On our road trip to Sun Valley on Christmas Eve, we stopped at AJ's restaurant in Mountain Home, just across from the truck stop, for brunch with Clara and Louis' Great-Gramma Nina, Gramma Diana, and Great-Aunt Lainer (whose real name is Elaine). Also Grandpa Dale.
Right when we stepped through the entrance, we saw them in the restaurant's back room, where the Rotary Club usually meets. The hostess had put them at a long table. Aunt Lainer, grinning maniacally, waggled her hand at us. Gramma Diana hunched her shoulders forward and pursed her lips with delight. Great-Gramma Nina went the other direction, leaning back, smiling widely and pushing her palms against her thighs.
Grandpa Dale, sipping a bloody Mary, was more reserved, though no less excited to see us.
Gramma Diana got Louis right away. He had just awoken from a nap in the car and was feeling pretty good. He was excited about all the kisses, the smell of Gramma Diana's perfume, and the sounds of the women's voices. Also the way the light reflected off Aunt Lainer's gold-rimmed glasses.
Clara grinned sheepishly as the women cooed and kissed Louis. It was silly the way they were hee-hawing over him and nibbling his cheeks, but it unexpectedly made her feel good, too. She climbed onto a chair next to Simon and sat back on her new pink cowboy boots with the star cut-outs, graciously accepting the giant styrofoam cup of hot cocoa with whipped cream the waitress handed her.
Aunt Lainer, who had flown in from Washington for Christmas, couldn't get over Louis' sheep-skinned-lined hat with ear flaps. Lainer, who is a supervisor in a factory that makes utilitarian office furniture, claimed to have one just like it. Louis gave Lainer some drool-filled smiles and stuffed a fist into his mouth. She had a giant crimp in her gray-blond hair from a ponytail she'd recently worn. She screeched with laughter at something Gramma Diana said and Louis started to cry, his lips quivering as though his feelings had been hurt. I reassured Lainer that he was getting teeth and this was probably what upset him, but she said her gravelly smoker's laugh often makes babies cry.
The food came, piles of starch and protein that were all the same color, but all delicious.
Clara wanted my attention, but I was chit-chatting with Gramma Diana. She climbed up onto my lap, and positioned herself so she was facing me, and cradled my face with her hands. She made my face stay directly in front of hers, and whenever I started to speak to Gramma Diana, she kissed me on the lips with a hashbrown-greasy mouth.
It was lonely at her end of the table. Grandpa Dale was cradling Louis and taking him on a walk around the room while he drowsed and sucked on his binkie. She had finished the plate I made her by splitting my own in half and arranging the scrambled eggs and cut-up sausage on a little side plate the waitress had given me. The talking women formed a warm nexus, and there was joy there.
After a minute she slid to the ground and started fingering Great-Gramma Nina's maroon cardigan. The cardigan had leaves embroidered all over it, and Great-Gramma named them for Clara: beech, oak, maple. Great-Gramma Nina grew up in a hollow in West Virginia called "Butt Holler." I am not kidding. It was named for a family whose last name was "Butt." Great-Gramma says growing up there no one ever thought twice about the name.
I mentioned to Great-Gramma how nice I thought she looked. She is on Weight Watchers, and, being an extremely disciplined and focused person, is only about fifteen pounds from her goal weight. She is also only nine stamps short of earning the last Rachel Ray dish in the Albertson's Grocery Store Rachel Ray promotion.
At that point, Aunt Lainer leaned over to Gramma Diana and bestowed upon her the highest compliment paid by women to each other in our family: "You look like you've lost weight."
"Oh, Lainer, you old sweet thing," Gramma Diana said, giving her a side-hug.
Aunt Lainer told how, the night before, she and the other two women had stood at the piano and sang Christmas carols in three-part harmony ("People kind of dispersed at that point," Lainer would later admit). Egged on by me, she and Gramma Diana and Great-Gramma Nina started to hum and would have broken into "Silent Night" right there in AJ's but for a rare feeling of constraint, possibly brought on by the presence other diners.
Grandpa Dale guffawed at the women's singing and, pretending to motion to the waitress, said, "We better get another round of Bloody Mary's."
After a minute, Clara started dancing for Gramma Diana. Clara sometimes wanders our house singing "Johanna" from Sweeney Todd, but replacing the name "Johanna" with "Diana." Gramma Diana likes ketchup on her hashbrowns, too, and there's a cat named Felix that lives at her house in Boise. (Although the last time we saw Felix he was part bald from a nasty case of ring-worm and so couldn't be petted or even touched)
Grandpa Dale sat back down with Louis, who was now wide awake. He walked his long, brown, callused farmer's fingers up Louis' legs and tummy until Louis chortled with glee. Then he gave him back to Lainer, and Louis was content to lie in her arms, comfortable and warm and fascinated by her glasses. Lainer looked content, too, the way some women do when holding babies, as though they're remembering babies from long ago, or maybe just reveling in the warm, soft baby heft, because they don't, very often, get to hold one anymore.
