A word that always had a lot of power for me and my sister as kids was “bittersweet.” We threw that word around with wild abandon. Everything we liked the most seemed to be poignantly sad yet beautifully joyful at the same time. “Bittersweet” has been coming up a lot for me lately as I deal with grief for my Grandpa.
Bittersweet
“I’ll just watch!” I say in a hopeful tone, eyeing the colorful Uno cards skeptically.
“Thhhhhhhruack.” The cards clap into place as Grandma shuffles the deck, snapping them into an efficient pile.
“Come on, Elise, it’s just Uno,” Mom implores. “You know how to play Uno.”
But card games make me nervous. I’m always afraid I’ll add up the numbers wrong or play an illegal card and that doing so will expose just how ignorant and dull I really am. Besides, haven’t I had enough stress for one day after that piano recital? Shouldn’t we be celebrating? When can a kid get a break around here? I was hoping for a quick congratulatory dish of ice cream and cookies, not a game that always feels vaguely like an interrogation.
“Let’s play teams, then,” Grandma suggests. “Here, come sit next to me.” She pats the smooth wooden chair next to her. “Grandpa and Gina; your Mom and Dad; you and me.”
I don’t like the idea of leaving the seat in the bay window overlooking their backyard – that bench seems custom made for children’s bootys – but the idea of escaping probable mortification if I try to play on my own is too tempting to refuse. Besides, this way I can watch the birds while we play. Already, I spot a cardinal bouncing from branch to branch on their enormous maple tree. I can’t hear its chattering through the window because everyone is making so much noise inside, Gina scooching her chair around, Mom and Dad laughing, Grandpa rattling pots and pans in the kitchen, but I can imagine the chirping of birds.
“Ok. I’ll hold the deck and you tell me what to do,” I agree, reluctantly. I don’t let on that, eventually, I’ll go to the bathroom, where I’ll take a long time – long enough for them to forget me – and conveniently forget to take the cards back when I return. I am truly devious, I think, as I smile to myself. I look forward to scrubbing all the dead skin off my hands with Grandpa’s lava soap and then putting on some lotion to make my hands feel slimy and soft.
“Can I put on a cup of coffee first?” Mom asks.
But Grandpa has already anticipated her request, and I hear the coffee maker hiss and sputter as it comes to the end of the cycle. “Sorry, it’s decaf,” he says as he struts through the kitchen with a cup in his hand. He almost does a little dance as he bounces down the kitchen walkway. He hands the steaming cup to her.
“As long as it’s as black and strong as the night itself, I’ll be happy.” She takes a sip of the coffee. The warm and nutty aroma permeates the kitchen, overtaking the smell of cooking meat and gravy that had lingered from their lunch before.
“If it’s decaf, maybe I can have a cup – since it’s a special day and all,” I suggest, expectantly. “I did just do a really good job at my recital. That was a hard song.”
“After this game we’ll have ice cream and cookies,” Grandma says for an answer, dealing the cards in to three piles. I get the picture.
I’m holding seven cards in my hand and Grandma leans over my shoulder, whispering directions. “Put all the yellows together, then all the blues, then the greens, then the reds. Ok, now put them in numerical order.” The only card without a number in our hand is the Wild Card. When she leans over and points to it, I can smell the powdery, floral scent of her makeup and perfume. “I always put that one on the end,” she whispers with a wink.
After getting our hands in order, we argue about who’s supposed to go first for a few minutes, finally deciding that Grandpa and Gina would get the honor since they are the oldest and the youngest people present. And then the game starts for real.
It doesn’t take long for Mom and Dad to get down to a single card. Grandma whispers in my ear, teaching me how to strategize in tense moments like that. “If you play that red Draw Two card, your Mom and Dad won’t be able to call Uno yet.” I throw it on to the pile.
“What!” my Dad shrieks, laughingly. “I’m not doing that! You’re a cheater!”
“That’s the rules!” I yell back at him, smiling broadly. He pouts but draws the card.
The move goes back to Gina and Grandpa. Grandpa points to a cards in Gina’s hand. “What do you think about this one?” He asks. She beams at me, throwing down another red Draw Two. Then she laughs with a childlike malevolence that only my special sibling senses can detect.
I purse my lips, narrow my eyes, and wrinkle my brow at her as I draw two cards. But then I smile. I’m holding a red Reverse card. I look at Grandma, eyes wide. “Should I do it?” I don’t even bother to whisper.
“Go for it,” she laughs.
The game goes on like this for a long time, with taunts and laughter and raised eyebrows and shifty eyes. We peek over our cards at each other, sneakily, as though shielding our faces with fans.
But finally, Gina begins to lose interest. “When do we get our ice cream?”
I realize that I had gotten so invested in the game that I forgot about my plan to escape to the bathroom. It was just so fun clobbering my family members with the help of my Grandma’s war-like strategizing. Then again, I am ready for a treat, so I don’t argue when the game goes unfinished as Grandma leaves the table for the kitchen. She removes a number of small, delicate crystal cups of pre-scooped green sherbet from the freezer and places them on a tray, along with a stack of strawberry wafer cookies. When I take my cup, it almost burns to the touch, its surface crusted with frost. When I set it down on the table, glassy fingerprints remain on the surface. The sherbet is tart and cold. The cookies are delicate and crisp. And the cup of (decaf) coffee that Grandma places before me is milky, bitter, and sweet.
Taking My Own Freshman Composition Class 