Mom dropped Max and Lorelei off at a little white house with lacy corner brackets on either side of the front porch posts. The lawn was overgrown, grass reaching almost up to the Max’s knees, vines twirling haphazardly up the porch, bushes sprawling around the front. The house itself was pleasant. Max could already tell that helping Grandma Spinner clean her house and yard was going to be quite the job.
He and Lorelei climbed out of the old brown family minivan.
“Okay, kids, be good, and mind your Grandma,” Mrs. Spinner spoke over the noise coming from the back seat where Theo was play-fighting with Jacob, and Mica was starting to scream at everyone from his car seat.
“Yes, mom,” Max said, and Lorelei nodded. Nobody had to worry about her being good. Lorelei was always good. It was almost boring sometimes.
“Can I go too?” Emilia asked for the fifth time from the passenger seat which she’d scrambled up to as soon as Max had vacated it. “I want to help Grandma!”
“Not this time,” mom said, and then turned to her two oldest children again. “Okay, I’ll pick you up later this evening. Love you both.”
“We love you too,” Lorelei said.
“Goodbye!” the other kids chorused as the minivan backed out of Grandma’s gravel driveway.
Max took a deep breath when they’d gone.
“Come on,” he said to Lorelei, and the two of them walked up to the door. Max rang the doorbell twice and knocked impatiently, anxious to start already and get it over with.
When Grandma Spinner opened the door she was almost exactly as Max remembered, small with big blue eyes the same color as his and his dad’s, and curly white hair. The only difference Max could tell since he’d seen her at Easter was that her hair was shorter. She wore it shoulder-length now.
“Hello! Come in,” Grandma Spinner led the two of them inside with a big smile. She smelled like air fresheners and cinnamon, Max noticed as he walked inside.
Her house was cheerful and crowded with mementos of earlier days, back when Grandpa had been alive and it was filled with children. Photographs of people who looked vaguely familiar to Max, even though he’d never seen them when they looked like that, sat on random perches – the desk in the corner, the shelf by the window, the curio cabinet across the room, as well as hanging on the creamy walls. There were the lamps with their beaded fringes that Max remembered playing with as a kid, and the old couches that had been there for decades, and the small kitchen off to the side of the living room with its linoleum floors and deep cabinets.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Grandma Spinner said. “I’ve got a whole list of things that need to be done, and as you can see, it’s going to take a bit of work to get this place tidied up. I wrote it all down . . . Now where did I put that list? One moment, I’ll go find it.”
And Grandma Spinner disappeared into a back bedroom in search of the list.
“Well,” Max said for no particular reason.
Lorelei was looking around and Max could tell she was already thinking about what needed to be done. She was good at stuff like that, and even though she was only eleven and his little sister and all, Max had to admit that she was more talented than most adults were when it came to tackling a situation. Max was content to wait until Grandma Spinner came back and told him what she wanted.
He recognized his dad in some of the photographs. His dad looked a lot like he did, curly brown hair, round face, the blue eyes, and a glint of mischief always about him. His nose was a little different from Max’s, and he was taller and thinner than Max in stature. Lorelei was tall like that, and everyone said Max had his mom’s nose, small and round.
He also saw Uncle Henry and Aunt Bridget, and later, Aunt Isabelle, and Aunt Thea. Theo was named after her, he knew, and she was one of his dad’s favorite sisters. He hadn’t seen her since he was seven though, because she’d moved away with her husband. He couldn’t remember what state they lived in now.
“Hey Lor, why do you think everybody’s so far away?” Max said, startling Lorelei from her own thoughts.
Her gray eyes widened a little. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Max shrugged, already not sure why he’d asked. “It’s just that Uncle Henry is in Texas, and Aunt Bridget lives in Maryland with her family. Aunt Isabelle’s off mountain climbing or whatever, and Aunt Thea . . . We just don’t see any of the family that often. Is that normal?”
“I don’t know,” Lorelei said, which was more than Max expected her to say, really.
Grandma Spinner came back into the room with a white sheet of paper covered in her neat handwriting.
“Alright,” she said. “I’ve found it! So I’d like for Lorelei to work in the house with me, and we’ll take on that half of the list. Max, I’d like for you to start on the yard.”
“Okay,” Lorelei said, rolling her sleeves up. Max thought that was funny.
“Great, so we’ll clean the kitchen, and Max, there’s a lawn mower out in the shed. Come to me when you’ve finished with that and I’ll tell you what’s next.”
“Got it.” Max headed out in search of the shed and lawn mower.
He walked out the back door. There were three different sheds. Grandma hadn’t said which one, had she? He could go back and ask her, but maybe it wouldn’t be that hard to find. He didn’t need constant supervision after all. He waded through the thick grass to the nearest shed and opened the door. A puff of dust greeted him. It was hot and sticky inside the dimly lit shed. The one small window illuminated the floating dust motes that were displaced by his entry. An odd assortment of spare wood, garden implements, bags of soil and birdseed, tools, and big bins marked with labels such as “Christmas Decorations” and “Kids’ Stuff” filled the tiny space. Everything that could be kept in a shed seemed to be in this one. Max had a hard time imagining what the other two could hold. There was no sight of a lawn mower though.
“How am I supposed to find anything in this mess?” Max grumbled aloud when he opened the door to the second shed.
This one was even smaller, but stuffed with stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes and old bicycles. Max searched among the things in the second and third sheds, and started to doubt that Grandma even had a lawn mower. It’d be easy to forget what you did and didn’t have with all of this stuff.
“Where is it?” he said, vexed. He was starting to sweat in the stale heat of the sheds, and dust stuck to him.
He finally found it when he returned to the second shed and looked behind one of the stacks of boxes again. Feeling silly and frustrated, Max brought the lawn mower out and tried to get it to start. No gas. He started searching among the sheds again and at last was able to get the mower running and start on the yard.
That was way harder than it should have been, he thought. Why were Grandma’s sheds so disorganized? Why did she have to keep so much stuff?
After a few minutes of mowing the lawn, trimming the unruly heads of long grass into rows with the steady grinding of the machine filling his ears Max’s annoyance dissipated. It was a lovely warm day. The August sunlight was heavy and bright. Blue sky above him, a cool breeze, and the sweet smell of the grass as he sliced through it made the task almost enjoyable.
It took him a little over two hours to mow the whole lawn. When he was done he returned to the house. He could see Lorelei and Grandma still cleaning in the kitchen, and suddenly realized again how sweaty and dirty he was. They probably wouldn’t like it if he came in.
“Grandma?” he called from the back step. “I’m finished with the lawn.”
“Wonderful!” Grandma started filling a glass with water from the kitchen sink. “ Now if you wouldn’t mind there are some clippers for the bushes out there, and those sheds could use some tidying, don’t you think?”
“Yes ma’am,” Max said.
“Are you thirsty?” she asked.
Without really waiting for his answer she brought the full glass of water over to him and watched as he gulped it down in less than a minute, ready to take the cup back when he was finished.
Since he’d been through the sheds a few times by then, Max could remember seeing the bush clippers and decided to start with that. He wanted to avoid organizing the sheds for as long as he could. Another hour went by and the bushes and vines surrounding Grandma’s house were at least somewhat tamed when she called out to him for lunch.
“Max!” Lorelei greeted him on the front porch. “We’ll eat out here so you don’t go in and mess the house up. Grandma and I made brownies.”
Max threw himself into one of the green plastic chairs outside. With a few trips back and forth, Grandma and Lorelei laid out a feast of sandwiches, fruit salad, iced tea, and delicious-looking brownies on the table before him.
Max reached for a brownie.
“First we’ll bless our food,” Grandma reproved him. “And then we’ll eat things in a civilized order.”
Max felt embarrassed. He was so hungry that he’d forgotten about that for a minute, and the brownies smelled so good. He folded his hands and prayed with Grandma and Lorelei, and then grabbed a sandwich or two and tried not to devour them like a heathen.
“The yard’s looking better,” Grandma said, unfurling a napkin and neatly placing it on her lap.
“Thanks,” Max swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Finally got the bushes trimmed, I think. I haven’t started on the sheds yet.”
He hoped that she’d change her mind and say he didn’t have to do them. She didn’t, though.
“We did the dishes, and cleaned out cabinets, and scrubbed the floor, and picked up in the living room, and went through old photos, and cleaned windows.” Lorelei reported. “And guess what? Grandma says we can pick blackberries and make jam later!”
“We’ll have to see how much we can get done before then,” Grandma said. “But yes, if we finish a few other things first we’ll make jam.”
“Okay,” Max said. He wasn’t as excited about that as Lorelei seemed to be. It probably beat working on the bushes and organizing sheds though.
“Your aunts and uncles used to love making jams and jellies,” Grandma went on. “We’d all go out and wrestle with the blackberry thicket every summer, the kids competing for the fullest buckets and the best picks, staining their fingers and clothes along the way.”
There was a catch in her voice as she said that, and Grandma’s eyes grew softer. Max had never thought about how lonely she must be before.
“You miss them being around don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes,” Grandma said, and then more cheerfully, “We can’t keep time from passing, though. And now I have you two wonderful kids to spend time with.”
Though she smiled, Max still felt a bit sorry for her.
“Why did they all go so far away? Isn’t it kind of unfair that they just left you here?”
“Max!” Lorelei said.
Grandma looked out over the yard thoughtfully for a minute before answering. “That’s what children do, I guess. They grow up and find new things and sometimes they leave.”
“But don’t they feel bad for not helping out more?” Max wondered. “I mean, it’s like they just forgot about you.”
“They haven’t forgotten about me,” Grandma smiled. “They’re just busy. Besides I like the time to myself, too.”
Max didn’t say any more about it, and when the three of them had finished lunch he went out to the sheds to see if he could clean them up a bit. He was still thinking about his conversation with Grandma. He bet that she missed everyone a lot more than she let on, and that it was sad for her that they’d all gone so far away. Even his dad had moved a few hours away, so though Max and his siblings were Grandma’s nearest grandchildren they weren’t that close either. It really wasn’t fair that Lorelei and he were the only ones to come over and help.
A while later the sheds were sort of organized, the house was clean, and Max and Lorelei were picking blackberries. At least half of Max’s were going into his mouth before they had a chance to reach the bucket Grandma had given him.
“Lor,” he said. “I still think it’s dumb how nobody else is around to help Grandma out.”
“She said she’s fine.” Lorelei was intent on reaching into the center of the bushes where some of the finest berries were protected by thorns from the greedy birds.
“But . . . Here let me,” Max stepped in. “I just don’t get why all of her kids are okay with wandering off and not even checking in on her. Ow!”
The thorns had caught him. He quickly pulled his hand back to examine the damage.
“Stupid thorns!” he said.
“You don’t know that they don’t check in on her,” Lorelei pointed out.
“I guess,” Max said. “It really doesn’t seem fair though.”
“For her or for you?” Lorelei asked.
“Well both,” Max admitted. “I mean, why do we have to do all of this?”
“Maybe that’s what all of our aunts and uncles thought too,” Lorelei said. “Someday we’ll be older too, and we might go away.”
Max hadn’t thought of that. He’d been frustrated and complaining to himself most of the day. If that was how he acted about helping Grandma out just one day every once in a while, how did he act about having to help his own parents out? Was what he was doing any better than what he was accusing Grandma’s kids of doing? And they might have good reasons that he knew nothing about, but he was pretty sure that his reason was just laziness most of the time.
“Maybe,” Max said.
Their buckets were full of blackberries and Max was full of new thoughts as the two of them walked back towards the house.