A Murder of Crows: Seventeen Tales of Monsters and the Macabre by DeAnna Knippling

Author:DeAnna Knippling [Knippling, DeAnna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

10. Inappropriate Gifts

I knew what the package for my daughter was before I even opened the box: my grandmother’s apron. It was muslin, thick and heavy as an old-fashioned flour sack. For all I know, that’s what she’d made it from. She was always giving people inappropriate gifts, crafts she’d made out of things other people threw away. Potholders crocheted over plastic soda-can rings (they melted). Homemade soap bars made out of the stub-ends of Grandpa’s Irish Spring bars, with a crocheted yarn holder over it, a redneck soap-on-a-rope. Except Grandma wasn’t a redneck, she was a survivor of the Great Depression. One of the things that you never get over, that define you for the rest of your life.

I didn’t have to open the box to see it. The apron had roses on it, big, wide-open faded red roses with their petals almost falling off. The paint was the same kind of fabric paint that Grandma used to paint on everything, from dish towels to pillow covers. As a little kid, I’d used the same kinds of paints to paint towels too, carefully brushing the paint onto fabric stretched across a wooden hoop. The lines on the roses weren’t as neat as the ones you usually saw on things Grandma made; the black outlining was a little crazed, a little shaky, like she’d been upset when she’d made it. The paint of the rose petals was a little blotchy, too.

She tried to give me the apron the last time I saw her before she died, which was when I was about thirteen. I was young and terrified that boys would never like me. For some reason, I was convinced that my nose was too big and my arms were too thin (they weren’t), and thus, I would never find love.

Mom had taken me to the nursing home to see Grandma; she wasn’t doing very well, and her mind would wander. One minute she’d be talking about her new house in Springfield; the next, she’d be weepy over being trapped in a nursing home. It was hard to say which was worse.

So there I was, walking on eggshells. I loved her the way you love anyone who’s willing to spend time with you when you’re little, who has the time to do crafts and bake cookies and listen to your made-up stories and babble. They’re nice to you, and that’s all you care about at the time. Whether that feeling is too naïve to be love, I really can’t say. Since I’ve become a parent, my ideas of love have changed. You have to do a lot of painful things when you’re a parent, but you don’t do them out of hate. Ignorance, maybe.

Grandma had scooted herself around in the seat of her recliner, which had a crocheted doily across the back so her head wouldn’t rub directly on the fabric, until she had turned toward her side table, where an old, yellowed box was sitting. She picked it up

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