Tyranny

Nana had been jumpy all day, as if the very air was filled with something annoying. She was impatient with the dogs, hurried us through breakfast and out the back door, and began stripping beds with a grim and tight lipped urgency. My mother wisely kept silent and asked no questions, making herself scarce in the upstairs, but there was still a sense of an approaching storm although the day was clear and warm and perfect.

My grandfather had arrived that week, bringing with him a tension that we could all feel but not precisely name. My mother turned suddenly timid and hesitant while my grandmother became edgy, filled with nervous energy and an eerie sense of free floating watchfulness. It was an odd, unwelcoming time, almost fearful, and somehow we knew it would be safer to keep from being underfoot or in the way. My grandfather's presence was oppressive, good behavior and quiet were required. Without being told, I began to realize that he didn't much care for children or dogs, that Nana's friends were not as likely to drop by while he was there, and that he preferred the solace of whiskey and cigars to family. He was accustomed to being obeyed and in control, becoming social only when well fortified with alcohol and it was passably strange to discover that while he was respected and a little feared, he really wasn't much liked.

Unlikely as it seemed, this odd pairing of personalities had produced my mother, an only child, deeply troubled and discontented, seeking solutions in alcohol and anger, never making peace with her family and bitter to the end. It was impossible to imagine my grandparents in love or intimate or even young, out of the question to picture them as new parents. Later I would come to speculate that perhaps the pregnancy had been an accident without an easy remedy, that this had been a couple who would've been happier remaining childless. I had often thought the very same thing of my own parents, having heard my mother repeatedly complain how her children had ruined her life and taken from her everything that mattered. As I grew older, I began to suspect that this was little more than convenient scapegoating and that children or not, she would've found a reason to be miserable. She no more met her parents expectations than they met her's.

My grandfather stayed a mere week and when he left, he took the bad air with him. We watched him go, relieved and guilty and admitting to neither - secretly grateful for the return of blue skies and summer, for the freedom to be ourselves. It was a quiet and private celebration for the departure of a petty tyrant.