The Rule of Threes, Marcy Campbell [short novels to read .TXT] 📗

fabric and the yellow floss in her lap. “I should stop this for today.”

She’d made a lot of progress on her cross-stitch since I’d last seen it. I wasn’t sure what it was before, but now it was clearly a house, her house, the one Mom said she’d probably never live in again. Grandma had a big magnifying glass that hung on a string around her neck and helped her to better see the holes in the fabric, and she wasn’t wearing a scarf, which made her neck look naked. The string from the magnifier had cut into her skin, leaving a red line right below the low bun in her hair.

I’d brought in a Better Homes and Gardens magazine because it was Grandma’s favorite. At her house, there was a bookshelf in the basement filled with tons of them, all dusty and musty. She never seemed to recycle any. When we used to visit her and Grandpa on Sundays, I’d push over a stool to reach them, and I remembered, when I was really little, accidentally pulling down a whole shelf full and watching them cascade onto the tiled floor. I remembered being scared Grandma would yell at me for making a mess, but instead she sat down on the floor with me, picked one up, and said I could look at anything I wanted, as long as I showed her the pictures I liked most.

Grandma’s favorites were the garden photos. I’d found one in a recent issue that I knew she’d like. I held out the page in front of her, and she took the magnifier from around her neck and put on her regular reading glasses.

“Look at all the goldfish,” I said. There was a pond next to a little stone patio with an old iron table and chairs.

“Oh, now wouldn’t it be nice to sit there in the morning with a cup of coffee?” She reached back and rubbed her neck where the red line was.

“I thought you hated coffee, Grandma,” I said. She always said she didn’t need it, that the birds were enough to wake her up.

“Oh?” she said, lost in thought for a moment. “Well, tea, then.” She smiled.

Next to the pond was a bed of wildflowers, all different kinds, all growing every which way.

“It’s so random,” I said, “but it still looks nice.”

“It only looks random,” she said, pointing. “Look here, see how the color carries through. How there’s purple here, here, and here.” Grandma moved her finger across the page. “See how the shape of this flower is copied in the stone planter, and even in the finial on top of the gate.”

I leaned closer to her, looking at where she was pointing. The back of her hand had brown spots, and I could see her veins poking up, but her nails were perfect because Mom had trimmed them for her and painted them a pale pink. The diamond in the center of her wedding band winked at me.

“Do you see?” she asked, and I smiled because I did. I did.

Tell Me Something

When we ate dinner these days, there were five of us at the table—Tony across from me, my parents across from each other, and Grandma at the end like she was in charge, like if it was Thanksgiving, she’d have to carve the turkey.

Tonight, Tony brought his basketball to dinner and was moving it around with his feet under the table, which made a noise like some small animals were in a battle under there for scraps of dropped food.

“No ball at the table, Tony,” Mom said.

“It’s under the table,” he said, shrugging.

Mom gave Dad a sharp look, and Dad said, “No ball under the table, either.”

“Fine,” Tony said, like he didn’t care one way or the other, but I could tell, he cared. He rolled the ball into the living room, where it sounded like it knocked over one of Mom’s plants or something. Nobody moved, though. We all sat there looking at the enchilada casserole and the basket heaped with cornbread muffins. I wasn’t so big on the casserole, but I loved the muffins.

“Could you please pass me the muffins, Grandma?” I asked.

“Certainly,” she replied. She was wearing a blue-checked scarf, and had even put on some red lipstick before she came down for dinner, which made her eyes look unnaturally green. I felt pretty sloppy next to her, in my T-shirt and the brown sweatpants with the big, white primer stain on my butt.

I took a muffin and passed the basket to Tony, who took three.

Grandma pointed to the napkin by my fork. “Don’t forget, Maggie,” she said softly.

“Oops!”

I unfolded my napkin and put it on my lap. Maybe one of these nights, I’d remember before Grandma told me. Tony immediately grabbed his and did the same, and so did Dad, which kind of made me laugh. Mom already had hers in the Grandma- approved position. We only had paper napkins at our house, not linen ones, so it seemed a little silly to even bother, but “proper manners are proper manners,” Grandma said.

We all ate pretty quietly after that; it was almost like Quiet Lunch at school, without the giggles and lunch lady threats. Mom tried to put a second scoop of casserole on Grandma’s plate, but she held her hand out to block it and said, “No, thank you.”

“I had a looooong meeting today,” Dad said, breaking the silence. “So long, I thought you kids would be all grown up by the time I got home.” Mom and I laughed, but Tony and Grandma didn’t. Still, he persisted. “I thought Tony would be walking with a cane and have a white beard down to his belt buckle.”

“We get it, Dad,” I said, not unkindly. He was hitting a little too close to Grandma with the old people jokes. “It was a loooong, dummmb meeting.”

“Hmmm,” Dad said, buttering a muffin. “Not especially dumb, just long. Necessary, but too long. When you kids get