Lacemoth

It smelled like how she always suspected an old person's home to smell like; floral incense – lavender or jasmine – mingling with an old musk not unlike what linen had when tucked away in the cabinet for too long. It was welcoming and warm, but it was still foreign and she couldn't find it within herself to feel accustomed at home.

She settled for an armchair to sit on, tentatively lowering herself, mindful that it was a stranger's chair. Yet she was still not at all expecting it to be as uncomfortable as it was. It was all steel and springs, digging into the backs of her thighs, kneading her spine. Bruises would be cascading all along her skin by the morning. She tensely sat, knowing that even if the chair was as comfortable as its floral covering looked, she wouldn't have been relaxed anyway.

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, please,” she spoke – her voice so soft that she didn't know if her grandmother had heard her.

She considered clearing her throat and speaking again, but her grandmother's lips curled upwards and her eyes crinkled, the crow's feet creasing. Her glassy eyes were glimmering with a faraway look like she hadn't been listening anyway.

“Oh, you've grown so much, but you haven't changed at all,” her grandmother crowed, voice croaky with old age. “So alike, so alike,” she murmured, smiling and shaking her head as if she couldn't believe it herself.

But that's what they all said. She looked just like her mother. Same dark hair and the same fair skin, all angled limbs and eyes too light. But that was where she thought the resemblance ended. Her mother had beautiful defined cheekbones and slight sunken cheeks, when all she had was baby fat. Whereas her mother's hair was sleek and as rich as the dark chocolate colour that it was, hers was knotted and brittle, and all around untamable. She missed the days when her mother would sit her in front of her elaborate mirrored dresser and brush out her tresses, making it almost as nice as hers, if only for just a day. Then the next, it would undoubtedly go back to its original mess.

Her mother was tall and sylphlike, while she was forever knocking her bones together, tripping up on her own feet. Her mother's talents hadn't even rubbed off onto her. Her beautiful paintings that lined their house could be sold for hundreds in an art gallery, and her adoringly crafted items, meticulously made with her own two hands, were highly sought after in her self-managed craft shop. She had tried to follow in her mother's footsteps once, but convicted herself hopeless when her clay-baked dolls cracked in two one too many times.

“Oh! I wish your grandpa Barry was here to see you.” Her grandmother's smile beamed wider with the thought, but not a moment later, it lowered with a realisation. “Oh, bless their souls, bless their souls.”

They fell into a somber silence, a clock ticking away somewhere in the room.

Suddenly remembering herself and where she was, her grandmother smiled again. “Oh, your tea, it's coming right up. You just sit there, Lora.” And her grandmother shuffled away from the living room into the kitchen.

Lora took the chance to stand up from the torturous armchair, the back of her legs tingling with the ache of being prodded. She mildly wondered if all her grandmother's sentences started with 'oh'. For she didn't know. She didn't know her grandmother at all. She did have vague fleeting memories of her grandmother's house, but she couldn't quite grasp any one of them. Apparently the last time she was around here was when she was six. The last time she saw her grandmother too. But being here now, it all felt wrong. She might as well have been sitting in a stranger's house with a stranger who was now making her tea. It wasn't unpleasant, her grandmother was exorbitantly affable – Lora didn't think her grandmother had a drop of blood in her that wasn't – but she would just rather be home.

Her grandmother's house was very unlike her own. The house that Lora grew up in was filled to the brim with her parents' paintings and collections over the years. They were passionate collectors. Cabinets and bookshelves of antiques, porcelain dolls, vintage books, and various exquisite items adorned every room. There had never been a wall uncovered or a table cleared. In some rooms, she wouldn't even be able to tell someone what colour the walls even were, or if it was wallpapered instead. The walls just weren't something to be looked at. It was a beautiful house and Lora loved it. It was the embodiment of her parents' lives.

And her grandmother's house was something entirely different. Lora would never have guessed that her grandmother was even her father's mother. This house was so bare and devoid of adornments, the whitewashed walls were almost blinding. Upon closer inspection, the wallpaper had a light floral pattern repeating itself over and over again. Lora traced a delicate finger over the twisting stems, not knowing where one ended and another began. It was endless and the cuts were seamless, and Lora had to admit she liked the feel of the smooth wallpaper beneath her fingertips.

The infinite pattern only stopped when several frames hung on the wall. Her grandmother beamed at her in several photographs, with the same warm smile and the same crinkling eyes. A man stood next to her grandmother in a few images and it caught her breath. He was the exact replica of her father, albeit years older. This must have been grandpa Barry. But Lora didn't know him either. He smiled as kindly as her grandmother did, both had the look of adoration in their shining eyes, as if they had a beautiful secret no one else had. Lora longed to have met him, he looked every much as handsome as her own father was. But she knew it was futile hoping. He was already resting peacefully six feet below.

Lora trailed past more frames with more photographs, running her fingers lightly over the fanciful frames. It wasn't until she had traced the full rectangle of the frame when she noticed this one didn't hold a photograph at all. Instead, it held a painting and it looked all too familiar. She would have recognised the brush strokes of the vivid watercolours swirling together, and the unique characteristics of the portraiture anywhere. It was a painting of her mother's. A lone female figure took up much of the painting. Lora always marvelled at how well her mother painted figures and managed to capture a lasting emotion in it. The crystal ocean eyes that seemed to be made of a myriad of watercolours mirrored Lora's own.

It appeared unable for Lora to tear her eyes away. She took a small step back, then another, and only when the sudden screeching of the kettle sound did Lora jump in fright, swinging her head away from the painting to the noise. Her grandmother made an appearance in the room not a moment later, carrying a tray of a teapot and teacups.

“Tea for two, Lora.”

Her grandmother lay the cups and saucers on the dining table, pouring tea from the teapot into the cups. Light smoke billowed from the steaming tea, unraveling into the room and dissipating in an instant. Lora sat at the table, adding milk and two sugars to her tea before curling her fingers around the teacup, scorching her cold bones. She breathed in the aroma of the tea, taking a sip, and savouring the lingering flavour that was tingling on her tongue.

With some courage – after stopping herself a few times – Lora spoke, “Grandma, did my mother paint that?” She pointed to the painting she had been entranced by just moments before.

Her grandmother hadn't even turned her head around yet before she answered with a smile, “Yes, dear, your mother always sent me a painting or two a year. That was from last year, I believe.”

Lora didn't even remember her grandmother until earlier today when she arrived at Lora's home town, much less knew that her mother still held contact with her. She wanted to ask how they kept in contact, and why they never visited since she was six, and why they never held contact, but the questions were too awkward in her mouth – they lodged in her throat to be swallowed down and suppressed. Keeping from bursting out, 'why', she settled for something else.

“Did my father send you anything?”

Her grandmother shook her head lightly. “No, we didn't talk much.”

“Oh.” Lora blew into her tea, warming her face. Her heart clenched. She didn't know why.

“That's of you, you know.”

“Sorry?”

“Don't be sorry, dear, that's of you, your mother's painting over there.”

“I don't–” Lora paused, trying to swallow down the larger lump that had suddenly clogged up in her throat. She looked to the painting again, disbelieving. The figure in the painting was beautiful. She didn't know.

“I much loved your mother's paintings over photographs of you. She had a wily way of capturing things in paintings much better than any photograph did. After your grandpa Barry died, she sent me a painting of him, and it was almost like he was alive again.”

The words all swirled in Lora's mind. Her words, her grandmother's words, an ever-present, 'why' – muddled, lost, intangible. Everything was news to her. She barely registered herself talking.

“When did grandpa Barry die?”

“Don't you remember?” Lora shook her head. “Oh, you must have been very young then. About eleven, twelve years ago. You came for his funeral. That was the last time I saw you, too.”

Her grandma suddenly looked alarmed, as if noticing the jumble in Lora's mind that had spread out to her hammering heart. A sadness fell on her soft features.

“You're alright, Lora,” her grandmother said. It was halfway between a sentence and a question.

“Yes, I'm alright. I'm alright,” Lora answered anyway.

She took a sip of her tea, not caring that it was suddenly too sweet in her mouth, and that it had cooled down considerably. Or maybe it was just her shivering body.