My Year with Grandma

Funeral

When Gram said Clarise was arrogant, she wasn't kidding.  That woman was the epitome of hoity toity. Highbrow hooch anyway.  She showed up not long after breakfast with an equally snobbish and a rather fat girl not much older than me and a small toddler.  She walked into the house without knocking wearing a large brim hat, sunglasses and white gloves.  She was as high society as Gram was hippie.  She stopped when she saw me and as she was removing her long white gloves, she made the remark, "Lord love a duck, Gertie.  You're still taking in strays I see."  She took off her sunglasses revealing blue eyes that were buried in way too much makeup.  Her perfume burned the hair out of my nose making me scrunch it up at her.  She then grabbed my face in her hand with her fake nails digging into my cheeks and turned my head from side to side as if inspecting me.  "What gutter did you peel this one out of."  I'm about to show her some 'gutter' by snatching those god-awful fake eyelashes right off her face.

Gram grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from the woman before I could carry out my idea. Mars came into the room and put herself between me and the arrogant visitor, causing the woman to back up a bit.  I've decided I like this dog after all. I scratched her ears as she leaned into me without taking her eyes off of Clarise.  "This..." she spoke so calmly that it scared me stiff. "...is my granddaughter, Melissa, not gutter trash."

"Granddaughter, huh." She said eyeing me from top to bottom and back.  "Didn't think Jimmy had it in him.  Alcohol must've been involved."

Okay, that's it.  No one gets insult my uncle but me. Those eyelashes are mine. I stepped towards the woman, but Gram tightened her hold.  "You know what, Melissa, honey.  Why don't you go out and gather the eggs?"  I didn't want to leave.  I wanted to snatch her hat and stomp on it.  But I promised to behave, so I left to gather eggs.  As I was walking out the front door, I overheard Gram say, "She's Jeremy and Sarah's kid."

"Jeremy?!  I didn't know they had adopted."

"They didn't."

"Hooked up with a pregnant woman, then. You did say he got his balls shot off in Iraq, didn't you?" 

"Oh, Clare." Gram groaned, Mars whine growled. The fat girl laughed.  The baby puked and I closed the door.  I'd heard enough.

I hid out in the barn until I saw that crazy woman's car leave.  The few short minutes I spent with her made me understand why Gram did what she did to the kitchen because I had just done the same thing the straw in Bojangles' stall.  He didn't seem to mind too much though.  He just stood out of the way and snorted a reply whenever I asked him a question. 'What gutter did you peel this one out of?'  The nerve.  Once I calmed myself down, I cleaned up Bojangles' stall and gave him fresh straw and treated him with some oats for listening to rant.

I came out of the barn with the basket of eggs I had gathered and since I was watching where my feet were stepping rather than looking to where I was going, per usual, I walked right into Jimmy, nearly dropping the eggs in the process, also per usual. "Sorry," I muttered.

"You should watch where you're going. People who don't pay attention usually end up getting somebody hurt!"

"I said 'sorry'." I argued.

"Yeah. You say that a lot. Do you even know what it means?"

"What's that supposed to mean!?" I demanded.

He stared at me with his black-brown eyes with anger and pain matching my own. He opened his mouth to say something then closed it as breathed out a sigh of frustration through his nostrils. "Never mind." He said finally and stalked past me, disappearing into the barn.

I stomped into the house indignantly, setting the eggs into cartons with a little more force than necessary. Yes, I broke one in the process. Okay, two but when she took over the project to save the rest of the eggs, I apologized. "I'm sorry." But was I? Maybe Jimmy was right, and I don't know what it means to be sorry. Maybe they're just words used to avoid a fight. "I don't know what that means, do I?" I whispered to Gram as she put the last egg in the carton.