Nine: Prologue



Tora Fossum

#

Cherry Grove was nothing special.

Imagina the smallest town you've ever seen. Maybe a few thousand people, most of who leave every morning to go to the bigger city about a half an hour away. The rest work at the local hospital, grocery stores, fast food chains....

It's quiant, is the point I'm trying to get at.

But we have our problems - every so often the sewage company drives out and has to dislodge a spare McDonald's plastic cup out of a pipe in the ditchwork so the water can run. Our lawns aren't mowed that often because nobody cares, and occasionally deer trample through Mr. Gordon's garden and he runs down the street in his boxers and a wifebeater, ladel in hand, screaming.

Aside from the lack of pants and presence of the ladel, something really confuses me about old Mr. Gordon.

He's still here.

It's true, there's not much left for you here in Cherry Grove when you're an adult. Most people move away to the city for work unless they're stuck by some circumstance - for example, you would rather take classes at the Grove Community College right next door to the Bananagram Gift Shop than go to a state college.

According to my grandparents, who'd moved here on a whim when they were about 30, he'd been around just as long as them. He'd raised his family there and watched as everyone left him one by one for the city until it was finally just him and his wife.

She died about three years ago.

Personally, I couldn't wait to leave this old town behind. Not just for the city either, I was going to go somewhere greater. A state college where I could study......something, and then take the fast track to life in an even bigger city!

Maybe even another country!

A place where the streets were crowded, the lights were always on, where I could meet cute guys everywhere I looke-

"Where is Tora Fussum? Tora Fussum?"

I was jumped out of my musings by our bus driver's sweet voice. She was only twenty three, with a very slender figure and curled brown hair pushed under a red baseball cap. Unfortunately, she had a tendency to stutter on names which, paired with her small lisp and inability to read simple words, made it hard to tell who she was calling for the stop.

"It's Fossum, Miss H." I sighed, slinging my backpack off the seat and trudging down the bus aisle. She tilted her head down and looked above the shaded lenses, smiling.

"Have a fun-tastic rest of the day, Tora!"

"You too." I replied curtly, stepping off the bus to a chorus of laughter. Our bus driver, besides her many speech issues, was a bit cheesy.

Really cheesy.

Cheesier than a pizza from the Shelley Pizzeria when Danny was working in the kitchen.

Disgusting.

I looked up to the great front window, where the red curtains were wide open and neatly tied at the edges of the frame. In two rocking chairs, one of which was still rocking slightly, sat my grandparents.

There was Grandma Beata, or just Grandma, who was focused on cell phone in her gnarled, bony hands. She was a frail woman, very tiny, with her bones protruding like sharp twigs. Her hair was snow white and it had once been very long, but was now shedding away in clumps.

Next to her was Grandpa Kjetil, or just Grandpa, because if you said his name in any way other than 'CHEH-til', he threatened to cut out your tongue and make a delicious stew out of it, and often the risk was too much.

He still maintained a military grade grey buzzcut, along with glasses that nearly took up the top part of his head, stuck on him by little dark wires around his neck. He was a thick man, muscular in his old days from working in a mechanics shop since moving here, and the tattoos on his upper arm were still nice and neat, free of wrinkles.

He saw me approaching and moved to get out of his seat and to the door, and I saw him lurch out of sight on his heavy walking cane.

The front door opened and he was there, taking up nearly the entire doorway, with a crooked battered smile.

"Hi, Grandpa."

"Good afternoon, Thora."

"...Tora."

He scoffed, thumbing the screen door's handle.

"I do not believe in these new name derisions. Your name was originally pronounced Thora, and that it shall be."

According to grandma, about the time they immigrated here from Norway, the name 'Thora' was being repronounced as 'Tora'. Grandpa Kjetil has not accepted that yet, and believes in keeping ties to the name 'Thora' because of our family history.

After a few tense moments, he sighed and let me in. I was surprised to see Grandma wheeling toward me in her wheelchair, smartphone in her lap.

"Your day, Tuva?"

"...Tora."

Her expression didn't change, she didn't even seem to hear me. Behind me, Grandpa grunted and sidled past us and back into the living room where he could continue staring down the street.

"...It was okay. Oh, speaking of which-" I reached into my bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. "We're doing that field trip tomorrow. I'll just need 10 bucks and we can grab food in the cafe."

Silence. I quirked an eyebrow and stared down at my grandma. She retained the placid smile.

"...Grandma Beata, have you changed your hearing aid batteries yet?"

Nothing.

"Grandma?"

"Kva heiter det på norsk?"

Oh my god.

My grandma was obsessed with returning to Norway, as she never wanted to leave in the first place, and was bent on teaching me Norwegian so when my time came I could leave the States and go 'where I belonged', the homeland.

Unfortunately, she didn't understand that I had no interest in our old country and what little things I did know in Norwegian were standard - Yes, no, good, Hello, Where's the bathroom - you know, important things.

I swallowed hard and tried to figure out how to phrase the answer in words I remembered, and gave a faint attempt.

"...P-Passe...?" I could practically feel my grandma's disappointment - I was using American pronunciations as always, and it was a pet peeve of hers to hear 'unrefined Norsk'. "Eg pratar ikkje bra norsk." It was the little things that helped, and a simple 'My Norwegian is bad.' could really change the gameplay.

She laughed, a cracking old sound like something out of a broken stereo.

"Eg forstår ikkje."

...?

"What?" I said blankly, throwing my hands in the air. "I'm sorry I'm not fluent in 'the mother tongue', Grandma, but this is America, you could try speaking English!"

"Don't speak to your Grandmother like that!" Grandpa's voice echoed from the front room, and I suddenly felt bad. My Grandma's English had never been refined like Grandpa's, as she usually stayed at home, and she was very uncomfortable with her speech.

In a way, I was in the same predicament. I could speak Norwegian, she couldn't speak English. Maybe she was trying to help.

I was saved from the inevitable guilt trip when my mother appeared upstairs, already in her pinstriped pencil skirt and jacket, applying her mascara carefully atop the stairs.

"Inga, your daughter is out of control!" Grandpa yelled from the living room. "Your mother is trying to talk to her and she is doing the yelling!"

"Grandma is trying to make me speak Norwegian again! I don't want to!" I replied to both of them.

Mom sighed and disappeared from the stairs, reappearing seconds later in her heels and purse.

My mother was a pretty lady, with long layered blonde hair and eyes like dewed grass - which is to say, hauntingly green. She gave both my grandma and I a kiss on the cheek and rolled her hands onto her hips with a frown.

"Now what exactly is going on here, Mother?"

Grandma looked down at her knees, allowing me to get a look at how sickly she really was. Her bald spots were clear now, and I noticed how skinny her arms and legs were, and even her feet where the blue nail polish was fading.

"I-I am sorry, Tuva. My english is.....bad." She frowned. "I do not like it."

My mom nodded and made us hug, and I heard Grandma mumble something in Norwegian that I couldn't pick up.

At the dining table past the sitting room where my grandparents were stationed, my mother busily chowed on left-over shrimp from a few dinners before, while I picked quietly at a ham sandwich.

"So.....mom," I said sheepishly, reaching into my sweater pocket. "There's this field trip tomorrow and-"

"Tora, you know we don't have much money. Things have been tight, what with Grandma Beata's medical bills." She whispered the last part beofre stuffing anothing shrimp in her mouth.

"Oh, please mom! It's only 10, and they will cover lunch for the cafe." My mom's head bobed understandably.

"Where're you going?"

"The museum in the city. We're going to go see the planetarium."

More nodding from hyer end.

"You seem pretty excited for the planetarium. Into stars now, huh?"

"Not exactly, I just think they're neat. Space is neat."

Mom chuckled and took a sip from her thermos, filled coffee more than likely, and hummed softly to herself.

"It's funny you'd mention that, dear. You know, your father always said your eyes were like stars."

I glanced up from my sandwich and felt a slab of ham splat to the marble counter along with flecks of mayonnaise. Everything about dad was important, but my grandparents never spoke of him because he was, quote unquote, "Busy, not devoted enough, chauvinistic, and probably unfaithful". And mom?

Well, she didn't talk about him because of Grandma and Grandpa's opinions. It got a little tiring - if she even so much as mentioned him, one of them would flip over it and cause a ruckus.

"And he would know, Tora." Mom sighed wistfully, placing the thermos back on the countertop.

I cleaned up the bits of my sandwich that had fallen and took my permission slip back from mom, signed and ready for tomorrow.

I knew she wouldn't talk about dad anymore, and any other conversation would only lead to more questions, so I decided it wasn't worth it.

Mom finished her meal, grabbed her thermos, kissed me on the nose and left for work.