-Who kneads dough like that? Add flour, add flour. Oh, Laura, you are so lazy in the city, you can’t even knead a normal dough for a pie. If my arms could bend, I wouldn’t let you near the flour. These are the times, women have forgotten how to bake bread. They’re used to the store. And what’s good in it? It doesn’t even smell like bread. Grass, grass. It used to happen that when we gathered to bake bread, the whole village would smell it, – Gwen grumbled, watching her son’s wife putting the dough.
-Michael, what did your father teach you? You have to prick it with the knots down. He has grown a belly, sweat is pouring down. He has grown a belly, sweat is pouring down. And he split only five pieces of wood. Your father used to chop wood like that when he was playing. The axe was just flying. And you have been sitting on your asses in chairs that you have forgotten how to work with your hands, – sitting on the bench, Gwen was reprimanding her son.
The latter, wiping the sweat, snapped: “Mom, do not go overboard. I’ll throw your firewood now, you’ll chop it yourself
Gwen immediately understood: “No, son. I’m just grumbling like an old man. Well done, you chop so thinly, it will be easy to drag it into the house. And under her breath she muttered, – They will burn like matches, no heat.
The son asked: – What did you say, mom?
She leaned on a stick and stood up: “I’m going to see how my granddaughter is working in the garden.
Michael just shook his head, here is restless.
-“Well, how do you pull the grass? You pull it together with onions. And then it will not grow, it will go into the arrow. What did you do with the carrots? My God, you’ve ripped it all off. Teresa, tell me honestly, do you have bad eyesight? Why don’t you wear glasses? One hundred percent? What the hell have you done? You haven’t weeded once? I was clearing fields of grass when I was your age. And you can’t even weed a small garden. The young people are gone. How will you live if, God forbid, a famine comes? It won’t? Why not? What will they make food from? From molecules? Ugh… Even then they would have made it from manure. It was healthier, – she laughed with a toothless mouth.
-“What should we do with her?” Michael asked his wife and daughter quietly, while Gwen lay down to rest. She has no strength, but she plants the garden. She does not agree to go to the city, says that she will die there. Here, she says, I was born, and here I will lie, – he lamented.
Laura also whispered: “Well, we can not drag her there. Let’s stay here, we’ll find someone. We’ll pay money, let him help.
Teresa alone was silent.
– And you, my daughter, why are you silent? Isn’t she your own grandmother?” Michael asked.
She answered thoughtfully: – I’m thinking. When you both grow old, helpless, I will hire a nurse for you too. Why? Convenient. You don’t seem to help, but you don’t forget. What’s Grandma grumbling about? She misses you a lot. We come rarely, and she needs to see us more often. To feel that we love her. Sweet grumpy girl. I’ll tell you what. I’ll take a sabbatical and live with her, – Teresa offered.
Parents waved their hands: “No way! You will miss a year, then you will not catch up. Let’s make an agreement, to go every weekend and not to get away with excuses, Laura it concerns you. How much more she has left in this world, let her feel our care. Our old age is not far off, right, daughter. Now Laura, get out the pie, we’re going to have lunch. We just need to wake up your mother,” Michael said.
But Gwen did not need to be woken up. She heard the whole conversation and cried quietly. As her granddaughter said, she was a sweet crybaby. The same feeling when little Michael called her mom for the first time. What a happiness that she has such a family. Caring. But we should hint to Michael that she does not mind an assistant. She travels often, she needs so much money. And she has a woman in mind – Lisa. She has many children, she needs money. She does not need to be a burden for her family. They come, they do not forget and I am grateful for that.
