I love how my Grandfather is always around to keep me company. On days that my Mom isn’t around, Grandpa is always nearby to comfort me. I sit on his lap, tell him stories about my day, and I never feel like I’m alone. Although our house is never empty even when Mom leaves for work, and I sit with Grandpa and read stories while he enjoys his chair, we always have guests in every room of our house.
There’s Edna and Elma, the twins my Grandfather is friends with; they’re always sitting together in the kitchen with a teapot between just the two of them.
There is also Joseph the Plumber who went to school with Dad. Often seated with him in his study as Dad is hunched over his desk, with a grin on his face; always looking at their high school yearbook while Joseph keeps him company as old friends should. Unless Mom needs to use a spare chair, then Joseph just stands next to Dad as he looks at his yearbook.
Then we have our younger guests like Beth and Tomas, who are around my age. They are often upstairs when they aren’t playing with me. However I don’t really care if Tomas stays up there with his Mom and Dad; he never talks to me, and always makes a stupid face at me when I try and play with him. But Beth is really nice.
She has pretty blonde curls in her hair, wears pretty perfumes and makeup, and sometimes Mom buys new dresses for her to wear. I’m sure she likes those, because she always has a smile on her face, even when I accidentally asked Mom how she got the ugly scar on her back. I felt bad when Mom told me that she had gotten the scar when she came here and was separated from her parents, who Mom says were very bad people. So I guess that makes her like the sister I never had, but I just like playing games with her when I’m bored. But Mom often scolds me if I get Beth’s dresses dirty, or accidentally knock her down.
Tonight, my Mom says we’ll be having another guest and a new friend for me to play with! Hopefully his family can come too! But Mom says that it’s hard to get an entire family like Tomas’ to come and stay in our home. So before she leaves for work, she tells me she’ll be home by midnight. She gives me a kiss on the cheek, packs up her tools, and tells me to go make some space in Beth’s room for the new boy to stay.
It’s the last time I talk to Mom before she leaves for work, and I go upstairs to get the bedroom ready. It takes me awhile, and by the time I’m done I don’t want to play with Beth like I usually do. So I grab a storybook from Beth’s shelf, and go downstairs to the living room. As always Grandpa is there, sitting in his rocking chair, waiting for me to come sit in his lap and tell him how my day went.
So I climb up into his lap, and snuggle against him as I tell him about our new guest. But I notice something’s wrong. His head is limp to one side, and his eye’s are closed. So I hop off his lap, and go into the kitchen as fast as I can. I run past Edna and Elma, and immediately go for the bottom drawer next to the silverware where we keep Grandfather’s emergency supplies.
I go back into the living room, stopping at the doorway to remember my manners, and I say “Good evening” to Edna and Elma before I go back to Grandpa. Carrying the supplies in my arms, I drop them behind Grandpa’s chair and look up at his neck.
“Grandpa, your stitches came out again! It’ll take me forever to fix your neck like last time! Hmph…if only Mom had sewn you shut with a machine and used beads to stuff you like she did to Beth, instead of that flimsy cotton. Then you wouldn’t be falling apart all the time!”
But I’m not upset with him, it’s not his fault. Mommy was only learning when she first brought him over as a guest. We’d only just moved into the neighborhood, and she had wanted to make sure that we’d never have to be lonely ever again. But of course now our guests can sit straight and never fall over, and Mom says that someday she’ll be sitting next to Grandfather while I’m out bringing new guests to keep us company.
Credited to SteewpidZombie