Born Weird

“Who am I to go against family tradition?” Angie asked. Grandmother Weird issued a small laugh. She hadn’t been married when she’d given birth to her only son, Besnard, Angie’s father. The laugh made Angie feel slightly safer. She attempted to sit on the corner of the bed. The mattress sagged. She slid off. She attempted this several more times. Then she noticed the chair in the corner. Pushing it towards the bed, Angie sat down.

“Are you done?”

“Yes.”

“No more wiggling?”

“Nope.”

“Okay then,” Grandmother said. She smoothed the wrinkles from the sheet. “I’m dying.”

“Again?”

“I will die at 7:39 p.m. on April 20. Not a second later or a moment earlier.”

“Who doesn’t love a countdown?”

“Thirteen days from today.”

“Is there something special about that day?”

“It’s my birthday. I guess it slipped your memory?”

“Death’s not much of a party.”

“I’ve asked you to come here because there are mistakes I’ve made. Mistakes I need your help correcting.”

“I plan on living until I’m at least a hundred. Maybe older.”

“Be quiet, Angelika!”

Grandmother Weird said these words in what Angie and her siblings called the Tone. They each had a pet theory to explain why it was so effective. Kent’s was that her voice became all bass. Abba thought it was the way she stressed each word, making them all sound capitalized. Lucy’s explanation was that her lung capacity allowed her to push out twice as much air; therefore her words came out twice as strongly. Angie liked all of these, but she felt that only Richard had gotten it right. His explanation was that she stripped all emotion from her voice, leaving only her harsh judgment.

However it worked, it made Angie comply. She sat still. She folded her hands in her lap. Grandmother Weird didn’t speak and more than a minute passed.

“You’ve always been impatient,” Grandmother Weird finally said. “Do you know that you were born in a hallway?”

“How could I forget?”

“You almost died in that hallway.”

“Yup.”

“With the cord wrapped so tight around your little throat.”

“Crazy,” Angie said. She’d stopped paying attention to her grandmother. The thought of giving birth in a hallway was so terrifying that she’d begun conjuring the scene in her mind, replaying it over and over. This was the way Angie often dealt with events she feared would happen.

“That’s why I gave it to you,” Grandmother Weird said.

“Of course.”

“The power to forgive.”

“I know. Wait. Gave me what?”

“It was your father’s fault. That idiotic car. Whoever heard of driving a Maserati in the city? I knew it would define you.”

“The car?”

“I knew you’d spend your whole life having to find it in yourself to forgive your parents for almost killing you before you were even born. With your very first breath you needed the power to forgive. It’s odd because forgiveness is not something I’m particularly good at. I didn’t even know I had it in me.”

“What are we talking about?”

“The ability to forgive!”

“… ”

“It’s my heart,” Grandmother Weird said. “My goddamn elephant heart.”

Grandmother Weird’s heart, while much smaller than an elephant’s, was unnaturally large. The average human heart weighs between 250 and 350 grams and is about the size of a fist. The weight of Annie Weird’s heart pushed 600 grams and it was the size of two fists together. She was convinced that its exaggerated dimensions were the source of all the drama that had ever befallen her. And she was well aware that Angie was her only grandchild who’d inherited this condition. Angie’s heart was even slightly bigger than her own.

“I held you in my arms,” Grandmother Weird continued. “I looked down and it came from me and tumbled into you. I gave to you the power to forgive anyone, anytime.”

Angie looked down at Grandmother Weird. She saw how loosely her rings fit on her fingers, the tremor in her right hand and the droop in her eyelids. “That’s so … it’s … it’s r … really b … eautiful,” Angie said. She’d started to cry.

“Maybe I should have given you the power not to be such a crybaby sap,” Grandmother Weird said.

Angie had a deserved reputation as the family’s crybaby. Yet her grandmother’s comment stung. “Couldn’t it have been invisibility?” Angie asked, her tears ceasing, instantly. “Flight maybe? Something a little more useful?”

“You came out bright red. Not very attractive, I’m afraid. Like a boiled lobster!”

“Super-speed?”

“All of you got one, you know. All five of you got one.”

“You gave Kent the power to be an asshole?”

“Yes. In a way I did. Kent is slightly stronger than anyone he fights. Physical fights, I mean. He came out so small and I knew he’d need to defend himself, somehow. That he’s emotionally stunted is not my fault.”

“He’s not stunted. He’s just angry all the time.”

“Lucy is never lost. Abba never loses hope. Richard keeps himself safe. I never thought they’d all become curses. They were supposed to be blessings. I didn’t know that they’d end up ruining your lives.”

“Our lives are ruined?”

“And it’s not just you kids. It’s the family. The family name! I will not go to the grave responsible for taking down the good name of the Weirds.”

“Oh yes. Well, then, that makes more sense.”