GRAM
By the 1990’s, Mrs. Wilkinson was the only person on this side of the bridge who believed in fairies anymore. The people across the river, in the hills, have never stopped believing. The houses over there are far apart, and the roads through the woods are lonely.
Gram came down to live with us after Mother died. Mother fell down the stairs and hit her head, Gram said, but I was really little, so I don’t remember.
Anyway, Gram came from up there, the other side of the river. Folks are different up there, they live different, don’t visit much. It’s like they’re on their own.
We were always poor, but Gram made the best of everything: drapes out of sheets, dresses out of drapes, dinner from whatever was at hand–squirrel sometimes. She was a real good shot.
When my sister cried for a dressing table Gram made her one out of an old carton, covered it with some magazine pictures she saved and stuck on a coffee can lid for a mirror.
They said she was a pretty woman when she was young, but when she got old she had squinty eyes from looking at the fairies. Some people have that kind of vision, like cats. Owls. They can see in the dark.
Gram was real good at games. She made a game out of being quiet those times Daddy was sleeping it off, and she taught us I Spy, to pass the time afternoons we had to sit outside the hotel, waiting for him.
But then there was the accident the summer I turned fourteen. They put her in jail. Once when I went to see her there, she told me the Queen had come, tried to get her out, but the bars were iron so she couldn’t pass.