Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Nana and Hannes forever
Not anymore.
Now, my tears keep rolling down my cheeks, wetting my sweater. My heart is like an open wound, infested with puss and sorrow, and sitting here at Nana’s house—myhouse now, I guess, after thirteen months of fighting for it—I feel like it’ll never heal again
With a stuttering breath, I wipe my eyes on my sleeve. I get to my feet, square my shoulders, and walk around to the back.
It’s not as bad as I’d feared, yet at the same time, it’s worse. Nana died before she had time to harvest last year, and it shows. The biannuals and the perennials have self-seeded, and not in orderly, organized rows. Whatever annual plants she’d planted last year had died, leaving behind brown dead flowers and vegetables.
The herbs growing in the raised beds have fared reasonably well; the mint has loved to be left unsupervised and is trying its best to make its way out of the contained area and down onto the grass.
But everything else…
I sigh, fall to my knees, and randomly start pulling weeds. There’s no method to my weeding, but I need to do something with my hands. I work and I cry and I work and I cry until my eyes are so puffy I can hardly see what I’m doing anymore. I sit on my heels and dry my face with the back of my hand, not caring if I leave behind traces of dirt. “Oh, Nana,” I sigh. “Why did you have to leave me?”
I pull a carrot out of the ground and wipe off the dirt on the grass before I take a bite. My parents would faint with apoplexy and probably pop a vein or two in their brains if they saw me now—do you knowhow much bacteria there are in soil, Hannes?—but I don’t care.
When I was little, Nana always took me out to the garden and harvested tiny, tender carrots for me to eat, even though they still had much growing to do. My parents had lectured her on how unhealthy it was, and she’d promised she’d never do it again, but her eyes twinkled, and I knew she was just saying what they wanted to hear with no intention of obeying their orders. What they don’t see won’t hurt them, Hannes.
The carrot is sweet and tastes of sunshine and the earth and makes me miss Nana even more. When I’ve eaten it all, I throw the haulm on the compost, and fish the house key from my pocket, entering through the back door, leading into the utility room.
The house smells musty, and I leave open the door to let in some fresh air. Except for the odor, everything seems normal. Nana’s rain boots in the garish flower pattern stand neatly in their usual place, waiting for her to shove her tiny feet into them. Her straw hat that made her look like a film star from the fifties hangs on its hook, and in the basket next to the door are the little bits and pieces she’d needed to have nearby when outside, like gloves, kneepads—“for my creaky old knees”—and the homemade lavender-arnica salve she always used on her hands. I unscrew the lid and inhale. The beeswax and the floral scent bring more tears to my eyes, so I quickly close it again and try to shake off the overwhelming grief.
A basket of dirty laundry is still atop the washing machine, and the sight of her favorite cardigan—lavender-colored, her favorite scent andfavorite color—lying on top, undoes all my efforts to stop crying.
I grab it and bury my nose in the soft fabric, desperate to get a whiff of her, but there’s no trace of her after all this time. If only my stupid relatives—my grandfather, Nana’s younger children, my uncles, and even my mom—hadn’t tried to contest her will in which she left me the house, then maybe I could’ve still caught her scent one last time.
If I didn’t resent their actions before, I do now.
After putting back the cardigan in the laundry basket, I wash my face and hands in the sink. Then I walk into the kitchen and open a couple windows in the hopes of airing out the house.
My plans are to move in right away. I could stay in the room I’m renting while I give the house a good clean and fix whatever needs to be fixed, but I can’t stand being away from it for another second. The waiting, the legal bullcrap, and the overwhelming amount of calls from angry family members wilted my spirit like it was an unwatered plant, but now my roots are back in the soil where they belong, and I’m not leaving.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone