Eighteen

“In a neat little town they call Belfast, apprentice to trade I was bound. And many an hour sweet happiness have I spent in that little neat town.”

Nina could hear the rest of her family belting out the lyrics to yet another song as she dipped the soaked sponge into her grandmother’s mouth. Claire’s lips twitched as the drops of chardonnay found their way down her throat. Her head jerked, and her eyes closed. A groan of what Nina hoped was approval came next. Nina knew that if her grandmother could speak, and if she could swallow without pain, she would have asked for more. The Delaney’s always want more. Nina set the sponge down next to the Black Box and noticed that some wine spilled on her grandmother’s nightgown. It was a standard nightgown, blue with random moons decorating the fabric. Nina was pretty sure her mom had gotten it from Target in a three pack on clearance. It wasn’t because she was cheap, it was because those were Claire’s favorites. Nina wondered if her grandmother was comfortable in that hospital bed. Nina’s own pajamas were always comfortable, thanks to her grandmother, who would send her a card and pajama gram for her birthday every year. Those pajamas had the same types of patterns, hearts, flowers, moons, and probably the same quality, too. As each birthday passed, Nina knew that those types of pajamas became less and less acceptable for her to wear. But to Nina, those pajamas were better than any Victoria’s Secret satin pair of matching pajamas that her friends always had. She remembered seeing her grandmother a few months before for Thanksgiving, right after she fell. She was sitting in the hospital bed, scowling at the food the nurse set on her tray table.

“Jesus, they expect me to eat this?” Claire didn’t attempt to touch the food in front of her. Nina was impressed that her grandmother had managed to maintain her normal spunk even after a hip replacement.

“I guess they count on sick people not having much of an appetite anyways?” Nina replied. This made Claire smile, and Nina felt a jolt of pride at her grandmother’s approval.

“You have a point there, Nina. It’s cruel, I tell ya! I could really go for some wine right about now. They won’t even let me out for a smoke break.” Her grandmother’s scowl deepened as she finished her sentence.

“Seeing as how you’re on oxygen right now, I don’t think you should be too mad that they don’t want you near flame. The best I can offer you is a nice view of the highway outside.” As Nina replied, she walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open, allowing sunlight to filter through the drab room. This made Claire chuckle.

“Of course, you’re right. What would I do without my smart granddaughter here to keep me in line. Hey, when did you get so tall?”

Nina smiled at the memory of her grandmother and her spirit. She was a woman of few words, but when she did speak them, they were strong ones. Nina admired that about her. Her smile remained as she remembered her grandmother’s comment on her height. Nina had been growing a lot lately, the proof was in the constant joint aches in her legs and back. Her pajamas from last birthday were creeping slowly up from her feet whenever she wore them, and her mom would often tease her for how dorky it looked to wear pajama pants that barely go down past your calves.

Now, another birthday was about to pass, but Nina knew there would be no pajama gram this year or any other. She wondered how long she could get away with wearing the same fraying bottoms from last year’s gift before they fell apart or she simply couldn’t fit in them anymore. It had been three days of the same routine; a Hospice nurse coming in and giving Claire drugs, ones that treat only symptoms and not the things that cause them. Nina didn’t even know what the cause was, no one did. It started with a fall in the tub and then came the weakness and then she couldn’t move. And now her grandmother just lay there in front of her on a hospital bed in the master bedroom. She was breathing, existing, but it felt like she was already dead. Her ability to speak left her yesterday, and now groans were all that remained. The harrowing noises her grandmother made echoed through the halls day and night. The noises seeped into Nina’s dreams and distorted them, contributing to the shadows under her eyes.

On this day, one of the few times the entire Delaney clan would all be in the same place, Nina whispered, “Happy St. Patrick’s Day,” in her grandmother’s ear. She kept her voice soft and hoped that she didn’t wake her. She was almost scared she would wake up, but of course, she didn’t. She was far away in some drug-induced haze, hopefully feeling no pain. She turned the lights off, knowing that everyone else in the family had already said goodnight to Claire, which was heart-wrenching to watch and explained the intoxication level in the dining room. When Nina left the room, she left the door cracked open.

On a normal day, Nina could only describe her family as crazy. It was as simple as that. Holidays were filled with endless card games, fights, music and lots of alcohol, and St. Patrick’s Day was no exception. The entire family of seven kids, each with their own spouses and broods of kids crammed together in what normally seemed like a large house. The festivities would usually go on until at least one of the siblings passed out. After Claire fell, it put a damper on Thanksgiving, but the stubborn Delaney’s managed the festivities as efficiently as possible given that she couldn’t leave the hospital after her surgery. Nina thought it felt weird not having their matriarch present for Thanksgiving dinner. It was okay because it was a temporary weirdness, or so they all believed.

Then December came, and Claire wasn’t recovering as expected. That weirdness, an unwelcomed guest, remained as the weather got colder and on Christmas Eve, Nina attempted to make her grandmother’s famous mac and cheese as Claire directed from her wheelchair, barking out orders and sipping Chardonnay. That night, Nina’s first anticipated bite of mac and cheese felt unfamiliar. She must’ve done something wrong because the cheesy goodness on her fork didn’t taste like her grandmother’s at all. She looked around the table to see if anyone else noticed the discrepancy, but no one would meet her eyes. She remembered turning to her grandmother, who spoke as soon as she saw Nina’s apologetic look.

“Well, looks like we’ve got a new cook in the family! Watch out Nina, now everyone’s gonna put you to work in the kitchen.” She chuckled as she continued to finish her entire portion of mac and cheese, even though Nina knew that her medication took away her appetite. Nevertheless, Nina had smiled back at her grandmother and went to work on her own plate of mac and cheese and forced every bit down. As the new year came and went, Nina went back to school from winter break, and Claire stayed at their house, becoming less and less independent with each passing day. It was around late January when she fell again that family began trickling in and out, staying for a few days at a time, supporting Claire, and Nina’s mother as her health deteriorated rapidly. Nina remembered thinking these visits were fun at first, the laughter-filled evenings were a nice distraction from school. Then, there was more crying than laughter, and Nina didn’t look forward to them anymore. The visits became more frequent towards mid-February, as Claire’s body refused to get better. When there weren’t family members visiting, Nina would change into pajamas and go into her grandmother’s room where she would work on homework, finding peace in the comfortable silence between the two. Claire became weaker, and Nina would help her mother get Claire fed, bathed, and ready for bed. Come early March, the terminal diagnosis wasn’t surprising. She was enrolled in hospice a week later, moved into the master bedroom to fit the hospital bed. Nina often wondered how it must have felt for her own mother to know that her mother was dying in her bedroom. She didn’t think she’d be able to handle it and dreaded a time in her life when she would have to. Hopefully, it was far, far down the road.

Now it was St. Patrick’s Day, just hours before Nina turned eighteen. Nina’s transition from her grandmother’s room to the hallway was a distinct one. She felt like she was walking through a toddler’s art project. They hyper child had only covered half the canvas, and the vibrant array of paints were streaked across the living room. The blush of whiskey on her dad’s face warmed her, the squeals of the fiddle screamed out to her. She took in the scene greedily, reveling in the animated display. She let the life in the room welcome her, and the purple under her eyes added to the canvas. For a second, Nina wondered if her grandmother could hear the fiddles. As soon as the thought dared to enter her mind, she heard the voices of her aunt and uncle around the corner of the hallway.

“So, the doctors said two days at most. Can you believe it? Two fucking days!” Nina’s aunt slurred, not even attempting to whisper to her brother. Grief was taking its toll on her already emotionally challenged aunt.

Nina’s uncle whipped his head back and forth to make sure no one heard his sister and shushed her. This made her let out one of her long, drawn-out chuckles that seemed to end nearly twenty minutes later. The laugh made Nina think of her brother in the dining room, alone in the wolves’ den. He hated their aunt’s laugh.

“Jesus, keep your voice down! If Elise hears you, we’ll be stuck with the waterworks all night.” Her uncle started chuckling, too, his voice only a little bit clearer than his sister’s.

“Damn, I could use a smoke a right now,” Nina’s aunt said, her laughter dying down. She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her back pocket.

“Ah, gee, I thought you quit. You know those things will kill ya, sis.”

Nina’s aunt wasn’t laughing anymore and the two stared at the unopened pack of cigarettes in between them in silence. The noises of the rest of the family in the dining room stayed muted in the background. Then, the two began laughing again, even harder than before. Nina’s aunt took the plastic off the box, and the crinkling sounds were grating to Nina’s ears. Her aunt offered her brother a cigarette and he grabbed it without hesitation.

“Here’s to dying, little sis,” he got out between laughs. Nina knew that this comment would’ve gained a chuckle from her grandmother, who was the most dedicated smoker in the family. The two touched the tips of their cigarettes together in a cheer. Her uncle put the unlit cigarette into his mouth, his reddening face made his hair seem even whiter than it was. Nina hoped that the early gray gene, the Irish crown, skipped her generation. Her aunt and uncle slowly walked towards the door to the patio. When they opened the door, Nina heard a commotion.

“I got ten bucks on Mark,” Her uncle yelled out the door to his brother-in-law.

Nina rolled her eyes. Her cousins didn’t need any more encouragement, and they sure as hell didn’t need their uncles to turn her backyard a boxing ring. The shouts from outside disappeared as Nina’s aunt and uncle exited and closed the door behind them. Nina turned around the hallway corner and headed to the dining room, where she could hear drunken voices sing along to a shanty.

“Her eyes, they shone like diamonds. You’d think she was queen of the land. And her hair hung over her shoulders, tied up in a black velvet band.”

It was 8:00 pm, four hours until Nina technically turned eighteen. Those of her family who were still standing upright were in the dining room, slurring the words to a Delaney favorite tune. Her Uncle Danny’s bellowing laughs harmonized with the music, and Nina grabbed a beer and joined them. The cold glass would’ve felt foreign in her hands a week ago, but in the past few days she’d come to know the feel and come to love the bitter taste in her throat when she drank it too fast. When she sat down, Nina’s mother held her glass out to her almost eighteen-year-old daughter in a salute. She attempted a speech, but too many chardonnays and not enough sleep prevented it from making much sense. Nina thought to herself that at her last birthday party, spent with a few close neighborhood friends, they would have already done cake and presents. Her mother would be cleaning the dishes in the kitchen and Nina would hang with her friends. They would be drinking diet soda and talking about what boys they liked and what colleges they were going to apply to.

Nina observed her family with the same fascination she always had, like a child’s first visit to the zoo. She sat crushed between her mother, who was looking through old pictures, and her Aunt Elise. Her mother’s chair was turned away from Elise’s. She was glad they weren’t sitting next to each other, as a fight could break out at second with those two. Her aunt smiled at her with heavily lidded eyes. Her head was swaying to the music, and she was holding her empty glass out like Nina would her phone flashlight at a concert. Nina’s eyes continued to trace the dining room table. Her brother, Steven, sat across from her, filming the raucous, pathetic and wonderful scene unfolding in front of him on his phone. Their father, Andreas, was grabbing their uncle’s shoulders to make him dance. Nina thought that “giggling” was the only way to describe the noises the two men were making. They were acting not unlike two schoolboys on a playground. She thought they looked young. Tears glistened in their eyes, and age marks on their faces smoothed into laugh lines and dimples, things more common in boys than men. Nina smiled at the thought of her father as anything other than a grown man. She took in the room around her. She thought to herself, “So, this is what it’s like to sit at the grown-up’s table.” Uncle Danny was nearly screaming the lyrics now, his red face continuing to darken as he howled.

“So, come all you jolly young fellows. I’ll have you take warning from me. That whenever you’re out on your liquor, beware of the pretty Colleen.”

Uncle Danny stumbled upright while singing and now stood next to Nina’s father, arm around his shoulder. The two of them leaned on each other, with their balance shifting dangerously as they rocked back and forth. As the last chorus approached, Nina thought she heard a noise from the bedroom. She listened closer amidst the crescendo of the music and heard it again, a groan. She looked around the table full of grieving, drunken siblings to see if anyone else heard it, but they continued their shanty, either unknowingly or willingly oblivious. Nina clenched her eyes shut and downed the rest of her beer. She slammed the glass down on the table and screamed with the rest of them, holding the last note of the song for a few seconds longer than necessary.

The song ended, and a comfortable silence followed as they waited for the next one to begin. Elise’s puffy eyes slowly closed, and her head leaned back a little. Danny and Andreas leaned against the wall, arms still slung around each other. Steven put his phone down and smiled at their mother who still held the photos in her hand. They were all catching their breath before the next song assaulted the silence. Nina listened and held hers, waiting to see which sound would penetrate the silence first, and was devastated when Claire’s groans joined their breaths a second before the next song did.

Nina’s mother and Danny shared a quick glance, and the two stood up and headed to the bedroom as the next song began. Andreas left the room as Elise tipped her empty glass back into her mouth, desperate for a few more drops. Nina stared at the scars on the wood table.

In the strained silence, the room felt claustrophobic as the air compressed tighter each second. It was hard to breathe, so no one did. The fiddles of the current song seemed faint in the background, the sounds softly bouncing off the gray walls. It seemed to Nina that the sounds were suffocating, too. Their slow pursuit around the room was decelerating with each breathless second.

“In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty, I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone. As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow, crying ’cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”

Yet another Irish ballad rang through the speakers. The air rushed back into the room, along with Nina’s father, who belted out the lyrics with a freshly opened bottle of whiskey in hand. The volume of her father’s voice surprised Nina and she closed her eyes and gulped down another breath. The combination of the deep breathing and her first beer made her head spin. Her father rushed out of the room and came back with a full French press in one hand and mug in the other.

“Here.” He set the mug down in front of Nina and said, “Drink this, honey. Then you’re allowed to turn eighteen.”

She smiled at her father as she picked up the mug. But once it was close to her nose, she winced at the smell and her father laughed at her.

“You have to be able to handle a true Irish coffee if you’re gonna call yourself Irish, Nina!” He gave her a firm pat on the back and she glared back at him.

“Dad, what are you talking about? You’re not even Irish!” She playfully smacked his hand away, which made him laugh again. Her grandmother wasn’t Irish either, at least not by blood.

“Thank God for that, honey! But, hey, I can still enjoy a nice whiskey every now and then... I think your mother’s side has rubbed off on me a bit! I better go take a shower.” He chuckled at his own joke.

Nina had never seen her father drunk before, or more likely had never been old enough to notice, but to use her mother’s saying, she was sure he was three sheets to the wind at this point. Danny had come back into the room, alone, during this exchange.

“Bah, come on, Andre, you know you love it!” He jabbed Nina’s father in the side and reached for the bottle of whiskey. It was time for recess once again.

Andreas left and returned with more mugs, pouring coffees for Steven, Elise, Danny and himself. Nina tracked how much whiskey each person poured into their coffees and wasn’t surprised to see that her aunt had poured the most. After everyone’s mugs were full, her father held his up and gave a toast. The song continued to play in the background.

“She was a fishmonger. And, sure, ‘twas no wonder. For so were her mother and father before. And they wheeled their barrow, through streets broad and narrow, crying ’cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”

“This one’s for you, Claire. These always were your favorite…. the one Irish thing you could tolerate.” He snickered again to himself.

Nina noticed that he looked up and toasted the ceiling, even though Claire was just a few rooms over. She looked at her father. The blush on his face made him look more related to his brother-in-law than she ever thought possible. She held her breath and took a sip of the dark liquid and coughed.

“You guys drink this willingly?” she choked, and her father and uncle laughed at her.

Aunt Elise shot her a lazy smile and finished the contents of her mug. Nina took another sip and swished it around in her mouth for a few seconds. When she swallowed, it didn’t burn as much. A few sips later and she could tolerate the bitter sting of the drink. She sang along, voice louder than before, with the rest of her family at the table as the song came to an end.

“She died of a fever, and sure none could save her. And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone. Now her ghost wheels her barrow through streets broad and narrow, crying ’cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”

A few refills later and it was 10:00 p.m., two hours until Nina turned eighteen. Her father and Danny now puffed on cigars, whiskeys in hand, looking like men again. Her mother still hadn’t returned. In her empty seat was the stack of photos she’d been looking at earlier. Nina finished the remains of her second coffee and picked up the stack. The photo on the top was one of her grandma and grandpa dancing. Her grandma was smiling up at her husband, with a look that Nina was too young to remember seeing on her grandma’s face. Her hair was a little messy, and the purple fabric of her dress was flowing in the still photo. The two people in the photo looked like strangers to her. She was only four when her grandpa died, and his face wasn’t the detail her young mind held onto. No, it was the taste of melted ice cream, chocolate “bugs” and maraschino cherry juice, that’s what her mind held on to. It was the smell of cigarette smoke and his booming voice, and Claire’s quiet laugh echoing from the corner. In Nina’s recent memory, Claire Delaney was always in the corner, smoking a cigarette, observing the chaos around her with a small smile.

The smoke from her uncle and dad’s cigars added a murky gray to the scene at the table, darkening it. Through the stinky mist, Nina could swear she saw her grandmother in the corner. She was watching her rowdy children and son-in-law. She smoked with them and smiled. She stayed in that spot for the rest of the night, inhaling her menthol, drinking a glass of her beloved chardonnay, listening and watching. At some point in the night, her daughters would fight. She would stand up, and the fight would escalate, then the three women would go to bed on bad terms, saving the making up for the morning. At the thought of the Delaney women, Nina remembered that her mother still hadn’t come back.

It was sometime after 11:00 p.m. when Nina got up slowly, set the photo back on the table, and tested out her balance. Her legs shook a little as she headed to the master bedroom, her head cloaked in the warmth of whiskey. She paused by the door and leaned against the wall, grateful for the support. The cracked door allowed her to watch the mother and daughter in the room. She saw her mom tucking her mother in, humming some unknown tune for only her to hear. She whispered comforting phrases in her ear, about how everything was going to be okay, and how much she was loved. Her grandmother’s eyes were closed, but an occasional groan still escaped her mouth. The soft and low hums of the lullaby tangled with the hyper sounds coming from the dining room. Nina realized how loud they had been all night, and she thought to herself that she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with all that noise. But as she stared into the bedroom, the shrieks and howls of the fiddle and guitar were overpowered by her mother’s lullaby. She remembered the comfort of hearing her own mom’s voice, the voice that could chase away the monsters in the closet. Nina wondered if she needed to start taking notes. It would take a while for her voice to sound like that.

She watched as her mother as she kissed her mother’s forehead, not knowing if it was goodnight or goodbye. Her mother walked out and closed the door behind her. She looked into Nina’s eyes, which were a bit hooded like Elise’s. Those hooded eyes had tears coming out of them, as Elise’s would inevitably at some point in the night.

“I’m so sorry, Mama,” Nina barely got the words out before more tears started leaking out of her heavy eyes.

“It’s okay, sweetie.”

Nina let her mom embrace her and savored the smell of the perfume on her T-shirt collar. They stood there for seconds. They stood there for hours. When they detached from one another, Nina’s mom kissed her on the forehead and told her how much she loved her. As they headed back to the dining room, Claire began to groan again. Nina and her mom didn’t stop. Instead, they listened to the song that was beaconing them.

“Now I don’t want a harp nor a halo, not me. Just give me a breeze on a good rolling sea. I’ll play me old squeeze box as we sail along. With the wind in the riggin’ to sing me a song.”

When they entered the dining room, hand in hand, everything was just as it was when Nina had left. The two “boys” hollered the words to the fisherman’s tune, their voices hoarse and weakening. Steven was yawning and texting his girlfriend. Elise’s eyes had finally closed and her relaxed head slightly swayed until it eventually landed on the tabletop. Nina looked at the clock and saw that it was 11:54 p.m. Six minutes until she was eighteen. Six minutes until she was one step closer to the bedroom. Six fewer minutes to practice her lullaby.

“I know it’s a bit early, but Happy Birthday, honey. I love you more than the sands in the desert,” her mother whispered in her ear as they stood in the doorway, watching their family.

She gave her mom a smile and leaned her head on her shoulder. They stayed there for a while until Nina’s mom walked over to Elise and shook her awake. She whispered something into her ear and the two women headed into the kitchen. Nina saw them take something out of the fridge. She moved closer to the doorway to listen.

“Alright, now where did I put the candles?” Nina’s mom was moving frantically around the kitchen, opening every drawer.

“Fuck, I don’t think I can open this,” Elise slurred through smiling lips. She was struggling to open the plastic that encased the store-bought cake while she laughed slowly. Her voice was hoarse from singing and probably crying. She gave up and instead sat in a barstool and watched her sister move faster than her mind could comprehend at that moment.

Nina laughed to herself at her aunt’s pitiful attempts to rip open the plastic, and at how red her mom’s face got at Elise’s proclamation.

“Ugh! You’re god damn useless is what you are!” Nina’s mother yelled at her sister, and Elise scrunched her face up, pouting like a child.

Nina told herself to remember this moment, she would use it against her mother, who told her to never use the Lord’s name in vain. After making the mental note, she turned around and let the music drown out the bickering of the two girls in the kitchen. She knew they probably wouldn’t be having cake anytime soon. Even with the howls of the men, Nina still heard it when her grandmother’s groans started again. She looked down at her phone and saw that it was 12:02 a.m. One of her favorite songs had just started to play.

“Wrap me up in me oilskins and jumpers, no more on the docks I’ll be seen. Just tell me old shipmates I’m taking a trip, mates. And I’ll see you some day on Fiddler’s Green.”

“Happy birthday to me,” Nina muttered to herself. She didn’t want anyone to hear. She didn’t want to interrupt the song. She was almost glad that she avoided the awkward Happy Birthday song that her friends and parents would usually sing to her on her birthday. She never did know what to do while everyone sang.

She made her way over to her father’s speaker and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw Claire in the corner of the room, soft voice singing along with everybody, and Nina joined in as she turned the volume up until the groans were no more.