Grandma Breen gets Christmas Mean


 
On Christmas Eve, Grandma Breen woke with one cookie-sweet conviction: she would wait no longer. Slipping the robe over osteoporotic bones, she knew she wouldn’t even ask. Again. Those days—and Lord, hadn’t there  been a load of them?—were over and D.O.N.E. done.
She moved stiffly down the stairs. At her writing desk, she removed the Rothko stationery and engraved fountain pen. She wrote about “Camp Oleander,” two weeks of hike and splash along the fingertip of Florida. She wrote about the “Neverwades,” the girls who wouldn’t brave the water. “That’s a good one, Granny. Right? Haw, haw!” She finished with “Love, Bree,” thinking for the umpteenth time, “What a stupid ass name,” her granddaughter a wedge of gooey cheese. But it wasn’t the girl’s fault—she hadn’t come up with that winner herself. No, that had been her daughter-in-law’s fine bit of genius, although her son—with his dumb acquiescence—was far from free of blame.
            She composed other letters: a thank you for birthday money, a description of an art project, complete with her own attempt at hills and pines. Afterward, she licked the seals and stuck the stamps. She’d lost her license months ago, but that didn’t keep her from the short straight shot to the post office. On the way home, she stopped for some Don Fernando. Tomorrow, she’d send more letters, knowing they would faithfully return. When she died, the ingrates would find them tied up with a silver bow. Oh, on that day, to be a fly on the wall. A
dog at their heels. A tiger clawing off—well, never mind.
Goodness—it had been a most productive morning! To celebrate, she brimmed her cup with tequila and placed three gingerbread people on her plate, where she could snap them as she pleased.
by Michael Cocchiarale

Michael Cocchiarale is the author of the novel None of the Above (Unsolicited, 2019) and two short story collections--Here Is Ware (Fomite, 2018) and Still Time (Fomite, 2012). His creative work appears online as well, in journals such as Fictive Dream, South Florida Poetry Review, The Disappointed Housewife, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and Worthing Flash.



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