“Don’t mind Katarina,” Serena said, and gave him a welcoming hug. She pulled back and patted her white bun with one hand. “She darts in and out of here so fast, it’s hard to keep track of her. I gave her free rein a long time ago. You’ll meet her soon enough, when she’s ready.”
Carl nodded and smiled, trying to conceal his breaking heart. When Dad had called, he hadn’t believed his grandmother had been as bad as the stories. Surely it had only been a single bad day. She’d been fine when he’d seen her a few months ago, independent and fierce as always, for all that she was barely five feet tall.
He’d texted his boss that he needed time off and hadn’t waited for approval. The six-hour drive always felt vaguely apocalyptic to him. Sure, it had something to do with Chicago drivers’ Mad Max tendencies, definitely. But when he hit the windmill farms, enormous towers symmetrically spaced in empty green fields like mechanical plants, rotors moving slow, with no one else in sight – that was when the cognitive dissonance hit.
He hadn’t quite shaken off the sense of dystopia by the time he’d hit grandmother Serena’s tiny house, set back among the trees and accessible only by a narrow, winding road. Better to think of giant mechanical trees than to think about his grandmother forced into some home, unable to care for herself any longer.
Unable to take pride in her self-sufficiency. Unable to choose what she did, and when. Under someone else’s control. She’d wither away and die from the indignity, assuming she even understood what was happening.
Carl clung to hope as he hung up his jacket, shedding rain droplets onto the polished wooden floor. The cottage was immaculate, as always, with walls covered with photographs. He breathed deep of the familiar lavender and lemon polish, gazing around. “Who’s Katarina?”
Serena had disappeared into the kitchen, and came back with a spoon in hand. “Your father called you, didn’t he? Always convinced I’m losing my marbles.”
He coughed, startled. It loosened his tongue. “Well, have you?”
She pointed the spoon at him and gave him a look.
He stepped back hastily and bumped the door. Carl raised his hands in surrender. “Fine, yes, he called.”
“Stay a few days with your gran,” she said, and lowered the spoon. She turned back to the stove, disappearing out of sight. “You’ll meet her soon enough, mayhap. Katarina is real. Always has been. I’d always hoped you’d meet her sooner, but she comes when and to whom she will.”
Carl started to follow the new scent of vanilla and sugar the spoon had promised, but his eye caught on a photograph. This one had a simple black wooden frame. Didn’t matter how often he came, she’d always put something new up. Serena always said the scenery needed to change frequently to keep from getting bored.
Would they let her put up this many photographs in assisted living? Would a kind nurse help her change out the photos in each frame and add more until the wall was a mural of captured smiles and poses? Would they realize she’d been a professional photographer, or assume dementia when the people in the pictures were so varied?
He blinked back tears. Some of his favorite memories were going out with his gran on walks just to explore. He’d had a small camera appropriate for child-sized hands and clumsiness, but he’d delighted in finding items or events, whether a budding spring flower or girls laughing at their first double dutch jump rope success.
Capture the joy, she’d always said, and he’d dutifully raise the camera to his eye and try his best.
He looked closer at the image that had caught his eye. An unfamiliar little girl of five or so, just a blur of dark hair and an impish smile. The black and white photograph must have been treated to highlight her red jacket. The trend seemed awfully modern for his grandmother.
Carl leaned in, his eye caught by an anachronism. The little girl looked like she was wearing modern sneakers with her old-fashioned school uniform. Movement flagged his attention.
The little girl winked at him.
He gasped. Stumbling down the hallway, he focused on the scene in front of him. Grandma making cookies was only surpassed in normalcy by Grandma taking photographs.
“She’ll be here soon,” Serena said from where she spooned cookie dough onto a tray. “Always takes her a while to transit out of that world and back into ours.”
“Whaaa?” Carl croaked with great eloquence.
She looked up at him with a sharp eye. “You didn’t think I’d let you stay a lawyer forever, did you? My time is short in this world, boyo, and you’re my heir.”
Silence filled the sunny kitchen, gleaming off well-polished wood. He stood there with his mouth open, the padded kitchen chairs too far away to catch him if he fell over.
Serena put the tray in the oven and set a timer. She turned around, wiping her hands on a towel. “You didn’t think I was a normal photographer, did you?”
He hiccupped. Footsteps sounded behind him, light and quick. Child-sized noises.
“Best get to training or the power will go wild when it hits you. I bet you’ve forgotten all I taught you as a boy.”
***
On this week’s odd prompt exchange, mine went to ‘nother Mike: “She closed her eyes, and saw nothing but sparkles.” I can’t wait to see what he does with it.
In return, Leigh Kimmel challenged me with the following: “On the wall is an old-fashioned photograph of a little girl in a red jacket. You look closer and realize that the girl is wearing modern sneakers.” This was a fun one – thanks, Leigh!
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