Misery, Nana liked to quote, loves company.
We were on the road through Western Massachusetts and headed for New York. It was the height of foliage season and my grandmother was in a hurry - her only sister had been hospitalized with a heart attack and Nana was sure that without some assistance and care giving, the family would rapidly come apart at the seams. She had recruited my mother to make the trip with her and I was along for the ride but things weren't going smoothly and the two women were battling over gas prices, where to spend the night, how long they would have to stay, which exit to take, where to eat along the way. I curled up in the back seat of the Lincoln and tried to read and tune them out but soon enough - Nana had warned me about reading in a moving car, telling me it was sure to make me queasy - a wave of motion sickness struck and I settled for watching the leaves fly by and trying to sleep. I was regretting turning down her earlier offer of Dramamine but in the tradition of the women in my family was too stubborn to admit it.
Like the winding countryside road - my grandmother used the interstate highway system only when there was no other available route - the front seat argument waxed and waned, sharply speeding up on the long patches of clear and straight pavement, slowing and easing up on the bends and curves. They sniped about which radio station to listen to, how much to open a window, whether or not to check under the hood at the next gas stop. If there was nothing real to disagree upon, they seemed to invent something out of whole cloth.
We should've left earlier, my mother complained at one point, We'd practically be there by now.
If you'd been ready on time, my grandmother snapped back, we might very well just have.
I hate Vermont, my mother said as we passed a dairy herd peacefully grazing on the green hillside, Nothing but cows and cheese and hillbillies.
Judas Priest! Nana said, slamming her fist on the steering wheel, Can't you do anything except bitch?
My mother gave her a sullen look then turned her face away, a sulky child not getting her way. For her part, Nana stared straight ahead, her mouth in a tight, grim line. Aside from the static-y noise of the radio, there was cold silence for a considerable time. Obstinate to the end, neither woman would have dreamed of apologizing or admitting fault - blame assigned was blame to the bitter end.
In time, we passed into New York and reached the village of Fort Edward, a lower middle class community of primarily blue collar workers and look-a-like manufactured housing. Everything was sparse and painfully new looking, each little home sat on its own little lot but there were no trees or shrubs, no cracked sidewalks or flowered walkways. It was as if each neighborhood had been turned out as identically as the next and the sameness was sterile and almost depressing. Lunch was waiting - hamburgers and hot dogs from the obligatory backyard grill, potato salad and dill pickles served on paper plates to the gathered relatives sitting in lawn chairs and balancing tv trays on their laps. I was left with my cousins while my mother and grandmother drove to the hospital in Glens Falls. As I barely knew them, it was an awkward and uncomfortable few days and it was a relief when my grandmother returned to claim me. She had done her duty and satisfied her conscience - having arranged meals,
housekeeping, visiting nurses - and secure in the knowledge that her family was intact, was anxious to head home.
The drive home was long, tedious, filled with verbal sparring in between long silences. I wondered uselessly about the cause of the conflict between them - were they too alike or too opposite? Did they not know each other at all or know each other far too well? Was it just a bad match or unfulfilled expectations? The rage and resentments between them ran deep and no answers ever came. It was hard to tell who was the misery and who was the company.
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