“I figured out I knew your grandmother.” Eddie Benoit spoke in a serious way that made Marta Novak wonder if her Gran had owed him money. Ridiculous, of course. But then again, Gran had been out of control toward the end. So, maybe.
At some level, Marta recognized her reaction as unworthy of Gran’s memory. But Marta’s last years with Gran had been difficult, all but erased earlier memories of the woman who had raised her until dementia turned the relationship on its head. Mention of Gran now triggered painful memories and when one surfaced, Marta forced it down. Nevertheless, courtesy moved her to reply. “Really? How did you know each other?”
Before answering, Eddie’s eyes gave the room a quick sweep, bartender not letting a conversation distract him from his customers. “Your grandmother used to visit my mother. I think she might have brought you along one time, but I’m not sure. My mother was Sabine Benoit? She would have been a middle-aged woman with dementia. Your grandmother was great with her. My mother looked forward to the visits, would ask me if her friend was coming.” He paused. “In the end, they both became …”
“Right.” Marta interrupted, didn’t want the rest of the sentence. Knew all about her once cheerful Gran’s end. Her mind slipping away. Teenage Marta managing for them both on her wages from after-school jobs and Gran’s social security. “I’m sorry to hear that about your mother.”
“Thanks.” Eddie turned toward a customer’s wave, headed down the bar in that direction.
Watching him, Marta tried to summon up an image of him as something other than a bartender. Failed. But even with her aversion to unearthing memories of her childhood household, she remembered an old lady and her son seated on a dusty green couch. Probably them. Why not?
Eddie came back, freshened Marta’s drink. “Your grandmother’s visits meant the world to my mother. Other friends came by a lot, too. But for whatever reason, she looked forward especially to your grandmother coming by. They just seemed to have a connection. It felt like your grandmother understood her in ways the others didn’t.”
“Sometimes people connect like that.” She wanted to change the subject, but didn’t know Eddie well enough to have an easy topic to switch to.
Eddie paused, kept his eyes on Marta. “Your grandmother taught college, if I remember right.”
“No, but she’d always wanted to be a professor. She gave me lots of books to read.” Scraps of memory forced their way through, nestled in between competing emotions. “Gran wanted me to be a professor.”
“She certainly knew a lot.” Someone down the bar lifted a hand, but Eddie had stopped looking around the room. “She and my mother talked for hours about … I don’t remember details, but your grandmother mentioned scientists. Einstein came up a lot. I guess I just assumed your grandmother had been a college teacher.”
Marta started to speak, but Eddie went on.
“And something about a cat in a box. Schumaker, Shemberg, something.”
“Schrödinger. It’s Schrödinger’s cat. Back then, I thought it meant if a cat’s locked in a box, you don’t know if it’s alive or dead until you look. Until you look, you can hope it’s alive.”
“So it was about hope?” Eddie leaned heavy against the bar.
“No. Actually, it turned out Schrödinger had something else in mind. But back then, for me, yeah, it was.” Marta went quiet, suddenly able to accept a surfacing memory.
She remembered why Gran had insisted on the visits. She’d been certain that in spite of the dementia, Mrs. Benoit would sense—she’d intuit, Gran had said—what they had in common. She’d know that her visitor understood what her life was becoming. She would know that, like her, Gran was a traveler entering the darkness.
The thought that Gran had made use of her affliction brought into clarity Marta’s memories of the earlier Gran, before her obvious decline. Allowed her to say, “I remember you and your Mom. You had a green couch.” Seeing the pleasure in Eddie’s eyes at her remembering, she added, “My Gran looked forward to those visits, too.