Page 42 of Grounded
“Snake! Snake!” Annie was outside hopping around like she was stepping on hot coals.
“What in heaven’s name?”
“Don’t come out! There’s a snake right under the door!”
Beulah pushed open the door to see what was causing her granddaughter so much distress. There in the threshold was Booger, her old black snake.
“Calm down. You’ll scare him,” Beulah said.
“I’ll scarehim?”
“Booger, I thought something happened to you.” Beulah glanced up at Annie. “Hush now, he belongs here.”
Annie looked at her like she had sprouted another head. “You want a snake next to your back door?” she asked.
“Booger keeps the mice down. Black snakes also eat poisonous snakes, though we usually don’t have that kind of trouble around here. This is the first time I’ve seen him this spring.”
Annie was still hopping a bit, like she had to go to the bathroom.
“Now, if I could only bend down, I’d pick him up and get him out of your way. Do you want to get him for me?” Beulah asked, amusing herself.
“No! I’ll go around to the front door.”
She watched Annie high-step it around the side of the house and chuckled to herself. Beulah could almost hear Fred laugh with her. If he was still living, it was something they would replay to themselves over and over, milking the humor until they had their fill.
Annie picked up the mess Beulah had made when she jumped up at Annie’s screaming, then she hightailed it upstairs to go through more closets.Away from the snake,Beulah thought, laughing again to herself. Her granddaughter had country in her, but it was going to take peeling off layers to get it out.
Later, the phone rang and Beulah sighed, anticipating the effort to get up out of the chair and answer the wall phone. It stopped ringing and soon she heard Annie coming down the steps, the portable in her hand.
“That was Woody. He’s on his way over with the tomato cages you ordered. He said he’d put them on for us,” Annie said over an armful of clothes from one of the upstairs closets.
“Good! My old cages were falling apart. I finally sent them off with Joe to the scrap metal place last fall.
“Is Woody always this … available?” Annie asked.
“This is not quite normal, but I’m grateful for it, whatever the reason.”
Annie raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
Minutes later, Woody was at the back door.
“I see Booger’s back,” Woody said.
“Is he still under the door?” asked Annie.
“Naw, he’s moved up to sun himself on the old millstone.”
“Would you like a sandwich, Woody?” Beulah asked. The peanut butter and grape jelly were still on the counter from their lunch. When Woody nodded, Annie sat down at the table with the bread and fixings. Beulah did not know what she would have done without Annie this last week. She had become her hands and legs, doing everything Beulah’s knee kept her from doing.
“Woody, how’s your mother doing?”
“She’s no different. I reckon she’ll be laid up on that nursing home until she draws her last breath. I go see her twice a week, but she don’t know me.”
“Well, it’s good of you to visit her. She may know more than we think,” Beulah said.
“That’s what I tell myself, but it’s awful hard seeing her like that for all these years. Now, I’ll just tell ya, thar’s things worse than death. Fred did it the right way. He just took out of here quicklike. Made it harder on y’all, but better for him. But a horse kick to the head, now that’s not something to be trifled with.”
Woody folded his long legs into a chair at the table and wiped his brow with a napkin. To Annie he said, “So you fly around in those airplanes for a job.”
