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Show 10-7 I was not as fond of her as I was of Grandfather who took time to tell me stories and listen to my troubles. But she was a cheery presence in my life. After Uncle Paul's death, she had seemed the same after the first bad days. She emerged from her bedroom, tidied the house from the company and the disorder left by John and Grandfather, hung the black wreath on the door and draped a black ribbon around Uncle Paul's picture on the mantle. But she didn't sing any more, something I didn't notice until I spent a weekend with them while my parents went away. I couldn't tell at first what was different about their house until I watched Grandmother fixing dinner on Saturday night. She moved silently, and more slowly about the kitchen. As I sat and watched her, Grandfather came in from feeding his hens out back. He glanced at me, sitting at the kitchen table, glanced at Grandmother stirring a pot of soup on the stove, and then motioned me to come with him to the front porch. We didn't talk about my grandmother, but he sat with me pulled close to him and he stroked my hair and talked about the flowers and the vegetables he was going to grow the next summer. I asked Mother and Father if they noticed anything different about Grandmother. Mother asked me what I meant and I told her about the singing. Mother paused a moment then turned to Father. "Larry, that's right. She is awfully quiet now. I wonder ..." Father told me that with time Grandmother might regain her cheer and her music and not to worry about her, that she had had to face the greatest sorrow any person could accept, the death of a child. My parents knew what I was saying, but Grandmother's silence continued to worry oe, as if half of her had gone away somewhere else to live, leaving only her sober shell. This was the person with whom I was to spend my mornings and I dreaded it. As I sat in that dark, crowded room during those long mornings, I missed more than |
