Inappropriate - Vi Keeland Page 0,73

grandmother stepped aside for me to enter, and I kissed her cheek as I went through the doorway. “How’s the alarm system doing?”

“It’s fine. But your grandfather has slept like a baby since it was installed.”

“Good.” I looked around the living room. The house was quiet. “Is Pops around?”

“He’s downstairs tinkering in the basement. Last I looked, he was making a miniature coffin for that crazy dollhouse he and Leo love so much. I try to keep away when he’s doing the woodwork. The pieces are so small, and I get nervous he’s going to cut his fingers off sawing them.”

I smiled. Pops had started to forget a lot of things, but using tools wasn’t one of them. Though dementia affects the memory, his woodworking skills were more second nature to him than learned. I couldn’t imagine there would ever come a time he couldn’t make things, whether he knew the name of the person he was making them for or not.

“I’m going to go down and visit him.”

“I’ll make you some snacks and bring them down in a bit.”

“Thanks, Gram.”

I found Pops in his pjs and a bathrobe, with a toolbelt wrapped around his hips. He had on a pair of goggles, and his gray hair was littered with wood shavings as he planed down the rough sides of a tiny coffin to make them smooth.

He smiled when he saw me, lifted the goggles to rest on top of his head, and held up three fingers with Band-Aids. “Mousetraps,” he said.

My brows drew together. “You have mice?”

“Not that I’m aware of. But I used the little old wooden traps to make floorboards for the bedrooms and the hinges to attach the coffin doors. Leo set one up with cheese while we were working last week to see if he could catch a mouse. I picked it up this morning. Cheese is still there.” He wiggled his fingers. “Now some of my skin is, too.”

I chuckled. “Gotta be more careful, Pops. Grams is already worried about you using power tools. Cut off a finger, and you’ll come back from the hospital with an empty workshop.”

Pops muttered, “She worries like a rocking chair. Gives her something to do, but it never gets her anywhere.”

I walked over to the creepy dollhouse and checked out the new pieces he’d made this week. There were tiny wood-framed mirrors with scary faces painted in them, a few hanging ghosts, and a fireplace carved with an ornate, angry wolf’s head. Picking up the fireplace, I admired the workmanship that had gone into it. Pops was truly gifted.

“So what’s new?” I asked as I set the fireplace back down in the dollhouse.

“Nothing. And that’s exactly how I like it at my age. Every time I get something new, it’s a pill, a pain, or prostate exam I don’t enjoy.” He looked over at me and set down his tool and the wood he’d been sanding. Under his woodworking table were two stools. He pulled one out and slid it over to me before taking a seat on the other.

“Have a seat. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“How do you know something’s bothering me?”

Pops lifted his chin and pointed to my pants. “Your hands are shoved in your pockets. Always a dead giveaway with you. Remember the time you cut off your sister’s ponytail while she was sleeping because she left your bike outside and it got stolen?”

I laughed. It never ceased to amaze me how far back he could remember, even in stage one of dementia, yet sometimes he forgot the simplest things right after he heard them.

“I remember. Someone found the bike the next day and returned it, but Mom didn’t let me ride it again for months.”

“You had your hands in your pockets that day. Probably because you also had her damn ponytail shoved in there. You have done it every time you were worried about something since.”

I wasn’t so sure he was right, yet I made a conscious choice to remove my hands from my pockets before I sat down.

I sighed. “Am I a selfish person?”

Pops frowned. “You mean because you hold the reins at work and boss around your sisters?”

That hadn’t been what I was referring to, but thanks, Pops. I shook my head. “I met a woman.”

Pops nodded. “The looker? Charlize?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, that’s her.”

“Good choice. She seems like a woman who won’t put up with your shit.” Pops wagged a finger at me. “That’s the key to a happy marriage. Marry a