I could have made it over the track before the train got to the crossing, but figured Don would like to watch it pass by, so I stopped and waited. The engineer blew the whistle loud and long as he passed in front of us, and Don quickly put his hands up to his ears.

***

Grandma got the device for emergency response installed on Thursday, so when I went there yesterday I asked to see it.

“Oh, it’s in the bedroom. I’m not wearing that big thing all the time!”

“What good is it going to do you if you fall out here in the kitchen and break a hip and can’t reach the phone?” I asked her.

“I’m not going to fall!” she said dismissively. “I’ll know if I need to wear it, if I’m not feeling good or something.”

“You might as well cancel the service, then,” I said, “because the whole point of it is that you don’t know when you’re going to have an accident, and you need to have it within reach if you do.”

She was having none of that. I went and looked at the device, on a string that could be worn around the neck or wrapped around a wrist. It isn’t tiny, but it isn’t so large that it would weigh her down any, even if she is only 90 pounds and proud of it.

***

I added up the cost of several items I’ve picked up for her over the past couple weeks, so she could write me a cheque. I did the addition on a piece of paper, and told her “Sixty-six dollars will do.”

She wrote a cheque, I itemized the expenses on its face in case it should be questioned one day, and stuck it in my wallet without looking any more closely at it than that. A few minutes later she picked up the piece of paper I’d done my figuring on and said “What’s this?”

I told her, and she exclaimed “Well what did you tell me a hundred dollars for? That’s what I put on the cheque.”

“Did you? I told you sixty-six.” I got the cheque out of my wallet and looked. Sure enough, it was made out for a hundred bucks. “Write me another one, I’ll tear this one up.”

“No no, keep that, you’ll be buying other things for me.”

“Oh, write me another one, then we’ve got things straight.”

“I don’t know why you told me 100 in the first place.”

“I don’t think I did.”

“Yes, you did! I heard you! You told me one hundred dollars!”

“Oh? Well okay, maybe I did, if you say so. Anyway, I’m tearing it up.”

She sat down to write another one while I was filling her new electric kettle to make tea and test it out.

***

“Why didn’t you change your name when you got married?” she asked as she filled in my name.

“I’ve got my own name, and never saw the point in changing it to somebody else’s.”

She snorted.

***

She snarled peevishly at everything I said, until finally I couldn’t take it anymore without saying something.

“What the hell are you so cranky for today? Smarten up!”

When I call her onto the carpet over being a miniature cow, she is taken aback for a few seconds and then behaves herself.

***

We had company over for a barbecue last night and I was telling them how cranky Grandma is, and Dawne said “Oh well, at 86 she has a right to be.”

“I don’t think so!” I said. “To hell with that.”

***

She needed potatoes. While I was at the Co-op, I ran into a woman whom I barely recognized. She didn’t recognize me right away either, so I said “Boo hoo, I am aging then!”

“I think it’s just that you’ve gotten so skinny,” she said, holding me at arm’s length and looking me over.

“I haven’t, you know. I weigh the same as I have for the past 10 years, and that’s heavier than I ever was. The old bod must be shifting around.”

I quizzed her about her son, my playmate from the time we were both a year old until we became teenagers and he didn’t interest me anymore (stupid me; in my baby book, written in Mom's hand, his name is listed among my first words). And she told me to stop in sometime, as does everyone I run into after not seeing them for many years.

I say “I’ll try,” and then I never do get there.

But at least I run into them at the Co-op store, which is why I make a point of picking up a few groceries when I’m in my home town.