Karen Raney

Karen Raney has published art theory and criticism, and currently writes short and long fiction. She has been a jail nurse, a guest house manager, a painter, and the editor of engage journal. She runs the Doctorate in Fine Art at the University of East London and is working on a novel.
Contact: karenraney1 [at] gmail [dot] com 

Serenity

 

My grandfather came up with the idea. Or maybe I did. He said it first anyway, but it was me who led him there.  

We had gone to Meridian Hill Park, the best place near their house to walk the dog. My treatments were starting again soon which meant I was feeling my strongest. Still, I would have found it hard to climb the big hill, so we went in the 15^th Street entrance at the top of the park and walked down. Barney, my grandparents’ elderly Golden Retriever, was straining on the leash for the fun to begin. But first we had to pay a visit to the fountain.

If you ask me, the Meridian Hill fountain isn’t really a fountain. It is more like a controlled waterfall. There are thirteen shallow pools leading down to a huge one at the end made of old-fashioned stonework and arches because the place was modelled on an Italian villa. The water fills one pool, then spills into the next until some elaborate system – Grandpa explained it to me once – pumps it back to the top. 

When we got there the fountain was empty. Its chambers of dingy concrete stared up at the sky. Cone-shaped trees filed sadly down the steps on each side. This was its winter look.  

‘Oh well,’ I said to keep up our morale and to hide how cheated I felt. The fountain had been on my mind all morning.  Funny how these days a small thing like running water can be so important. ‘It’s interesting, anyway,’ I said. It’s true I do like seeing the insides and undersides of things normally hidden from view. My grandfather was unimpressed.  

‘What’s the matter with this place? First of May, the water’s supposed to be on. Why isn’t the water on?’ 

‘Don’t worry, Grandpa. I don’t mind.’

‘Well, I mind.’ 

We made our way to the grassy field on the side where we could let Barney off the leash. Strictly speaking this was against the rules. When he knelt to unbuckle the leash I felt honour-bound to say: ‘Isn’t this against the law?’

‘It’s a weekday,’ he scoffed, still annoyed about the empty fountain. ‘There’s no one around. Where’s the harm in it?  You have to keep your own counsel.’  That was one of Grandpa’s mottos: keep your own counsel.  

I had three tennis balls and I threw them for Barney before we settled onto a bench dedicated to someone who, apparently, had ‘loved this park for nineteen years.’ Barney galloped down the slope, doing his best to track the bouncing balls with violent jerks of his head. He preferred to catch them mid-air than to nose them out of the grass. But these days his jaws mostly snapped the air and the balls fell free. He never seemed to mind. There was bound to be something foul and delicious to check out on the way to their resting place.  

‘Have you ever read the Cat and Dog Diaries?’ I asked. 

‘What are they?’

‘This online thing someone wrote. The cat one goes: “Another day in captivity. My guards give me hash and some kind of dry crackers, while they dine like kings on fresh meat…” The dog one goes: “Waking up. My favourite thing! Food in my dish. My favourite thing! Walking in the rain. My favourite thing!” Get it?’

‘I think so,’ he smiled.

‘Chasing balls with arthritis in my hips. My favourite thing!’

Barney toiled up the hill with his lopsided gait, the balls tucked in the loose skin at the side of his mouth where retrievers hold their birds. He made a detour to offer his services to a Frisbee game before dropping the balls one by one at our feet, grinning like a lunatic. Twelve years old and still a lot of go in him.  

My grandfather bent over and scrubbed Barney’s ruff with both hands. ‘Tell me about it,’ he crooned into the watery eyes. ‘All about it.’

I picked up a ball and threw it, making a face. ‘Slimy disgusting tennis ball! My favourite thing!’ Barney hurled himself downhill. It never crossed his mind that he was old. 

‘And he tries to trip his owner,’ I said.

‘Who does?’

‘The cat writing the diary. “Next time I’ll try it at the top of the stairs.”’

‘That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?’ asked Grandpa mildly. ‘Would your cat do that to you?’

‘Of course not! Cloud luuuves me.’

‘Well, then.’

‘But she’s still a kitten.’

‘Wait ‘til she gets to be a teenager. Then watch out.’

My grandfather laughed with his inward-tipping teeth and laid his hand on my head. The weight of it through my baseball cap made me feel safe.

‘Grandpa?’

‘What.’

‘How would you feel if you knew something didn’t want you?’

‘Didn’t want me?’ 

‘Someone, or something, was telling you no. ‘

He studied my face for a minute.  He said carefully, ‘Are you talking about your illness, Maddy?’

‘What do you think I’m talking about?’

He turned his head, suddenly interested in the candy bar wrappers and newspaper scraps dotted about on the grass. ‘I wish they took better care of this place. The best park in D.C. It’s shocking.’ 

I swung my legs under the bench and waited. Barney had missed his mid-air catch again and was sniffing in tight circles at the edge of the shrubbery.

‘That’s a subjective feeling, Maddy,’ Grandpa said at last. ‘I can understand you might feel like that. But it doesn’t necessarily accord with the facts. We have to think scientifically about these things.’

‘Facts!’ I exploded. ‘The fact is there’s something in the universe, or multiverse or whatever you call it, that doesn’t want me.’  

‘Sweetie…’

‘No more Maddy, it’s saying. You can’t argue with that. It’s not saying no to you, is it? Or to Barney, even.’  

‘Well, actually I can argue with that,’ my grandfather began, but I kept the scowl on my face and pushed on before I thought better of it. 

‘You know what I think? I think it all started with my father.’

Grandpa cupped his ear with one hand. ‘Beg your pardon?’  

‘I think that’s where the idea came from. Originally.’  

I knew he had heard what I said because he didn’t ask again. He fixed his eyes on some picnickers sprawled on the grass off to our right, amid the remains of their lunch. The girl was lying with her head on the guy’s chest. The guy had a book spread open on his face; he couldn’t have been asleep though, because his fingers were stroking her hair.

‘Know what I mean?’ I prompted.   

Grandpa’s lips were a thin line and he was tense about the eyes, but I knew that’s just the way he looks when he feels out of his depth. I bet he was longing for Grandma to rise up out of the bushes and take over. He didn’t know that if she had been there, I might not have dared say any of these things.

No one talked about my father much when I was growing up. There was nothing to say about someone who had bowed out so early and did not even know of my existence. My mother answered me when I asked her questions, because she believes in honesty and she always tries to do the right thing. I know my father is Spanish, he’s a scientist, he’s called Antonio, and he has my eyes and hair. Or rather I have his. After Mom found out she was pregnant, they went their separate ways and she never saw him again. They had never planned on having children together, and anyway he had to return to Spain because there was a sudden death in his family. 

I could see beating around the bush would get me nowhere. ‘What I want to know,’ I said slowly, ‘is why would a father not want to raise his own child?’ 

Grandpa spoke at last. ‘I would not call him a father,’ he said reluctantly. ‘A father is someone who does raise his child.’

‘What am I supposed to call him? A sperm donor?’

‘I would call him a young man sowing his wild oats who made a mistake. He was too lacking in imagination, or too weak – ’

‘He had to go back!’

My grandfather looked at me askance, as if that’s the first he had heard of it. ‘Well, whatever happened, the point is he didn’t decide against you. You - Maddy - had not come into being yet. He decided against an abstract idea. He might have regretted it ever since. We don’t know.’

‘But anyway,’ I persisted, ‘the fact is he didn’t want me. As an idea.’ I gave a hoot. ‘And now it turns out the universe doesn’t want me either. You can’t argue with that.’

But Grandpa was prepared to try. He launched into one of his long explanations about evolutionary change and variation and genetic accidents, and the way accidents ensure that the species is strong in the long run.   

‘I get sick so that everyone else can be healthy?’

‘That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is it’s not personal. There’s not someone out there giving Maddy a disease just to be mean. It’s the way nature works. It’s chance. Some people have diabetes and some people have weak hearts. Some people get cancer.’

He had said this before in different ways. I could never decide what I thought about it, which is why I kept getting him to go over it again. I knew he meant it to be comforting and it was in a way, and I wanted it to be. But this idea of no one being responsible - not me, not my mother, not the doctors, not even God if he exists but can’t tamper with the laws of nature – I found incredibly scary. I would almost prefer it if someone, somewhere was making the decisions, even if what they decided, cruelly and maliciously or just callously and indifferently, was to harm me. Otherwise, what is anything supposed to mean? Who is in charge?  

‘Okay, I get that,’ I said, because there was no point in hearing it all again. 

My grandfather returned his attention to the litter-speckled hill. His nostrils were flared in relief or further thought, or in contempt for slapdash park maintenance. Pink wings of forehead had made inroads into his hair. Baldness of the usual kind was definitely on the cards. I thought of his face in church. His was a different kind of praying than my grandmother’s. Her passionate frown dated back to when my mother was born, when something spoke to her first, and since then she had tried extra hard to keep on hearing it. Whereas during the silent prayer Grandpa had these slightly humorous, slightly indulgent, ‘hey, whatever’ brows arched over his closed eyes. Given what he had just gone to great lengths to explain, what I wanted to know was: did he even believe? Or was he going along with it for her sake, or for some other obscure reason to do with the mind-set of their generation?  

I wanted to know, but I didn’t want to embarrass him by asking. To be honest, I was afraid of what he might say. He could keep that to himself. But I was determined to continue my other line of questioning.  

‘Grandpa, would you have abandoned your daughter?’  

Mutely, he shook his head.  

‘And if you did abandon your daughter, would you want to know whether or not she even existed? Would you want to meet her? Or would you think, “oh, that’s nothing to do with me”?’

Barney was at our feet again with the slathery ball. Neither of us picked it up. He pranced back and forth and thrust the ball into our hands, but eventually he gave up and lay glumly down.  

‘Let’s see,’ said Grandpa in a helpless kind of voice, stalling for time. 

‘I mean, men should have an idea how other men think, shouldn’t they?’

He stretched his arm along the bench top. ‘I suppose they should.’ He crossed his legs one way. ‘I suppose they should.’  He re-crossed them the other way. 

Had he forgotten the question? I was about to repeat it when, not looking at me but at the apartment buildings beyond the park, my grandfather said:

‘Well why don’t you find out?’

‘Find out what?’

‘Find out what his thinking was.’

‘Whose thinking?’ I asked cautiously.

‘Your biological father’s thinking.’

‘Antonio, you mean?’

‘He did seem like a nice young man.’

I stared so hard at Grandpa, he turned to look at me. ‘You knew him?’ 

‘We met him a few times. Your mother brought him over to the house.’

‘You’re telling me you knew my father?’ 

‘I can’t say we knew him,’ he said hastily. ‘We met him that’s all, on a couple of occasions.’ 

‘Grandma too?’ 

‘Of course.’

‘But why did you never mention it?’

My grandfather spread his hands on his knees. He leaned his weight forward on straightened arms, his shoulders up around his ears. He seemed never to have formulated these particular thoughts before.  

‘I guess because your mother had buried the whole thing pretty deep. He made his decision and she had to make hers. It wasn’t easy. And I guess in order to carry through with it and build a new life for herself, she had to decide he didn’t exist for her. Or something like that. So we followed suit.’

‘And what about me?’ My voice come out high and pinched. ‘Didn’t anyone think about what I would want?’

‘We were thinking about you, all the time. Constantly. Don’t be hard on her, Maddy. Your mother’s done a first-rate job. She did tell you.’

‘The bare facts of the matter, yes. I always said when I’m eighteen I would track him down.’ 

‘How old are you now?’ As if he didn’t know. 

‘Sixteen.’

He gave me another long look.  

‘Sixteen with cancer,’ I said.

‘So why don’t you do it now?’

It was like a conversation in a dream. I frowned. ‘Could I really do that?’

‘You’re asking me?’ smiled Grandpa. ‘I thought you were the internet generation.’

‘I mean could I do it, you know, with Mom and everything?’

After a while he said: ‘Your mother has enough to worry about. It would stir the whole mess up again for her.’ Another pause. ‘If she knew.’

We sat gazing in the same direction to where the city poked its windows over the south-side trees. All of a sudden my grandfather’s head swivelled around.

‘Listen to me, Maddy.’ For an easy-going person he could drop into command mode just like that. ‘This is very important.’ He raised one knotty forefinger. ‘Sixteen years is a long time. You’d have to be prepared for anything. Anything. He could decide not to reply. He could be unpleasant.’

‘Got it,’ I said.

‘He could be dead.’

I wanted to look away, but I didn’t. ‘Alright, already.’ 

‘He could have a family now and not want to hear from you.’

Only then did I have to blink away tears. They came without warning and my grandfather saw. 

‘Listen, Grandpa,’ I said severely, to let him know I could do serious too. ‘Think about it. What have I got to lose?’

‘Quite a bit.’ He sat back, sounding tired.

‘You were the one who said I should find him!’

‘You might have to give up an idea you have about him.’

I jerked my hand up and down, indicating my entire invaded self. ‘So I lose an idea? Big deal. Add it to the list.’  

Now his eyes were watering. That I could not stand. I summoned my sweetest, most encouraging voice. ‘But it might have a good ending! It could, you know. And then wouldn’t it all be worth it?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I guess it would.’

Silence thickened between us. Sensing a change of heart, Barney brought me the ball again. I drew my arm back and hurled it downhill with a long hard overhand. 

‘Good one,’ said Grandpa approvingly. ‘You don’t throw like a girl.’

‘Hey!’

‘Sorry.’

‘You’d better be. Look! He finally caught it.’

I made a fuss of Barney on his return. He had already forgotten what he had done, but accepted the praise as his due. 

My grandfather and I stood up at the exact same time. He snapped on the leash. ‘See?’ he said with satisfaction. ‘No harm in a little strategic rule breaking.’

On the way back, we took the footpath that went past the Statue of Serenity. She sits on a square base under the trees. When I was little I had been afraid of this statue and refused to look straight at her. She used to appear in my dreams. Later on I was fascinated with her brokenness and made a point of visiting her. Still, I always approached her from the right where she has a complete hand. The one on the other side is gone and the wrist stump sticks up in the air. That must be why it broke off, because she was raising her hand to make a point. Grandpa told me Meridian Hill used to be the most dangerous park in the city. During the height of the vandalism someone would have broken off her hand just for the fun of it. 

I positioned myself in front of the statue the way I always did, preparing myself before looking up. It’s like her whole face has been eaten away. The eyes are blanks and where the nose and lips should be the there is only pitted and crumbling stone. It is a shame because you can tell she used to be beautiful and her gown still is, gathered at the waist and flowing between her knees to the ground. I don’t know why she’d be sitting on rocks dressed like that, but she has her bare feet planted apart in a proud, strong pose as if she doesn’t know she’s damaged or has decided not to care.  

‘Did you know there is a statue identical to this one in Luxembourg?’ asked Grandpa, yanking Barney away from the pedestal where he was lifting his leg.

‘You mean with her face and hand missing?’

‘No, silly. Same subject, by the same artist. Spanish, I believe.’ He peered at the inscription. ‘Huh. It was bought at the Paris Exhibition in 1900. Apparently the sculptor liked to use Isadora Duncan as a model. Huh! What do you know.’ 

‘Why do you love facts so much, Grandpa?’ 

‘Do I?’ He sounded pleased that someone had noticed. ‘I guess because the more you know about something, the more interesting it becomes.' 

‘But you don’t like rules.’

‘Not when they’re invented to keep us in line. Or show who’s boss.’

‘To stop people from attacking statues you mean?’ 

He laughed. ‘As you can see, they don’t always work. It’s petty rules I don’t care for. Small-minded officiousness. 

‘What about the rules in music?’   

‘Well, yes. That’s different. Or language. Rules allow you to say more. We wouldn’t get very far grunting at each other and pointing, would we? But I guess we’re talking about whole systems now.’  

My grandfather gets this faraway look in his eyes when he’s got hold of an idea and he’s trying to separate out the parts and put them in different boxes.

‘And then there are family rules.’ He removed his glasses and polished them.  His eyes looked old and naked until they were back behind glass. Once he’s got the parts of the idea lined up in the right order, like cars on a toy train, he can pull the train forward. ‘It might be: Don’t keep secrets from each other. Or it might be: Don’t give too much away. See what I mean? Rules can always be broken. Whereas facts,’ said Grandpa, bending forward from the waist to examine a patch of moss on the statue’s knee, ‘you can’t break facts. You can’t disobey facts. They just are.’  

‘Grandpa?’ Even thinking it made my heart flap in my chest like something trying to get out. ‘Do you really think I should try to contact my so-called father?’ 

My grandfather took my arm the way Grandma does, though without the same need. We turned our backs on Serenity and made our way up the hill.  

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘With all the aforementioned caveats, I really do.’

‘Why are you smiling?’ 

‘I’m not,’ said my grandfather.  

But he was. And we both knew it.