WINNER 2024 GREAT AMERICAN FICTION CONTEST
For the winter Grandpa lived with us, he seldom spoke, but he had a habit of smacking his lips and grinding his teeth together as if on the verge of communicating something important. On the nights Mom was at work, Marcy often warmed up meatloaf for me and Grandpa, though never without declaring she was performing gendered labor. Marcy had come home from college speaking a new language, one of regressive social politics and repressed identities. She said Mom had raised us without any connection to our Jewish heritage or reckoning with the fact my father had left us for another family. I didn't go to Hebrew school, and I was too young to remember our father, but Marcy's newfound voice and authority made me inclined to believe her – we didn't know anything.
Marcy spent most of her winter break with old high school friends, especially Joel, who drove a faded green Chevy plastered in Al Gore stickers. I knew he had lost the election, and Marcy thought it was the end of democracy. From my bedroom window, I watched her jump into the passenger seat in her brand-new red peacoat, which she must have paid for with her new job as a research assistant, which sounded important and hard. I wished Marcy would stay home, especially since I wasn't allowed to leave until I recovered from my surgery. As I grew, the curve in my back had worsened, and by the time I was 11, the doctors said they would have to fuse the vertebrae or else I would keel over into a permanent comma.
After the surgery, I thought I might become a different person, more outgoing and less nervous, but instead I just felt relieved. I could get around fine on my own, though I had to stay home from school for a month. My mom was happy I could spend more time with Grandpa. I don't know what she imagined would happen between us. Maybe she thought he would impart the life lessons I never got from my father, but the truth was, even when we were together, Grandpa and I were pretty much alone.
