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“Ugh! Can you two please stop abusing me!” Mina slumps down in her chair and angrily eats her slice of cheese pizza.
Grandpa Bob scoffs. “There you go again! When I was a kid, abuse involved your father’s leather belt or worse. Your mother won’t even spank you.”
“Times are a bit different now,” I say.
“Yeah, well. That’s just part of this generation.” He motions to my daughter, who’s furiously texting on her phone. “They don’t have any grit.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “I know. So, you’ve said thousands of times.”
“Not like you’re any better,” Grandpa Bob says, inspecting his slice for any stray banana peppers.
“What?” I ask. “I got the wooden spoon to the behind all the time.”
“Agh. That’s nothing. That barely even hurts.”
“I beg to differ,” I argue.
“Exactly, see? You’re soft. That’s why you ended up pregnant in high school.”
That comment hurts a little. “I didn’t give birth until after graduation, thank you very much,” I say, slightly defensive. Yes, I was a teen mom, but I never let that define me. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t be a lawyer now.
“Yeah, with little time to spare. You were holding that baby in as you walked across the stage,” Grandpa chuckles. ”In fact, your graduation gown barely reached around your belly, and you waddled your way across the stage!”
“That is not true!” I defend.
“Mina, when’s your birthday?” he asks.
“June eighteenth,” Mina responds, still typing away on her phone. I wonder if she’s tweeting this.
“And when did you graduate?” He has turned his head and is looking at me.
I grit my teeth. “June seventeenth.”
He smiles. “I rest my case.”
When we finish our meal, I ask Mina to collect all our dishes and load them into the dishwasher. I can tell that her instinct is to refuse, but she knows there’s no way I’m letting her go to the concert she and her friends have tickets for this coming weekend if she keeps up her current attitude.
But she’s fourteen. I was a teenager once, and I know demanding perfection when it comes to her attitude is unrealistic and only sets her up to fail.
After cleaning up the table, Mina walks back to her room, but Grandpa Bob stops her.
“Come here,” Grandpa waves Mina close to him.
“What?”
“You too, Mae.” I’d gotten up to read more of that crime book in the privacy of my room, but I change course at his request.
“What is it? Oh, gosh. Are you okay?” I know he had a recent doctor’s visit. Did he get back some bad news?
“I’m fine. In fact, I’m better than ever.”
“I—I don’t follow,” I say.
“I’ve decided that it’s high time for us to get out of the city,” Grandpa informs us, leaning back in his chair with a determined smile.
“I bought a farm.”
Chapter two
