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Through the front door was a big couch, the same one she’d always had, gray and worn and overstuffed like a leathery cloud. Charlotte dumped her bags beside it. An entertainment center sat right in the middle of the room, complete with two shelves of VHS tapes.
Charlotte chuckled. Looked like Grammy still rented movies off cable and taped them.
There was a single white door next to the entertainment center, and Grammy started to scoot that direction. Charlotte followed, helping h
er navigate the walker past the furniture.
The door creaked open, like it was smiling. Charlotte pushed it along…and gasped.
Holy rooster room.
“I, um, love the wallpaper in here, Grammy,” Charlotte said, taking some of Grammy’s weight as she waddled from her walker to sit on the bed. The entire bedroom was decorated in various versions of brightly colored roosters. Charlotte pulled back the big patchwork quilt—covered with angular red and yellow roosters, of course—then lifted Grammy’s legs and helped her get comfortable.
“Thank you, honey. I decorated it myself.”
“Of course you did,” Charlotte said, fluffing the rooster-shaped throw pillows behind Grammy. Her grandmother was always doing something, was always busy and happy. Charlotte had no idea how Grammy would survive bed rest. Maybe she could ask her to knit her a wool hat, preferably not covered in roosters.
“I’m really okay,” Grammy said, patting her hand. “It’s just my ankle. I’m slow, not invalid.”
“I know. I just want you comfortable. So you rest, I’ll go make you some tea, and then we can chat about all the details and chores.”
“Thank you, honey. My lady friend Eliza has been coming over to feed Sampson and the rest of the animals, so you won’t need to worry about them.”
“Sampson?”
“The pig. You’ll see the pen on the backside of the barn over there.” She jutted her thumb behind her. “There’s all kinds of lovely animals out there. And chickens! Sweetest things.”
Mental note: Chickens…animals.
There had to be a lot of work that went with that, but Charlotte had no idea what. Probably a lot of feeding and cleaning up crap. She sighed. Her grandmother lived this way, though, did these chores every day. So Charlotte could do it, too.
First thing was tea.
She headed for the kitchen, noting the interesting layout of the house. The bedroom had two doors, like a line for a roller coaster: one entry, one exit. The back hallway featured a bathroom and a breakfast nook, opening into the kitchen through the opposite door. Huh. The kitchen had an entrance and exit, too, which meant if all the doors were left open, she could run circles through the entire house.
She figured another bathroom and bedrooms would be upstairs, but everything she needed was on this level.
As she put the teakettle on, she noticed two bowls laid out on the kitchen floor.
“Grammy?”
“Yes?”
“The bowls on the floor…whose are they?”
“Oh, those are out for Princess Peanut Butter.”
Who the hell is Princess Peanut Butter? “Is that your dog? Where is she?”
Grammy called for her “sweet little princess” while Charlotte finished up their tea. When she returned to her grandmother’s bedroom, the other woman looked upset.
“She must have gotten out,” Grammy said.
“Gotten out?”
“She’s allowed to go out, but only with me because there’s so much land. I don’t want her to get lost or run into a coyote.” Granny frowned. “I bet Eliza let her out and forgot.”
Ice water rushed through Charlotte’s veins, and her scalp prickled. Princess Peanut Butter didn’t sound like a killer of a dog. If the dog had gotten out and run into a coyote…
