Grandpère Read Online Free Page B

and do up their seatbelts without being told. Sometimes when I take them to town with me, they tell me to do up mine. It is the only time I ever wear one. I don’t think the government has the right to tell me that I have to wear it. It’s my car, my life and my decision. I recognize my rebellion here, but it pleases me to do as I please. I am glad that the children wear them, though.
    “Have fun!” we yell as we wave them off. We look at each other and laugh, for we yelled in unison. Patty is tall and slim, even now after just having a baby. I compliment her on how she looks, and she says, “I only get pregnant in my stomach. After the baby is born, I’m almost able to put on my old jeans.” No doubt running around after three lively boys helps keep her that way.
    “I used to get pregnant even in my face,” I tell her. “Even when my last baby was born, I gained thirty-five pounds. It took me six months before my jeans fit.”
    Patty laughs and says she can’t imagine me heavy. Standing beside her I feel tiny; my head doesn’t reach her chin. We are good friends, my daughter-in-law and I. Her mother lives in Ontario, and she does not see her very often, and our relationship is like a mother-and-daughter one. She is a good mother to the boys, who are well behaved and polite. She and Clint look at each other with such love that it sends a pang to my heart for my own lost love, gone from me these past four years. Sometimes I miss him so.
    The baby is still sleeping, and the three-year-old, Pierre, is sitting on the four-wheeler. He loves to ride it, and last time he visited, he figured out how to turn the key to make it go. I have the key safely hung inside the door now, so I get it and we ride round and round the yard. He keeps telling me to go faster, and I think his dad must go a lot faster with him than I do. I tire of the endless circles long before he does, and I distract him with feeding the chickens. He loves to get the eggs and wants to pack the bucket. He drops it and breaks two eggs. His little face is crestfallen, and he says, “Eggs broken.” I tell him that dogs like broken eggs, so we feed each dog one egg, and they delight him by eating the shells too. He laughs, “Silly dogs, not supposed to eat shells.” He is talking well now. He is sturdy and strong, his brown hair is long and curly and his blue eyes remind me of my own children’s. They were so like him.
    When we go into the house, Patty is nursing the baby. He is tiny, his little fists curled tight, and sucking as though he is starving.
    “Is he good?” I ask.
    “So good,” she replies. “All week now he’s been sleeping for eight hours at night.”
    “It is a blessing,” I say, and I mean it. Pierre was a cranky baby who refused to sleep through the night till he was over a year old. When he was a baby, they were here a lot. I spent some nights up with him, for I wasn’t sleeping much at that time either. Patty must have been remembering, too, because she said, “You won’t be up with this little guy, Mother. When he does wake up, he just wants a new diaper and a feed and then he’s right back to sleep.”
    Pierre wants to hold “his baby,” and Patty sets him on the couch with the baby’s head propped up on his arm. I take some pictures to put in my album. I have an album to record each of my children’s lives. Seth on Pierre’s lap will be the latest addition. I love these new cameras; take out the memory card and you can print photos from the computer in less than five minutes. Patty is surprised that I know how to do this, and I tell her that Darcy and Faith’s girls taught me to do it just last winter. They are my oldest grandchildren, and at fourteen and fifteen know more about computers than I ever hope to. They really like to show me how to do things; it’s such a role reversal. I have to remind myself that one is never too old to learn new skills. What good teachers these young ones are!
    Grandpère and Clint