Three Pies

There were more pies than people at Granma's table this year. I think the good folk at her church consider pie a sacrament. I'm cool with this idea- it meshes well with my worship of The Great Pumpkin.
Many pies were delivered unto Granma this year.
I was her only guest, however.
Her youngest son went to his Florida time-share. I didn't know he had one. He probably doesn't, I bet he just said that so he wouldn't have to visit his mother. He doesn't like to visit because she can always tell when he's drunk and he's always drunk.
The oldest son, my dad, lives with his mom but has been MIA (Missing In Alcoholism) for five weeks. No one knows where he is. He's been doing this as long as I've been alive, probably longer. (He didn't know he had twin sons until a week after we were born)
A few years ago, I would have tracked him down and made sure he wasn't dead; nowadays I just don't care enough to bother. My Granma knows this and doesn't ask me to intervene. I'm glad of this. I'm in no emotional shape to waste my time with Dad's crap. Again.
She doesn't know that I almost died just a couple months ago, and I'm not going to tell her, but she can tell there's something different about me. She asks me if my job is alright. Am I upset about a girl? Is it my stomach?

No, I assure her, I'm fine.

And then it starts.
No, I'm not fine. I'm sick and tired of my Dad dissappearing and leaving his 89 year old mother to fend for herself. He was too busy drinking to be a father and now he's too drunk to be a son.
Granma says he's depressed because his Social Security is almost zero. That's what happens if you never have a job.
You should have thrown him out years ago, I tell her.
The words sound cruel to me.
I wish I hadn't said them.

Amazingly though, she agrees with me. He's never learned to be a man, she admits.
It's just the two of us and it occurs to me that it's been a long time since I've been alone with my Gran. Usually she's got an audience of church folks and/or distant relatives I never recognize, no matter how often I see them. Not conducive to intimate talks.
Tonight, she talks to me as an adult and we work out some stuff that needed working. It's a realistic , pragmatic conversation about what the dead require from the living and why it's important to her that certain things are done in certain ways.
These certain small things would mean nothing to anyone else, but they mean a lot her, so they are important to me.
I tell her I'll do whatever she asks me to.
She knows I mean it.

Driving home, I feel really good. Dark country roads and loud music playing. For two hours I don't think, I just watch the road and let the music do the driving.
It must have been speeding, because I'm home before I realize it- a 140 mile trip in just over two hours.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna play guitar and I'm gonna play it LOUD.