Eyeball Surgery

She heard that Ronnie was in the mother’s parlor having a conversation. She came through the heavy wooden front door and stood in the entryway, with the coat tree and bench, the stairs, the long floor covering. She kept the door in her hand, the door of childhood, of teenage slamming, the door over which threshold boys had been kissed her first kiss right there on that line.

In her mother’s voice she could hear her mother’s smile, snaggletoothed, the product of bad dental care early on. A smile of great magnitude for its beautiful ugliness. When it came out forcefully there was the sound of the tongue pressing spit against the back of the teeth – a popping sound of little bubbles. She associated this with social occasions, where the spit-popping smile might be followed by an exaggerated grown when the person was gone or looked away. A muttered comment under the breath. In Kate’s child mind, the popping sound was the smile sparkling. When the mother received a compliment. Then there would be a completely insincere “aw shucks” moment when the mother would call herself an ugly old woman, then the smile would be, like a wink, there to acknowledge she knew she was the best. The mother talked through a smile when she was reassuring her children. Kate herad the sound of her voice, low, melodious, prompting Ronnie. And Ronnie expressing some sort of distress.

The mother was going on this day to have surgery on her eyeball. She was going to have an eye patch. She was going to be saved from going blind which her own mother had done at the age of ninety-three. The grandmother was a grand old mother, striking the most matriarchal poses, like a garden chair among violets, an apron full of sugar peas, yes an actual apron, and a blind smile for the granddaughters at her matriarchal knee. The granddaughter obviated the mother as the mother now obviated her daughter – without thinking, without effort – the oldest generation with wisdom and quilts, the picturesque gifts abstract and concrete. The next generation by making bathtimes more fun, by giving sugar, unsafe toys. And there was Ronnie, the youngest mother, pushing granola bars, demanding to be thanked.

As it turned out, Kate discovered, by listening intently and holding her breath, Ronnie was only considering getting new glasses herself, while her mother was getting the surgery. She was going to let the doctor see what he could do with her astigmatism, she said. Not a word on if she had or hadn’t trusted Kate to be the one to ferry the mother to the doctor. If the mother would wake up and say to the nurses, “Oh, my daughter Ronnie brought me here, can you get her?” or if she would say, “This is Kate, my middle daughter, and she brought me here today,” or if she would forget who they were entirely and call them both Babe or Frances or if she’d ever wake up at all. Just Ronnie making a plan to get some glasses. Kate shuddered and went in.