Chapter 58

9 2 0
                                    

I arrived home from school and my grandmother was gone. There was a note left on the kitchen table like someone had ran out to fetch milk. It was mum's handwriting and it said, 'I've had to move her to a hospice.' I crouched down on our linoleum floor, and thought about my grandmother who'd bit her tongue to keep the peace, to raise three girls in a stable family, who had courage and spirit and made an art out of being trapped by domesticity. She ate mono-flavoured food, drank milky tea and gossiped with the neighbours. She wore four different hats and celebrated the day her ice box became a refrigerator.

My tears felt unworthy of my grandmother, but they fell as steadily as wheels rolled downhill. I held my head in my hands, sobbing for this woman I was so lucky to have spent time with in the end, devastated that today she'd been moved to the place that was the room before her final resting place. 

Repeat After MeWhere stories live. Discover now