Grandma’s Way
R.L. “Pete” Peterson
Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction & Essay Contest 2025 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Fiction
Grandma is white bones now, but before she died, she insisted I get a dog. "Not a teeny, little one like that hotel heiress sticks in her pocketbook, but a real dog. A German Shepherd, or Pit Bull."
"Why's that, Grandma?"
"Crippled up like you are," she said, "it'd keep your mind off what happened in Afghanistan and keep ya from pinin' over the likes of Candi Anne Baker. Even in a wheelchair you can feed a dog, clip its toenails, give it worm medicine and rub on flea powder."
"Sounds like work."
"Not work. Care. Life's more bearable when you do for others. Even a dog."
Grandma's gray head is at 1100 hours, outlined by cumulus clouds that snipers hate because the white reflects the sun, making environmentals hard to measure. Target prep's only good for three seconds anyway.
"Candi Anne married that yellow-haired Cartwright boy whose family owns the bank here in Bluebonnet and opened 'nother one in Freeburg. She's set for life."
I know Candi Anne's hitched. From the seventh grade on, everyone in school knew she'd be Mrs. Clay Cartwright someday. Clay started as end on our football team though he's skinny and slow, but his Daddy was on the school board. We didn't throw the ball that much, so what the hey.
In high school, Clay would blast through Bluebonnet in his red '64 Thunderbird Classic, Candi Anne's blonde hair blowing in the wind, red lipstick on her pouty lips, sunglasses shielding her baby blues, clutching his arm as they slide into the "S" curve just past the high school—their private Le Mans. You can do that in a town where what your Daddy doesn't own, your Granddaddy does. Candi had Clay measured for the ball and chain long before they tied the knot, no matter how his momma tried to break them up.
Now, Grandma eyes the 4x4's I've laid out like railroad tracks up the hill. "This gonna go all the way up?"
"Roger."
"Nice." She holds out an envelope. "From yo' momma. She asked about ya. As usual."
"I don't read mail from a convict." "Convict or not, she's yer Momma. Grudge holdin' makes a person sour." She looks at the boards piled in the grass.
"Why wood?"
"I can't lay rock or stone in a wheelchair. And plywood's cheaper."
She throws another bone. "In high school, Candi Anne cottoned to you cause you scored touchdowns like you was Earl Campbell. Now, it'll take a woman who ain't squeamish to be your wife. Looks don't bother a dog."
"You saying I'm ugly, Dorothy Snead?"
A faint smile. "No, cause I know your insides. Outside, you're right ugly. That don't bother me, but I ain't here much longer."
"Where you going? To IGA for groceries? Orscheln's to drag home a rich farmer?"
She almost grins. I take a panel of plywood from the stack, pull it across my lap, turn my chair and roll up to where the path ends. Using a long-handled brush, I smear glue on the 4x4's and cross braces Rob Lee and William Junior set in concrete two days ago, lay the wood in place, and on my belly, wham, wham, shoot it with the nail gun.
When the walk's finished, Grandma and me will sit under the pear tree at the top of the hill and count the cars crossing Copperhead Creek into Bluebonnet. When I die, they can shove my chair downhill. Where I stop rolling is my grave.
"How long 'fore it's finished?" Grandma asks.
"Two weeks or so. If my back holds up and this keeps working." I wave the nail gun.
"Good. I wanna walk on it 'fore I die." She wipes her face with a red bandana, the one I tied around my neck the year I dressed as Scarecrow at Halloween. I was ten or eleven.
She says, "Don't expect an invite to the Harvest Parade. Folks don't like seein' soldier boys in wheelchairs. They want their heroes pretty as that Hanks feller in th' movie about Forrest Gump. Blown off legs take away the romance of war."
She taps off toward the house, flinging one last bone. "Your momma likes flowers. Any kind."
I knew the intel on Candi Anne. She and I had a pact, once. "My momma's the prettiest lady in town. She says looks don't last forever so use 'em while you got 'em. If I marry for love, it's you, Ken Snead, but Clay's got the money. Maybe, you can work for him someday."
Another time, "Clay loves me, and I love what he buys me."
I laugh. "Can you outsmart his momma?"
"With your help."
I bought Candi Anne's ticket and wrist corsage for the Senior Dance. Clay's dead mule stare at Candi Anne scared his momma, so she connived with Mrs. Underwood for Betsy to be Clay's date. Candi and I dance together until Ladies Choice. Then, Candi grabs Clay, and they disappear, leaving me with Betsy's twelve dozen roses and two-hundred-dollar gown.
Betsy's daddy owns the lumber yard and Fluff and Fold Laundromat, but he's not in the same league as Clay's family. "Looks like we're stuck with each other," I say.
Betsy tries to smile through tears. "I don't know what he sees in her."
"Me either. She has nice tits, a great ass and is smart as hell. What's there to like?"
"Isn't your mother in prison?"
"True as an arrow to the heart."
"Doesn't that limit," she searches for the right word, "your prospects?"
"Yes, but I'm not searching for gold, only happiness."
* * *
Saturday a week later, Clay took Betsy to the movie in Freeburg, courtesy of Clay's mother. Candi texted. "Star gazing on Hockaday Hill. Mickie D's at 7." With her long blonde hair and cheerleader moves, there's not a running back in two counties who won't gladly trade a twenty-yard touchdown run to lie on a blanket next to Candi Anne and pretend to look at the stars. As I did.
"Clay and Betsy together is kinda of cute," she said. "But, he'll come home to Candi."
* * *
Mrs. Cartwright's annual shopping trip to Kansas City is the first week in November. When her car disappeared down Highway 54, Candi Anne hopped in Clay's T-Bird and they checked in at the Motorcade Lodge in Freeburg. They came up for air two days later. A month or so later they announced their wedding plans.
As Grandma says, first comes the huggin' and kissin,' then comes the baby. I was in Afghanistan when Candi Anne squeezed out a boy.
* * *
A bell rings when I roll into Candi's Land Boutique. "Be right there," she calls. "Help yourself to coffee."
"Thanks. I can't reach it."
"I know that voice." She sticks her head through the dressing room beads. Her eyes go big. "Ken Snead. What a surprise."
Her hug is quick. "That permanent?" She means my chair.
"Yeah. 'Til I get iron legs."
Her eyes shine. "Wow. Things are sure different, huh? Me married. Two kids. You..." Her voice trails off.
Before I can answer, she says, "Clay's a good father. And husband. His momma wants me to close the shop and try for a girl. I don't know..." She stops mid-sentence. "You back for good?"
"Yeah. If I can stand the excitement."
A tall blonde in purple Under Armour sweats and neon Nike's comes in. She and Candi exchange air kisses. "I laid out some new yoga pants for you, Blair. Back table. I'll be right there."
Her smile is quick. "Thanks for stopping by, dear. Clay'll call you. We'll get caught up." She hurries to push my chair out the door.
I'm still waiting for Clay's call.
* * *
It was a warm fall day with a high sky and no clouds when Ray Shields, the VFW Harvest Parade Muckety-muck, knocked on Grandma's door. Weather like this in Afghanistan, chopper pilots wear extra dark glasses and fly zigzag routes, so the Taliban shoot at moving targets.
Ray gives me all that crap about vets being the backbone of our country and how we'll lead America someday. "Personally, every man or woman who served should ride in the Harvest Parade. It's just this year we ain't got enough vehicles for everybody. We're requestin' them in wheelchairs or need ambulatory help to skip the parade and join the festivities at the hall." He smiles. "Free barbecue and adult beverages. Hope you understand."
I get it, asshole. I was warned.
When his car pulls away, Grandma comes up. "You'd be on the Heroes Stand at the festivities, except folks don't like bein' reminded our boys are human. This ain't World War Two, where everyone had a job to do. Buck up. Show 'em how a real hero handles things."
* * *
When Candi and Clay announced they'd get married the first week in June, lots of folks said that's why I joined the Marines. Not true. I stepped over the yellow line and put my feet in the green footprints painted on the concrete floor and raised my right hand and swore to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States at the St. Louis Military Career Center, June 10th, 1999, to escape a town where everyone knew I lived with my sick Grandma and my momma was doing twenty to life for selling marijuana and robbing a Western Auto store of $37.00, and my daddy died in a car crash when I was five. When the Twin Towers fell, we Marines trained like hell in house-to-house warfare. That paid off soon.
Middle school, I worked at the IGA, Tuesdays and weekends. "Hey, Dopey," they'd yell, "shelve these tomatoes, then sweep the meat department floor and empty the trash." Dopey was Momma's name when she raised hell around here.
One day the chief butcher asked, "You kin to Dorothy Snead?"
"Yes, sir. My Grandma."
"A damn good woman. When her husband died, she took over his business like a man. Many a farmer 'round here owes her more'n gratitude for haulin' livestock to market durin' hard times for just gas money. No per head charge." From then on, I was Ken or Snead.
* * *
I was eight or so when Momma went to prison. We'd holed up in The Starlight Motel eating potato chips and Mars bars. It took three days for Momma to feel good enough to sit up. The TV was on, a local show about how good deeds done to others bring rewards.
I believe that. And that rabbits lay chocolate eggs.
Sirens scream. Tires screech.
"Act like you're here alone," Momma says. She dives under the bed.
The door crashes. Cops burst in, guns drawn. "Everybody freeze!"
I'm too scared to cry.
A cop drops to his knees beside the bed. "Come out, Agnes."
He pulls Momma to her feet. Her torn tee shirt shows white breasts. Her pale green panties are around her knees. The lady on TV displays Valentines that local school kids made that they'll mail to boys and girls in Iran.
They drag Momma away. It's the last I see of her until prison. A policeman brings me a cold cookie and warm chocolate milk. A lady in a blue uniform sits on my bed. On TV, a pretty girl gives the three steps to housebreaking a dog.
"I have a son," the lady says. "He's older than you. Wanna watch Sesame Street?"
I nod. I have to pee, bad. After what seems like a week, Grandma comes in. She's my Daddy's momma. "Get dressed. You're going home with me."
"Can I pee? Please?"
"My goodness, Child. I haven't been around men for a while. I forget their needs."
I remember that whizz. I'd like to let it fly like that now, move the ammonium cake in the urinal not dribble into a funnel. If I convince the VA I deserve legs, someday I'll rip the buttons open on my 501's in one pull, and piss like a man. I just have to prove I lost my wheels in combat. The VA's searching records to disallow my claim.
* * *
Before Momma became a druggie, she taught me to read, so school's a piece of cake. When I turned fourteen, I begged Grandma to fill out papers saying she's a farmer, so I can get a license to drive farm equipment. When it came, I hired on at Ray's Feed and Seed delivering hay and seed corn and fencing material after school and weekends. My apprenticeship, Grandma called it.
Delmar, who lost his license for drunk driving, taught me to log mileage, read a map and plan routes. That's why I knew those things in the Corps and got a motor pool MOS. Every three months Grandma takes me with her to the ladies prison in Chillicothe to visit Momma. The waiting room is gray and smells like sweat and stale perfume, filled with fat ladies and crying kids.
One time a pretty girl in a red and yellow dress smiled at me. "Aren't visiting days hell?"
A prison guard, excuse me, Corrections Officer, in blue uniform, belly hanging over his belt, escorts Momma in, feet shackled, hands in cuffs. She wears a pink jumpsuit with Prisoner lettered on the back. Tears stream down her face. She begs for a kiss like I'm a girl. The people she yaks about, Grandma and I don't know.
Grandma has plans. "After yer outta school, we'll buy another truck. I'll do long hauls, you stay local. Junior college mornings, deliveries afternoons." Cancer and two heart attacks killed that idea. My junior year in high school she sold her truck and ran things from our front room.
I figure it'll be small-town life for me. Work with Grandma. Deer hunt in the fall. Pretend high school football games are important. Fish. Get married. Grandma says, "Don't waste your years waitin' for me to kick off. You'll hate me later."
Career Day my senior year, the Marine recruiter and I talk. I enlist for four years. After a year of infantry training at Camp Pendleton, I come home on leave. Saturday night I go to the Skyview Drive In. Sure enough, Candi and Clay are there.
When Clay goes for refreshments, I crawl in next to Candi. Her watermelon belly scares me. She lays her head on my shoulder. "What did I get into, Little Brother?"
Clay comes back, shoulders slumped, eyes squinting, with popcorn, Good 'N Plenty and Coke to mix with his Maker's Mark. I know why I left this burg now.
On my way back to my rental, I run into Doris Wannerger, in tight jeans and tube top. To her, I'm the high school jock. To me, she's a friendly smile. It takes persuasion, but she leaves her sister and her sister's fiancée and watches the rest of Smoke Signals next to me. She's a good listener. Smart. She laughs at my Marine Corps stories and agrees that motor pool is wheels for the infantry. She's enrolled in nursing school.
About the time the two idiots drive the car backward through town for the fourth time, I get my hand down Doris' jeans and rub her thing with my little finger. That's as far as I get.
* * *
Counselors say it's important we cripples stay busy. Hard to do, especially when rancid sweat turns sheets into wet sand and I forget my legs are gone and jump out of bed and fall in a heap on the cold floor. Once, I laid for an hour cussing, tears in my eyes before I dragged my worthless ass to the head, pulled on my workout gear and hit the iron pile at the gym. On each exercise, I force one more rep. And one more. And another. Burn away negative thoughts and bad memories, Grandma says.
The days pass, each the same. The gym. Sweat-filled nights. Jumbled memories. Grandma getting sicker and weaker. Boring TV. Fox News yammering. CNN repeats the same shit over and over. Monday Night Football is a religion to some, but I figure Kurt Warner and Marshall Faulk will score their touchdowns—they make the game look easy. Peyton Manning is supposed to be good. He and Vinny Testaverde would last maybe fifteen minutes in Afghanistan.
My Final Resolution comes. Five paragraphs of mishmash that denies my request for prosthetics. Something about my current civilian status and no doctor's request after my last operation.
I miss my old unit. I know I'll never rejoin them now. I feel guilty being Stateside, safe, and secure, but hell, they're at Pendleton, with nearby beaches and fast food everywhere. One night my feet burn so bad I cry, snot filling my mouth. My ears ring. My head's gonna explode. I take Grandma's .44 from the drawer next to my bed, pull back the hammer and jam the cold, oily-tasting muzzle into my mouth.
My choice. Eat a bullet or drink the counselor's Kool-Aid.
After maybe an hour, I crawl to the back porch, wrap the pistol in oilcloth, and hide it in the tool chest. The next morning going to the mailbox, my wheels mire in mud. I pull myself on my belly to the tool shed, get a shovel, crawl back and dig the chair out. That's it, I'm building a God-damned walkway.
Before the IED ruined me, this would take three, maybe four days. Now, I lie like a bag of rice on the plywood to screw galvanized fasteners flush. A counselor's silly statement keeps repeating. "Keep your mind and body in the same place."
He has two good legs and a good job. I'm a convict's crippled kid who messed himself up in war. I don't eat for two days. Grandma says, "Feelin' sorry for yourself don't help none. Decide what you want in life and do it."
Maybe, she's right.
At night if I concentrate real hard, I don't smell sun-baked yellow dirt or hear the bleat of sheep when a raghead kid sneaks from the mud hooch where he lives with six brothers and five sisters and a mother who never speaks and a black-bearded father. The kid yells, "Sergeant! Reese's! Min fadlak." (Please.)
I turn to wave. The earth blasts open, and heat shreds my cammies. I fly heavenward, then slam into the ancient soil like a deflated football, spitting blood and teeth and I can't hear Staff Sergeant Vasquez, only read his lips, "What the fuck!" and my heart beats fast, and I can't reach my carotid artery, then guys in blue-gray dungarees strap me into a Huey, because a sack of ammonium nitrate in a shallow hole with a blasting cap and split wire glued to a board so the slightest pressure makes the wires touch the terminal of a AAA battery, and the world goes boom and I'm on an airplane, and hours later wheeled into a room with maybe fifty other blown to shit Marines and Army guys and a nine-year-old little fucker the doctors put back together after a Russian PKM machine gun tore off his arm and both feet. The name tags of those who bend over me read Dr. Kee or Dr. Abdullah or Dr. Cortez and their green scrubs are stamped U.S. Navy.
* * *
One last day of belly-crawling to install solar lights. Three trips up and down with Grandma's Hoover and the carpet's clean. Rob Lee and William Junior walk with me to the top. They drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and argue who mixed the best mud or dug the straightest trench. It'll cost me a twelve of Sam Adams for them to plant Old Barnyard Mix hollyhocks where the walkway curves and Sweet William carnations where it's straight. Big money this time of the month, but I pony up.
Grandma's long body is sharp bones when she climbs on my lap. I muscle us up the hill. Dark altostratus clouds hang in the east. Rain, maybe snow, is on the way. The cold wind tears my eyes. The leaves on the pear tree give off death rattles. Grandma looks out at Bluebonnet and giggles. "Mary Louise Stock's wash is still on the line."
A little later, "Them hollyhocks will grow come summer. Now, get a dog. An Affenpinscher or Akita. You're different. Your dog oughta be too."
She dances like the night I scored three touchdowns. "I walked it like you promised." She throws her arms into the air and falls backward into the grass.
What the fuck?
My heart beats like I'm in an ambush. I should've waited for spring to bring her here but was afraid she wouldn't be around. I pull her limp body across my lap, roll downhill, up the ramp and into her room. Her face is pale as ice. The bed's too high for me to get her under the covers.
I dial Shirley's number. The State pays her to nurse Grandma. No answer. I roll to the closet, grab a blanket, and spread it over Grandma, then hit redial. A lady answers. I state my priority and 10-20.
"A colleague is scheduled at your location within the hour. I'll call to confirm." Grandma's breath barely moves her blanket. Is she dead? A car motor down by the gate. Hours later, footsteps on the porch. I yank the door open. Doris Wannerger, my high school friend I last saw at the Drive In two years ago, stands there.
She sees Grandma and drops her purse and blue canvas bag. She gently rolls Grandma to the far side of the bed, pulls the covers down, rolls her back and snugs the blanket under her chin. It takes maybe ten seconds.
Doris straps a monitor to Grandma. Numbers march across the small screen. "Probably a stroke. Her blood pressure's high. Her body temperature low."
She turns to me. "I saw in the paper you were home. I drove by. You were working, so I didn't stop."
She spreads a space blanket over Grandma. "Shirley's off today. I'm her backup. I asked for this assignment when I saw Miss Snead's request. She moved us to town when Daddy died. For free. Her grandson and I went to school together."
I know. I played with your thing, remember?
"You all right?"
I nod. I feel hot. I'd forgotten how green Doris' eyes are. She looks out at the walkway hugging the hill. "You built that, you can do anything."
Grandma whispers, "He needs a dog."
"Shush, Miss Snead. Rest. Dr. Gish is on his way."
Doris looks around. Drawings and plans from Carpentry and Handyman Magazine next to my laptop. My honorable discharge on the wall. Piles of geography books. Football on the shelf, next to my radio.
"You require any special equipment?"
"Just my chair. Shower stool. Crutches. The kinda stuff any fucked up Marine with no legs needs."
She tilts my face to the light. "You look fine to me. I notice you favor your shoulder. What gives?"
"Smashed. Titanium implant. Right arm shorter than my left."
"Pelvis?"
"Shattered. They even built me a new rib cage. I did a real number on me."
"What'd you mean, you did a number? You blame yourself?"
"I looked at the kid and stepped on the IED. We're warned not to fraternize."
"Maybe they used a cell phone to set it off."
"You know about that?" I stammer. "I, I, I can't walk. Or wear 501's."
"I didn't know jeans were important." She smiles.
"Same threads every day. Twenty minutes to get into my uniform of the day. Work out shorts and a fucking tee shirt. My hips go numb if I'm in the chair longer 'n an hour."
Her hair's not as red as I remember, but curlier.
"I know it's tough, but you're tougher. Any surgeries scheduled?"
"Nope. The VA says I don't qualify for prosthetics."
"Really? Phantom pain?"
"Nights. Feet burn like napalm."
"How do you handle it?"
"No booze. No drugs. The counselors say we can control pain with our thoughts. Shit like, imagine you put it in a box and carry it out. Deep breathing. Anything to keep the mind busy. I memorize baseball rosters. All teams. Any year. Or study and alphabetize nations of the world."
"Good." Her smile would stop a Humvee. "Use the internet?"
"Nope. Books."
She nods. "A certain Marine put his hand down my panties once. Ever think about that?"
"All the time. If it's true, the one on the bottom has the baby, I'm in trouble. That's my only position."
"Maybe you can research that."
Grandma mumbles, "I hear every word."
"You've heard worse, Dorothy Snead."
"Not from you. You need a dog."
Doris says, "I know where there's a half-cocker, half-poodle pup. Free. What if I come by tomorrow and we go see it?"
The next afternoon we brought home a pile of wiggly brown fur and black eyes. We named him Homer, after Grandpa. Doris comes by evenings, even when Shirley's on duty. Her smile and green eyes are welcome. Plastic tubes dangle from Grandma's nose like walrus tusks.
Twice a day, I walk Grandma across the room. We talk baseball. She forgets current Cardinal stars like Pujols and Molina but knows Musial hit .337 in 1963. Hank Williams and Patsy Cline blast from my boom box, or Chris Jones and Bluegrass Junction. Homer sleeps at Grandma's hip.
I ask Doris for a date. Her smile makes my throat tight. "Not while I'm on the case. It's not professional." I was alone when I learned Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged in 1964 to become the United Republic of Tanzania with a GDP of roughly $35 billion a year.
One afternoon Doris asks, "Still think the IED was your fault?"
"Yeah. Lost concentration when I looked at the kid. Damn near killed me."
"It didn't. What's the lesson?"
"That it takes two legs to walk?"
"Maybe it took a blast to get your attention?"
"What'd ya mean?"
"You're still pissed at your mom, right?"
"You writing a book?"
"We can carry anger around forever. Or forgive. Our choice. The same with the IED. Stay pissed or accept what is."
"You my therapist?"
"No. Just someone who cares." She smiles. I want to cry. "It takes a big man to forgive."
"So I've heard."
She kisses my forehead. "Coach Howsom used to brag how coachable you were. You still are."
Grandma's slipping fast. Homer won't leave her bed except to eat or go outside. I smear Vaseline on Grandma's lips and lie that the Cardinals win every game. Her blue hand is cool.
One Friday evening she sits up. "Give the ball to 16." My jersey number. "He'll get a first down."
Her last words.
Tuesday, after the funeral, Grandma's room is bare as a winter sycamore. Homer prances and whines. I pull him onto my lap and cry into his fur. I miss my old unit and wonder why no one, not even Gunny Sergeant Vasquez, answers my texts anymore and think that someday a kid will ask his Dad why so many old men are on crutches or in wheelchairs. "Was there a disease going around or something?"
I miss Grandma.
Homer and I fall asleep. When we wake, I fix Grandma's favorite breakfast, beef hash, poached eggs, and French toast, using my Coleman since the gas range is too tall for a guy in a wheelchair. I clean the kitchen and roll out on the porch. The clouds are stratocumulus, easy to move with thoughts. The weather's gonna change. Around eleven, Doris drives up.
I read somewhere that dogs don't immediately sense if a person's untrustworthy or not. Instead, they react to their master's intuitions about that person. Now, Homer wiggles and rubs against Doris like she has a juicy steak just for him.
Doris sits in Grandma's yellow metal lawn chair, the one we've had since I was a kid. Homer's head is on my feet, his rump on Doris. Sparrows scratch under the spirea. A bluebird hops in the grass.
"A crippled Marine with a dog would still like a date."
Doris' green eyes find mine. "I don't date cripples. I'd be honored, however, to go out with a Marine who sacrificed his legs for a cause. He knows it's not where you start that's important, but where you're going. He's the only guy who ever put his hand down my panties." She laughs. "I even like his dog."
The wedding was on a sunny day in May with a high sky and no wind, the kind of weather Marines like because it's easy to work up a sweat. In June with Doris' help on my appeal, the VA gave me aluminum legs. We razed the smokehouse and built a three-car garage with room for my work bench where I make wooden license plate holders, and names of nations of the world carved from recycled wood that we sell on Amazon and Etsy. We park our Ultra Glide with specially designed hand controls in the garage.
Doris rides behind me to the ladies' prison where Momma comes up for parole soon. Most nights Doris and I roll up to the pear tree, sit at the glass table and play two-hand rummy, the moon rising in the starry sky, Homer on the ground between us.
Grandma's way was that I get a dog and find a wife who wasn't squeamish. I have both. And a walkway that runs to the top of the hill where you can look out at the whole world.
This story originally appeared in Collateral Journal.
