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Show 128 TWENTY-TWO Dyna set the bucket of ammonia suds on the ground, then proceeded to adjust the rickety step ladder. For three Saturdays she'd been trying to get the windows washed, but between yardwork for the mums and extra hours spent working on the literary magazine, she hadn't finished any of her chores at home. Suddenly the dirty windows had become a thing with Gram-a threat to her eyesight and her mental health. Mostly to her reputation, Dyna suspected. Like getting-Dyna-out-of-jeans and walking-without-my-cane-by- graduation, Gram made herself these campaign promises. "And by god," to quote Oscar, she meant to keep every one of them! Dyna climbed the ladder, positioned her bucket, then tapped on the window to get Gram's attention* She bared her fangs and made menacing claws of both hands. Gram shook her head. "Go on with you," her expression said, "I've seen it all before." Dyna tried on a Cheshire cat smile next. When that didn't work, she slid into her peeping Tom leer. Finally, Gram cracked up and hobbled out of sight so her grandchild would get to work* Dyna dunked the sponge and wrung it out in the bucket* Actually, she liked washing windows, but that was a highly guarded secret. Hard work, especially hard boring work, freed her mind. Today she needed time to think. School had been so frenzied, with one deadline after another, Dyna couldn't remember when she'd had a good think. She also needed time to decide how to end her journal. Discovering the diary at Oscar's house had been a poignant experience for Dyna. Since then, her private journal had taken on new significance. Maybe some day he£ grandchild would read what she'd written-way back in the 1980's. Having the final pages coincide with the end of school was fittingly poetic, too. And though Parker loomed large in her private musings of late, her last entry she was saving specifically for her own graduation. Suddenly, with the arrival of all the trappings-caps, gowns, and announcements-graduation was all the seniors wanted to talk about. |