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Show - l c - S - Pepp-ermint Monday it the way Grandma likes things said, blunt and quickly. She didn't have to wonder if ma was going to have a baby or try and figure out what the change was going to be, like Jason and I had. She knew the problem right away. I watched her face for her reaction. I expected her to cry or pull a terrible face or gasp "oh no, Carly, you can't leave." I expected her to be upset like I was. She didn't do any of those things. She smiled a sad kind of smile, the kind that comes with seventy-three years of wisdom. She wasn't acting fifteen today. She didn't have her youthful spark. I was in for another one of her teaching sessions. "I thought your pa was getting restless. I could tell he wasn't as content as he should be." Pa was always restless. It was just his nature. If contentment was what he needed, he was looking at the wrong place. Chicago would not offer contentment. Tourists came to the Ozarks to get away from the stress of the cities. The tourists seemed content to me. "But it's not fair. I'm content. Why should I have to leave because pa is restless?" It was a good question. It didn't have an acceptable answer though. "That's the way life is, sometimes. It isn't always fair." Grandma had a far away sound to her voice. She was probably thinking back to when she was a girl. She had almost got married once but the groom-to-be had changed his mind at the last minute. No one knew why and Grandma had never told me, if she even knew. But life hadn't been fair to Grandma Ruby. It wasn't being fair to me now. "You know what life is?" I told Grandma exactly what was on my mind. I told her a lot of things and she never interrupted me. She heard me |