Ryan Green - Black Widow: The True Story of Giggling Granny Nannie Doss

Smooth jazz crackled out of the radio on the kitchen windowsill, and Nannie hummed right along with it. Funny to think that just a few years back that kind of music was the province of rebels and teens, when now you could hear it with the turn of a knob. The late afternoon sunlight was still filtering through the trees outside, and though there was sure to be a chill on the air come morning, Nannie was warm in here beside the open door of her warming oven.

There is a fine art to making pie crust that escapes most home cooks, but Nannie had the knackhard won through years in the kitchen. She'd cut the shortening with flour and salt until it looked like little peas, then she'd snatch in the jug of water that she'd left cooling out in the shadows on the porch and add it all in one go. Her hands moved on their own, without much need for her intervention, just as her lips pursed and whistled along to the music on the radio.

If her mind had been here, in this moment, then maybe she would have been happy. It was as close to idyllic as any moment of her life so far and much better than most of them. If she could turn her thoughts away from the things that might have beenthe things that she longed for so desperatelythen maybe she could have settled for this moment as her happiest.

The shock of cold on her fingertips brought her back to the moment at hand with a start. When she looked down, there was a fork in one hand, working away at the crust, and her other hand had gone wandering off across the countertop and brushed against the jug from outside. She giggled at her own silliness, then picked up the little cork-stoppered bottle of vinegar to add just a dash, like mother had taught her.

She should have been happy here, in this kitchen, in this house. Her husband heading home from work to eat his dinner across the table from her. Her days filled with the gentle labours of the completely comfortable. The callouses on her hands from years of hard graft had faded. The aches in her joints on cold mornings were soothed by the warmth of this home that she had made. She should have been happy. Why wasnt she happy?

She fumbled the cork, and vinegar spread across the countertop, filling the whole kitchen with its acrid reek. She snatched up a dishcloth and did her best to mop it up, but she could feel tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. Why wasnt she happy? She had everything that she had ever wanted. She had the husband and the home; she had love in her life. Why wasnt she happy? A sob bubbled up her throat, but she caught it before it escaped and turned it into another giggle. Silly me.

No point crying over spilt vinegar, was there? Just another little inconvenience. Hardly worth losing control over. The vinegar hadnt made it far before she righted the bottle and cleaned up. And with a vinegar-soaked cloth, she might as well give the windows a clean when the pie goes into the oven. They didnt need itsunlight was streaming inbut it was making the best of a bad situation, and that is what Nannie had always been taught to do.

Nannies hands went back to work on the pie, and she turned inwards again, dreaming of Paris, dreaming of flowers and dancing. Romance had always been her drug of choice, ever since she had been little, and it didnt hurt anybody for her to have a little day-dream. If the man in her dreams didnt look and act exactly like her husband, it wasnt going to hurt anyone. That was the wonderful thing about dreamsyou could imagine yourself doing just about anything without ever having to deal with the consequences. You didnt have to think about where you were going to sleep the next day when youd thrown away your whole life and found yourself cast out into the street. You didnt have to look folk in the eye, knowing that they knew exactly what you had done.

If Nannie could have lived in her dreams, then she would have. What a beautiful life that would be. Breakfast in bed, lunch in some fancy restaurant, carriage rides through the park, bouquets of roses waiting for her behind every closed door, and a single sweet kiss on the lips, just like in the black and white movies that shed loved ever since the first moment shed laid eyes on them. True romance. That was what her dreams were made of. There was no sweat dripping in her eyes, there was no grunting or snoring or odious smells, there was just that perfect kiss and then the fade to black.

The fade to black never came. That was the trouble with real life. She had found her husband, he had romanced her, she had melted in his arms and now nothing. She couldnt just stay melted forever. Life kept on trudging on and wearing her down, and in retrospect, that one perfect moment never quite seemed perfect. She had no shortage of love in her life, but none of it was true. None of it was pure. There was always some ulterior motive, some sordid secret just waiting to be outed. Men were flawed creatures, she understood thatlord, did she understand thatbut was it too much to ask for just one of them to truly love her?

She knew love was real, otherwise, how could they have written all those books and songs about it? More than that, though, she knew it was real the same way that she knew there was a sky up above her even when her eyes were closed. Love was a fundamental truth of the universe.

The pie crust was lain out under a clean dishcloth to settle, and her attention was finally turned back to the task at hand. She had a little wicker basket full of apples from the garden, far too sour to eat raw, but sharp and firm, just right for cooking. Her knife danced smoothly through the pale flesh, chopping them into wafer-thin slices that she'd lay across the base and over the top, for texture as much as flavour. A quick dusting of sugar and spice and they were ready.

The prunes were last. Rich and sweet once they were stewedan old family recipe that her mother and in-laws had all enjoyed, even on their deathbeds. It took more sugar than Nannie would ever admit to get them tasting just right, to be in balance with the apples, but it wasnt like she was going to be eating any of the pie anyway. Her sweet tooth ran in the direction of books and magazines rather than puddings.

Once the prunes were stewing away, Nannie turned her attention to the window panes. She knew that she could be a bit lax when it came to household chores. When her black mood set in it got more and more difficult to find the energy to see to nonsense like scrubbing floors and dusting shelves. Some days it felt like a battle just to get out of bed at all, and her darling husband, the light of her life, would chastise her like she was a spoiled child unwilling to do her share of the chores, even though her share in this house seemed to be every single one of them, while he went slinking off to who knows where with giggling girls half his age. Shameless. He must have thought she was a fool. He must have thought to himself, That Nannie is so lost in her daydreams that she wont even notice if I run around on her.