Perforation Problems

There’s a room upstairs in my grandparents’ house that’s full of boxes and miscellaneous junk—blankets, pillows, unused furniture. My grandma used it as her storage area, and before her funeral we used it as a place to shove things from downstairs so there’d be more room for people to visit after the service. Nobody’s been up there in a year. This weekend my mom and I spent the night at Grandpa’s. We picked him up on our way to Wabash for First Friday, where we went shopping to spend the gift cards we still hadn’t used from last Christmas. Grandpa stood there quietly looking at things while we shopped, helped Mom get a purse down, said he liked the sweater I was trying on. I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to get irritated, but instead he reminded me of a docile puppy—agreeable, patient. After we walked over to a restaurant for dinner. They were understaffed and slow—it took an hour longer than it should have, but again, no more than mild complaints...

Monday evening I got back home after dinner with Amanda and checked the mail. Local sales fliers, the power bill, my ever-present Cheryl's Cookies catalog tempting me with buttercream-covered deliciousness—and a Christmas card from my grandpa. A thin green card with penguins on it, one he probably picked up at Dollar General, where he told me he'd been doing all of his shopping. "Merry Christmas to you both," the inside said. "See you on Christmas Day. Love, Grandpa." For some reason—maybe it's because I've already been overemotional this month, maybe it's because I was tired and overwhelmed with everything to do—this made my eyes well up. It seemed like something special, a turning point. Grandpa had not only picked out cards, he had signed them, addressed them, mailed them. Christmas cards! Grandma would be so proud. "Got your Christmas card!" I texted him. "Grandpa sent us a Christmas card!" I texted both Mom and Mi...