did not return when she left with her laptop.  That’s a good thing this time, Nancy thought, it’s better if I ask grandma when she isn’t around.  She and her grandma began eating green beans and carrots in silence.  Anything could spur another story from her grandma so she thought carefully about what to say.  The original plan to escape with the help from Dell, a college friend, died when it turned out that there was something going on with his family.  Agnes had said she had spoken with Dell who is hiding in the woods.  Since then he had not come by the house. 

There were officers outside his house and questioning people in town.  They guarded his family but did not let them leave the house.  They argued sometimes but mostly just sat out there.  It was so unexpected it made her confused more than anything.  Dell can take care of himself, but how do I get to Crete?  She was determined to get to Crete, a small island in the Mediterranean, one way or another to re-connect with Seamus Grant, her fiancé.  Now she planned to appeal to Agnes Rodriguez, her grandmother, and her last hope, for help. 

Nancy had been afraid for the past week but now he let the flood of suppressed fear and grief swell tight in her gut.  And it was from there she said, “Ok, so the man I am engaged to,” she waited for her grandmother to look up and then let the words linger between them. “He is far away and I need to go see him.  I am well enough to travel alone; I have traveled all my life.”  The reality of the plan is here and now! “I need your help.  You told me about your lost love so I think you can understand and I don’t want to lose mine.”  The eyes across the table that met Nancy’s were hard and wide.  The plan is alive it can take me to him, Nancy thought hopefully.

“You want me to pay your way and not tell your mom and is that all?”  

The question was so plain it surprised Nancy so she said, “Yes.”

“I think you have a plan,” Grandma Agnes started, “and I can see it.  But it cannot work.”

“I’ve been in Spain for the past four years, what does it matter now.  It’s just-”  She knew why it mattered.  It mattered now because Newtopia had closed all flights and cruises to America and Europe.  She sensed the woman was about to tell another story when Sara walked in.  Sara’s face glowed from the laptop in front of it and Nancy’s was bright red from the plan falling apart in front of her own. 

“You’re sister-in-law wanted to go to Culvers but since none of us can drive I told her it was too long of a taxi ride,” Agnes said.  Sara nodded and let the lie hang in the air.  Nancy excused herself and went upstairs exhausted and lost.  She walked up the carpeted stairs in silence and walked to the end of the hall to the room she had been staying in.  When she realized she didn’t want to sleep or cry or be alone she turned around; she wanted to scream.  That was when she did scream because when she turned Sara was there.

“What the ‘ef?!!’” Nancy said as angrily and shocked.

“I can help you get to him.  It won’t be easy, do you want to go?”