The little book of Queen Weeks

Little miss Maisey

Prompt: growing old together
John's POV
"Freddie, love? Do you want white or brown bread?" I shouted and didn't get a reply so I went into the living room where he was watching the news, having to hold on to the doorframe to steady myself. "Freddie?" I raised my voice a little but he still didn't answer so I tapped his head and he turned to look at me.

"You alright, darling? Did you see-" he went to tell me about what was on the news but I cut him off when I noticed he didn't have his hearing aids on. Being in the music business really screwed up his ears, mine too but not as badly, so he had to wear hearing aids almost all the time to hear people.

"That's why... I was asking if you wanted white or brown bread for your sandwich" I said and he frowned a little then turned so he could face me.

"Um... I'll have white, have a change" he said so I went and made us both some toast and jam with the white bread and took it in for him. I sat in my little armchair next to him and we ate together in silence until Freddie turned to me and held my hand, "isn't this nice... my husband and I having a lazy Sunday" he smiled then laughed a little as he scooped a bit of jam from the corner of my mouth.

"It is nice. I can't wait for the kids to come over, though, it's getting too quiet" I said and he hummed in agreement.

"It's terrible, we should get more cats to fill their places" he suggested and I almost choked on my toast.

"Freddie, baby, we're not getting another cat. We already have twelve!" I said and he tried arguing with me but I just carried on, "I think twelve is enough for now. Maybe when you get to your eightieth we can get more cats but not now"

"Joooohn... n-c'mon, they're just cats! It's not like they're going to take up much space" he said and I looked over at him as I put my plate down.

"No, you're right, they don't... but they piss everywhere! I don't think my back will handle mopping even more" I said and he broke out into a smile.

"That is true... alright, when I'm eighty we'll get one more and that'll be our lot" he said and I smiled triumphantly as he turned the sound for the telly back on and put his hearing aids in.

They were saying something about Brexit again and both of us groaned, we were fed up of all of it, "come on! Where's my Tipping Point?" Freddie whined and I squinted to see the buttons on the remote.

"Hang on, love, I'll see" I found my glasses and put them on then found the button to change the channel until Tipping Point came on.

We were pretty good at it, especially the movies category, Freddie was a whiz at naming movies. It wasn't much fun when we had to sit through the adverts, though, they were all trying to sell us something we had no use for.

We got to the very last bit where we were about to find out whether the guy won all his money or lost it and the door opened, "only me, Dad!" Josh shouted and both of us groaned as I squinted again to put the subtitles on, we were not going to miss it.

"Hiya kiddo, how are you?" I smiled as he came in the room with his little one in tow.

"Yeah, I'm alright. Ah, I see Tipping Point, how's it going?" He asked and I rolled my eyes which he got the hint at, "oh right... go say hello to Grampa John and Grampa Freddie" he pushed his little one forwards a little and she climbed up and sat in my lap.

"Hello... Hello Grampa Freddie" she waved at him and he reached over and punched her cheek.

"Hello munchkin, how's school going?" He asked and she started wriggling with excitement.

"Reeeeaally good, we got to practice our cutting our skills today. Miss Thimble said I was the best in the class" she smiled proudly and I clapped for her.

"Well done! You'll have to show us your cutting our skills sometime then" I said and she got even more excited at that.

Little Maisey always was a bundle of excitement and I could see in Freddie's eyes that she gave him lots of energy, he always looked so happy when she was round. Especially when she had to sleep over, he was a bundle of energy too even though he was getting on to be 74. It was just so much fun to see the two of them bounce off of each other.