It took longer than I thought it would to find her. And now that we've met, I wonder if maybe she planned it that way. I don't think Ibu was very happy to see me. But she didn't seem surprised either. She just opened the door, then turned back into the house and disappeared.
I found my grandmother, my Ibunya, in the kitchen putting away dishes. We hadn't seen or spoken to each other for almost nine years and she seemed intent on adding as much time to that total as she could. At least one of us might as well have been a ghost. But one thing I've learned from my work is not to feel silence as pressure. Being a body makes that easier. So I just sat down and started taking notes. A project is a project, after all.
After she had done pretty much everything a person can do in a kitchen short of actual remodeling, she looked at the dishwasher and said "What I can give to you, I already gave to your father." I don't know why, but until that moment, it hadn't occurred to me that she might know. But the look she gave that poor little dishwasher made it clear. And she didn't want anymore to do with it. So I left.
