Maia Werner; “He Would Lie in the Study”
- Maia Werner, Eavan O'Neill
- Mar 6, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 17, 2021
Artist Feature: Maia Werner / Prose / Class of 2024
By Eavan O’Neill
Before he would lie in the study, he sat on the sofa, and he would lie in the bed upstairs. He didn’t move much because he was too sick; his head created a yellowish spot where he would rest his head on the wall. It was a pretty room with lace curtains framing the windows, but I don’t like it that much anymore. It’s the sewing room now.
The sofa where he would sit downstairs would always be covered in blankets so that anything he would spill could be cleaned easier. The sofa was near the kitchen, where my grandma would make him his meals. From the dining room table I would watch him watch as everyone came and went through the front door; he watched as my mother’s students struggled to open and close the heavy door that refused to stay shut when they would leave the house each afternoon after their piano lessons. He would grouch about the never-ending noise of the piano and having the lights too bright. It was a guessing game, you know, with the lights. At first they were too bright and then they were too low. If we didn’t get it right before his patience ran out, he would grunt and shake his head slightly to show his frustration.
When I came to kiss him on the cheek as I said goodbye each day, his face would smell of the color deep maroon, from the wine that he drank. Later he was moved into the study, where we would watch cartoons from three to seven, depending on when my father would come to pick my older brother and me up. My grandmother would go between watching shows with us and trying to help us with our schoolwork to helping get whatever he needed. She cared for him greatly with love in her eyes, walking on her sore knees bringing that china tray to him. I never realized until later how hard it was on her to see her once lively husband grow so weak. When he was moved to the study, that dark room where we would spend our afternoons, the three of us
moved to his sofa. I guess the new level of privacy away from everyone else was nice for him.
The privacy made it easier to forget that he was there. And I did forget for a little bit. I did.
You should talk to him, and you should show him the love you have for him was what my cousin told me. It was then when I realized that we didn’t know how much longer I would be able to kiss him goodbye. So I showed my love for him, I did. I tried every day but I was still too little to know what or how exactly I wanted to communicate to him. Maybe I should have told him more about my life rather than sneaking out of the room when my father would bring in that ugly pink bin to shave his smelly face. He seemed happy those days, my grandfather. I remember his laugh but it was not the way it was described to me; I never knew that “real laugh”-- only the one that he managed to let out of his ailing lips.
But I saw the crinkles in his eyes, the crinkles that let me know he was still there as I sat on his bed in the dark study. I would have spent more time with him if I knew how my mother’s constant tears dripping from her swollen eyes made me feel. Guilt. The way her voice sounded shaky when she spoke about him that ugly day at his remembrance ceremony. Regret. I don’t want to think about that day anymore, the way I felt surrounded with solemn faces, hearing about the stories I never was never told.
I don’t like to be in the study that much anymore. I don’t like looking at the bookshelf that holds his ashes in little pretty round boxes and at the ashes that would sit on the mantle over the fireplace-a gentle reminder of what once was. But now I sit in the study, and I remember that it is the room where my loved one drew his last breath, his hands turning cold.
Maia Werner is currently a freshman at St. Mary’s Academy. Her vignette “He Would Lie in the Study” was inspired by her love for her grandfather who passed away several years ago, and recalls the time Werner spent with him.
While Werner does write creatively to take a break from the writing required at school, she truly loves all aspects of the medium. Her passion began in seventh grade when a teacher showed her the fundamentals of writing and encouraged her to be confident in her work. “My English teacher, Mrs. Haglund, nurtured my love for writing,” she explained to Escribe Maria.
“He Would Lie in the Study” is her first publication.
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