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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: AGREE TO DISAGREE (05/04/17)
I pace around the living room, distressed that my granddaughter has not yet arrived.

“She should be here by now,” I complain.

Never mind, that in my saner moments, I realize she has a young family of her own—a husband to get off to work, three children to get to school, a part-time job to make ends meet. My thoughts wander and I forget that I am waiting for her as I roam around the house.

“Where IS it? I KNOW it’s here!” walking from bedroom to bathroom to dining room to kitchen to another bedroom in vain.

The doorbell interrupts my search.

“Land sakes, who would be calling at this hour,” peeking through the side-door narrow windows.

“It’s me, Grandma—Valerie. . .”



“Oh, Valerie, will you help me? I can’t seem to find it,” my 85-yr.-old grandmother clinging to my arm.

We walk from room to room, Grandma and I, searching for whatever invisible place that is probably only in her mind. I stopped arguing with her quite a while back, unable to convince her of what is real and what is not. She is distracted in a few moments, spying her ancient threadbare bedspread and hopping to an entirely different subject like a ping-pong ball gone awry.

“Honey, would you get rid of these little ants? Do you see them crawling on my spread?”

“No, Grandma. I guess your eyes are better than mine. Here, I’ll shake them off for you. . .”



I sit in my swivel rocking chair, impatiently waiting for my dinner, mouth watering as I tuck the dishtowel under my chin and into the neck of my house-duster. My knobby knees creak in time with the ticking wall clock and I am reminded that I am an old woman. My mind and my body, like Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, have betrayed me and it makes me mad.

“This is DE-lics-ous!” I exclaim, chewing the food my granddaughter has diligently prepared just the way I like it, “How are the children, Valerie?”



I sit across the end table in the matching swivel rocking chair across from my grandmother and we chat while she eats. I am nervous that she might notice the taste of crushed pills buried in her mashed sweet potatoes. I cannot convince her that the doctor-prescribed medication is necessary and she cannot convince me she doesn’t need it. It has become futile to argue about it anymore.

“Did you bring the songbook?” as we move over to the couch and I turn the pages of the enlarged printed words to her favorite hymns while we sing together.

“Some bright morning when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away,”* I sing along with my granddaughter.

I know this one by heart, but I pretend to read the words she has so painstakingly printed out for me like the largest “E” on an eye doctor’s chart. (Valerie wants me to have cat-ract surgery—ME, at MY age! I can’t convince her I don’t need such newfangled nonsense. I can see just fine, thank-you-very-much!)”



I clean up the kitchen while Grandma is dozing, hiding the pill bottle up high in a cupboard. It’s almost time for the kids’ bus to deliver them home, so I have to go. I quietly sneak out the front door and lock it behind me, praying that Grandma will not awake. I wish I could talk her into having a nurse’s aide to help her regularly, but she will have none of it. Part of me is relieved about that, because a stranger will not succumb to Grandma’s little quirks. . .



I awaken abruptly out of my dream. It was a good dream. I was at Grandma Jene’s house in my favorite room, playing under her long table-clothed dining table. Miniature plastic toy zoo animals spread around me on the wooden floor as I place each one on scrolled notches and crevices of the table appendages.

“Oh, I wish Valerie was here,” I think as I rise,” she’d help me find that room again. I know it’s here someplace!”

I find a locked door by the breezeway and remember that Valerie has been worried I will fall down the basement stairs.

“But that must be where the room is,” as I drag a chair and mount it to unhook the sliding bolt, “I will just be very careful. . .”

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*I'll Fly Away
Alison Krauss, Gillian Welch

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This article has been read 389 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Chris Goglin
05/13/17
Very ingenious story! At first, I could not tell if there were 2 or 3 in the room. Then I realized this was a dream. After a while, I thought I was as crazy as the narrator! I liked your use of wording in..."My mind and my body, like Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, have betrayed me and it makes me mad." I feel like that often too! Thank you for your submission...it really made me think...which is a good sign of unique writing!
Chris Goglin
05/13/17
Very ingenious story! At first, I could not tell if there were 2 or 3 in the room. Then I realized this was a dream. After a while, I thought I was as crazy as the narrator! I liked your use of wording in..."My mind and my body, like Judas Iscariot and Benedict Arnold, have betrayed me and it makes me mad." I feel like that often too! Thank you for your submission...it really made me think...which is a good sign of unique writing!
C D Swanson 
05/16/17
Interesting and well done.
Blessings~
Rachel Rudd
05/16/17
This is an interesting piece! I really liked it, but it took me a few minutes to understand that there were two points of view. I didn't get that it was a dream like one of the comments said. I thought it was just the last part that was a dream, or maybe I missed something.
My grandmother had Alzheimer's so I can understand the difficulties....it's a terrible disease. Thank you for sharing this!
Tonya Stevenson
05/16/17
This is so true to life. We just lost my mother in-law and now my father in-law is suffering much of the same. The endless struggle to treat them with respect and yet care for their needs.

I only had one place where there was not the bigger break between the two characters that threw me for a minute.

All in all it was well written, touching, and the clever ending every care givers nightmare.