Granmaw Selkirk was blind. That in no way slowed her down but people visiting her had to be precise where they put things and mind whether their feet stuck out or not. She had a seat on the end of her sofa within hands reach of her rocker. That was the Visitor’s seat.

People said that she went blind from doing the crossword puzzles in Grit magazine and people also said that she had killed a bear with a frying pan full of bacon one day. People had a lot of respect for Granmaw Selkirk and nobody messed with her.

RJ learned to like her once he got over the shock of meeting someone so old, but that had been years ago when he was a child. He looked at her now and realized it would be hard to tell if she’d aged any at all since then. She still looked older than dust, regarding him with her hawklike gaze. Back then she wore tri-focals — that was before she lost her eyes–not her eyesight mind you, she claimed she still had that, she just didn’t care see things that didn’t matter. Granmaw Selkirk looked for all the world like Granny Goodness in those old Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. And that was just fine with RJ.

RJ came forward and sat down in the Visitor’s seat, noting that his grandmother looked so thin and fragile he was worried he’d hurt her with a warm hug. He spoke a bit loudly as he sat down. “How’re you doing Granmaw?”

“Not so bad as to complain about it, nor so well off that I’d go about bragging.” She gave him a long look with her blind eyes. “Been a long time since you’ve been to visit your Granmaw, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“Oh well, you know…”

“No, I don’t know or I wouldn’t have asked.” She looked over her left shoulder as if she had a secret audience or maybe a parrot on her shoulder and said “Tsskk! Kids!” then she said “Where’s that wife of yours, and your kids? Don’t they go to funerals back in Indiana?”

“Well, actually they are at Disneyland.”

“Disneyland!? They can’t interrupt their visit to see a mouse long enough to go to your poor momma’s funeral?”

RJ looked down even though he knew she couldn’t see it and said softly “That was…the gist of it. Her work is paying for the transportation and one of her co-workers has a house down there. She said it had been planned too long to change.” He left it at that and looked closer at Granmaw Selkirk’s face. The way she focused on you it was like she really could still see. Maybe that was why she made everyone who came to visit sit in the same spot. She knew where that was in her head.

Granmaw Selkirk huffed and folded her arms across her chest. She shifted forward in her seat and RJ saw a sign on the other side of her chair written in Aunt Chrissy’s deliberate hand: “Do NOT tell my Mother Bad News.” RJ sighed and wondered why that sign wasn’t out on a table or tacked on the door as you come in? Maybe it had been and Granmaw moved it out of sight. He looked around to catch Aunt Chrissy’s eye and let her know he’d seen it but she was no where in sight. That was unusual for her, she usually hovered right on the edge of your vision, ready to step in if there was any conflict or question that might upset her mother.

“I suppose the plan is for you to go join the merry-making after you leave here? Anxious to get some sun are you? You know you have relatives down there, your first cousin’s husband Conrad drives a frigid-dater truck.”

“Uh, No ma’am, I’m headed back home. Work gave me just the Monday off.”

“Please Don’t UH and pause like that. You have my permission to completely form an answer before starting to talk.”

RJ grinned and felt like he was back in grade school. She really did sound like Granny Goodness at times. He felt himself sitting up straighter in his chair and lean a bit forward, hands folded in his lap.

Granmaw Selkirk reached over to a worn, yellowed newspaper folded up on her magazine stand. RJ could see it had a half-completed crossword puzzle on it. He was about to ask about it when she said “You still working nightshift at that Notre Dame place?”

“Yes Granmaw, in Computer Operations.” She paused and run her thumb along the edge of a newspaper. RJ was struck how the gesture was exactly the same as if you had a knife in your hand instead of a rolled up newspaper. She unfolded the paper and spread it on her lap. “You ever see anything strange there son?”

“Strange Grandmaw?”

“Like Shadows. Ghosts. Spirits and Principalities?”

RJ thought long and hard about the question. Sometimes he felt like he was on the bridge of a space-faring ship, carrying future settlers to some habitable star. He wasn’t sure he wanted to explain that concept to his grandmother so he tried a different approach. “The reflections on the glass sometimes make it look like people are outside the building when they’re really not, is that what you mean?”

Grandmaw scoffed at that and muttered over her shoulder again “Reflections…that’s the best he can do.” She held out the newspaper. “Read me the clues, I’m workin’ on Seven Across. Five letter word for “Ghost Dancers.”

RJ looked at the paper, it seemed several different people had tried to help finish the puzzle,. It had been written on and erased in several colors of ink, pencil and even marker. He wondered just how old the paper was and started to unfold it to see the date on the top.

His grandmother grabbed his wrist and said “Stay focused! And I know what a cheater sounds like. A cheater flips thru that crossword dictionary and finds the answer without any effort, without thinking.” RJ looked at the pale, almost translucent skin of her hand and felt a bit panicked. He tried to think about the answer and looked at the other bits of finished puzzle. “It has a U in the middle.” he offered helpfully.

“Yes yes, I got that far with your Aunt Chrissy. Chrissy! Bring RJ a glass of milk with some cornbread tore up in it.”

RJ blinked at the strange request and called into the kitchen “Just some water will be fine Aunt Chrissy. ” He wondered about that combination of food and before he could ask, his grandmother said “You told me you liked milk and cornbread, don’t you remember? I do. Was on your 5th birthday. Gerry had brought you over to see us for the first time and the last time before you all moved to Virginia to be near the naval base where that no good father of yours was stationed.”

RJ spread his hands out in surrender almost knocking the glass out of Aunt Chrissy’s hand. She had silently appeared beside him with a tumbler of water and ice. He nodded his thanks to her and took a sip. It was icy cold and tasted of minerals. It was strange but not unpleasant and the taste came back to him over the years. He remembered helping draw water from a deep deep well in the back yard. He took another drink, the ice making the only noise in the room. He sat it down on a doily and said “You know, I don’t recall that at all…”

“Hoo Hoo! I do! Sharp as a carpet tack your Granny is!” She slapped the arm of her rocking chair and smiled right at RJ. He was sure she was looking out at him thru her veiled, broken eyes. Looking thru him maybe.

“Now! she said, tapping her fingers on the newspaper. “Seven Across. I’ll give you a hint. It has to do with Indians.” Then she got quieter and patted his hand “As do so many things around here if you go back far enough.” RJ had the distinct impression she already knew the answer. He was back at school and this was some kind of oral test.

“If you guess it right, I’ll tell you a story about indians, but not this kind of indian, oh no.”

RJ went on to other hints, working around the missing word with his grandmother who often paused to tell him local gossip and how things were done back in her day. But listen as close as he could, RJ couldn’t exactly place when her day was. Sometimes she would talk about being a young girl during the Depression, and sometimes she’d talk about such and such president and the arrival of the railroad in this county and it would sound like she was much much older. He only knew she looked to be about a hundred when he’d first met her, and that was 38 years ago.

He focused again on what she was saying, half fascinated by her font of knowledge and half wishing he could think of a way to leave without hurting anyone’s feelings. Of all the attempts to get him to linger in Wayne county he’d been thru so far, the dry almost weightless touch of his grandmother’s hand on his his had shackled him to the spot. Finally he got a word that intersected Seven across. The last letter of the missing word was an X. Granmaw Selkirk looked at him expectantly “Can’t be many words that begin with an S, end with an X, and has an U in the middle. RJ looked at what he had written down. S _ _UX. He thought to himself “Suuux!” and he said “Sorry Granmaw, that doesn’t help me any.”

“Well you’ll just have to work on it tomorrow then. Too late to start out for Indiana now anyway. ”

RJ looked up with a start and saw that it was pitch black outside. He must have sat for hours in the Visitor’s Seat, trying to do a crossword puzzle with his grandmother when he should have been heading out of state. He picked up his untouched glass, it still had ice floating in it. He took a slow drink and tried to think of an ironclad excuse to head back to Huntington tonight. The mineral taste refreshed him and seemed to feed some unspoken hunger deep within him.

“Ice doesn’t melt very fast here, does it?”

“Its Deepice, takes longer ’cause of the minerals. Good for you, helps you sleep.”

Aunt Chrissy was suddenly there, taking the glass away from RJ. “Oh now Mother, Richard Allen doesn’t want to hear your tall tales about ice.”

Granmaw Selkirk looked up and bit her lips, she had no teeth so it looked very severe on her face. RJ could tell she wanted to say something but present company made her think better of it. She stuck out her tounge to wet her thumb. The gesture was lost on RJ, but he could tell Aunt Chrissy knew what it meant.

“Go and get your bag youngun, Chrissy will turn down the spare bed for you.”

“Already done Mother.” Aunt Chrissy said as she stepped to a beaded curtain and held it aside for him, smiling at his confused look. “A foregone conclusion I’m afraid. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint your Granmaw.”

Granmaw Selkirk slowly got up from her chair and stood by the screen door looking out at the dark or perhaps just listening while RJ went to his car. When he came back in he moved past her, freshly assaulted by the smell of lilac water and she said “I believe I will sit on the porch a while. It is cooler out there and we’re likely to get more company if my bones have any say in the matter.”