CHAPTER 5
596 Words
CHAPTER 5
Brad had just finished unpacking his carry-on when his mother knocked on the door to his bedroom. It had been over ten years since he left home for good, but she still opened the door and let herself in.
“You resting?” she asked.
“Not anymore.”
She sat on the edge of his bed. “Your father’s reading his magazine.”
Did she think he cared? “That’s nice.”
She gazed at him imploringly. He knew exactly what that look meant.
“Listen, Mom. I’m here for you, and I’m here for Grandma Lucy. But seriously, if Dad wants to talk to me, he knows how to walk up these old stairs just as well as you do.”
Mom nodded. “I know. I know. I just wish …” She let her voice trail off. How many times had they rehashed this exact same conversation? In the end, it didn’t matter what she wished. Some people would never change, and there wasn’t anything more to say about that.
“How’s Grandma Lucy?” he asked, eager to change the subject. Even though she was technically his great-aunt, he had called her Grandma Lucy from the time he learned to speak. “Is she still asleep?”
Mom nodded. “I know we’ve already talked about it, but I want you to be prepared. She really hasn’t been herself. I don’t know what it is …”
“It’s old age,” he answered for her. “Simple as that.”
She frowned and stared out the window. “I don’t know …”
Forcing a smile, she rose to her feet. “Well, we’re about to have dinner. I made stroganoff in the pressure cooker. Makes the meat more tender so it’s easier for Grandma Lucy to chew. She’s going to be so happy to see you home. I just know it.”
Mom stared wistfully out the window then turned to him with a forced smile. “Well, come on now. You probably haven’t had a proper home-cooked meal in ages.”
Brad had told Mom a dozen times that he ate his meals with his students at the boys’ home every night, but she still worried he must be starving. That was why she sent him care packages with homemade cookies and peanut brittle and other treats at least twice a month.
Most of the time, he figured his students looked forward to mail from Orchard Grove even more than he did.
He stood up, nearly bumping his head on the vaulted ceiling. It would take some getting used to, adjusting back to life at Safe Anchorage, but he was here for Grandma Lucy, and that made all the minor inconveniences worth it. In spite of his mom’s many ominous warnings, he knew her condition couldn’t be nearly that bad. Grandma Lucy was the strongest woman he knew — in just about every sense of the word.
“Connie!” Brad’s father bellowed from the bottom of the staircase. “I thought you said it was time to eat. If that boy’s gonna stay here, he’s gonna eat when we tell him it’s time to eat.”
Mom gave Brad an apologetic glance and hurried to the staircase. “We’re on our way, honey. We’ll be right down.”
She glanced back with the same hopeful expression in her eyes that some of Brad’s students gave him when they handed in math tests they already knew they failed.
“Ready for dinner?”
Brad knew his mom well enough to understand what she was really asking him. If Brad’s only plan was to pick a fight with his dad, he wouldn’t have flown all the way from Vermont to spend his summer break here in Orchard Grove.
He gave her a reassuring smile.
“Come on.” He took his mom’s arm in his. “Let’s go down for dinner.”
- Writer
