Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere Read Free Page B

spinning.
    â€œMemaw, oh my gosh . . . I’m so sorry.”
    Slow as a slug, Memaw took hold of the bottom edge of the rag. The wet cloth inched down off her forehead slower than cane syrup. The first thing I seen was her eyes. They just stared at me. My heart pounded harder. I was fixin’ to get a whipping for sure.
    Then . . . real slow-like, I seen her nose pop out. You can’t tell nothing about how a person feels by looking at their nose. Even still, seeing half her face uncovered like that made my knees wobble. Then, with one final tug, she pulled that dishrag all the way down, and I seen her mouth. She was smiling! I couldn’t believe it! I thoughtfor sure Memaw was gonna tear me up. But there she was, just smiling. I gulped down a sigh of relief. We both took to laughing.
    She walked over and gently swiped me upside my head. She tossed the dishrag into the sink, grabbed a towel, and patted her face dry.
    â€œYou’re lucky,” she said, in a pretend-serious voice. “I s’pose I’m gonna go ahead and let ya live to see your double digits.” She swatted me a good one on my butt when she strutted by, grabbing a cold pork chop off the leftovers plate.
    â€œNow, hurry up and finish your chores, child,” she said over her shoulder. “I’ll be waitin’ for ya.”

    Sitting on the porch swing with Memaw was always my favorite time of day. Whether I was doing my homework or finishing my chores, I always did them without dragging my feet if I knew Memaw was waiting for me on the swing. Evening time, after supper, was the best time for swinging. The smell of honeysuckle strong in the breeze, crickets singing their never-ending song, June bugs flickering about, and neighborhood after-supper music spilling out into the still evening air. I never even cared about the little pieces of white paint chips peeling off the swing and sticking to my clothes. Mama kept asking Daddy to sand that ol’ swing down and paint it, but the truth was, Daddy was scared that if he messed with the thing too much, he might ruin the names on it.
    My PawPaw, Mama’s daddy, had made that swing with his own bare hands for Memaw when they first got married, back before therewas such a thing as microwaves or computers. Every time they had a baby, he’d go and carve their names on it, making the swing even more special. Then when Mama and Daddy got married and started having us kids, Daddy took to carving our names on there too.
    When Georgie was about to make eight years old, he snuck one of Mama’s favorite butter knives and did his best to dig out the I sitting up between the last G and E of his carved name. But all he managed to do was leave behind a big ol’ ugly, sloppy fat letter I instead of the nice skinny one Daddy had put there. He said he did it because he wanted to be just “George” like Daddy—not Georgie. From then on, it just looked like his name had a big ol’ scratch. Daddy was mad for two or three days after that.
    There’s names scattered all over that chair swing, but most times I sat resting my back on my own name. It’s been a special chair for a long time, all right. So I sat there, never minding the specks of white, and rested my head on Memaw’s shoulder.
    â€œMemaw, why don’t we call you Grandma, or Nana, or somethin’?” I asked.
    She took my hand and sandwiched it all sweet between hers. I reached over and played with the loose skin on the back of her hand. It felt soft and buttery, like the leather cover of Daddy’s ol’ wore-out Bible. I took to wondering how her veins could move back and forth like that without hurting.
    â€œWell,” she said, “I always called my grandmother MawMaw, and your mama called her grandmother MawMaw. So it seemed natural when my first grandbaby was born, I’d be MawMaw too.”
    â€œGeorgie was your first grandbaby,