The Leaves of Ireland

If you dropped me into this scene as a child, I am team Rose. Bring the receipts.

The oldest child, the experiment, the one trying out the schools, camps, and swimming lessons before traumatizing the gentler siblings, the baby babysitting babies. Saddled with responsibility, absent for accolades, it’s a rough gig. I relate to her need to stick to the facts, no doubt advocating for her due credit when it was due. As an adult? Well, maybe that’s different.

Aunt Rose said she was a liar. I thought that was a bit harsh. Grandma’s Irish brogue made her sound like a tiny wizard coming from her five-foot frame, dreamy and lyrical, mystical even, describing the big white house with tall pillars.  While every family was rich compared to grandma’s tax bracket, this family was very rich, which was part of why my aunt was so adamant that the story was a lie. The drama. Because it made it all the more out of character that my grandma stood her ground. In the end.

So this rich lady, the richest lady, heard about Grandma’s skills reading leaves, tea leaves left at the bottom of the cup. They love their tea in Ireland, and Grandma had brought her affinity for it through Ellis Island and passed it down to all seven of her children. Rose, the oldest girl, never saw her reading any tea leaves and called shenanigans on the whole story. Grandma said that was because she stopped reading leaves after the incident with the rich lady, she said you shouldn’t mess with powers you don’t understand. Aunt Rose rolled her eyes at that part. She liked facts. Fiercly bold, smart, and fearless, she would use her sharp memory and logic to shield herself from the feeling that, because she had been born second and a girl, she was doomed to spend her life shivering in the shadow of the firstborn son, victimized by grandma’s favor toward her dimmer, less accomplished, older brother. She was sensitive to overlooked, dismissed details - facts - as she often felt she was one of them. Maybe it felt like justice, a determined loyalty to reality over fantasy, because she worked hard to make her reality impressive, astounding even. Feel free to notice, world. Maybe she inspired Grandma. In the end.

The rich lady was pregnant, delicate. Maybe she and her husband assumed that all folksy country people with accents had psychic tricks up their sleeve, like gypsies or Transylvanian vampires, but they wanted in on a reading from grandma’s tea leaves. They wanted to hear about all the amazing things their baby was going to do and be and have, just like they were doing and being and having, and not one other thing. Not the dark things grandma sensed. But she knew that she was disposable, a replaceable maid. She knew what would happen if she told them things they didn’t want to hear. Eventually, though, when she wouldn’t change her story, when she wouldn’t “take another look just to be sure” like the rich woman’s husband growled through gritted teeth, she was unceremoniously thrown out of the house amid tears and accusations. Grandma knew bad news would end in punishment, but she would not lie, would not be intimidated. In other words, she wouldn’t shake the cup a little and say, “Oh, wait, false alarm, he’s just going to be allergic to asparagus.”

To Aunt Rose, this epic showdown only bolstered her argument that this was a fever dream, pieced together from superstition, imagination, and fabrication. Grandma was pocket-sized, with a gleeful giggle that made her tilt back and forth like she was in a rocking chair even when she wasn’t, and to say money was tight implied there was money to pull tightly; their family of nine lived in an apartment the size of the interior of a Kia Soul. But listening to grandma, proudly sticking out her chin when she got to the part where she stared down the rich man who thought his money gave him power over life and death, well, she reminded me of Rose. And I believe she is the broad-shouldered warrior princess of her memory and not the wisp of a cutie patootie before me. And I believe in her memory, because I believe in this version of her, fiercely bold, smart, and fearless.  

Unless you ask Aunt Rose. Then she’s lying about the whole thing.