He comes out to the porch, barefoot. Grams notices his bare feet and faded clothes and looks away, trying unsuccessfully to hide her disapproval of his appearance.
"No thank you," Grams says in a curt tone. "I have coffee at home."
"Grams, why don't you sit for a minute?" I say. "We have all day to clean."
"I have no interest in sitting with that man." She turns away from him, her arms crossed.
"Then leave," Tyler says in an angry tone. "If all you're gonna do is insult him, then get the hell off our property."
"Hey!" I look at Tyler. "Don't speak to her that way!"
"Then tell her to stop insulting my grandfather."
"She didn't insult him. She just said that he—"
"I'm going inside," Walter says, getting up with his book. "Nice meeting you, Faith."
We all watch as he walks to the door. He must have arthritis because he struggles to grasp the door handle.
"I got it, Pops," Tyler says, opening it for him.
I catch Grams watching Walter from the corner of her eye. She no longer looks angry. She almost looks sad, or maybe regretful. She doesn't like being unkind to people. She always feels bad about it later. Maybe that's why she tries to stay away from Walter. Being around him seems to bring out the side of herself she doesn't like so it's best to just avoid him.
"You should go," Tyler says, then he looks at me. "Both of you."
Me? What did I do? I was just trying to be nice and end this feud between our grandparents. It's clear now that's not going to happen, but that doesn't mean Tyler and I can't be friends. Although from the look he's giving me, I don't think friendship's in our future.
Chapter Four
"Why do you hate him so much?" I ask Grams when we're back at the house.
She's standing at the kitchen counter, the silverware in front of her, pretending to sort through it when really she's just using it to distract herself from whatever she's feeling right now. I don't know what she's feeling but she's definitely not herself. That incident with Walter just now really got to her.
"I never said I hated him." She picks up a fork that's missing a tine. "Who keeps something like this? It's not even a fork anymore. It's useless." She tosses it in the ceramic mixing bowl that's next to her. It's pretty but cracked so I'm guessing it's headed for the trash. "My sister was a packrat. I tried to tell her that but she never listened."
"Okay, stop," I say, taking a spoon from her. "Why don't we sit down a minute and take a break?"
"A break? We just started. And we're running out of time. I'm meeting Ethel at noon for lunch." She glances at the phone on the wall. "Maybe I should call and cancel. We have so much to get done."
"You're not cancelling. We have plenty of time to get everything done. Now can we sit for a moment? You may be raring to go but I'm still recovering from a long drive."
She turns to me and pats my hand. "You're right. I forgot how tired you must be. Should I make a fresh pot of coffee?"
"Sure."
I sit down as she goes over to the coffeemaker.
"So, um…did something happen before I got here? Something between you and Walter?"
She whips back to me and the coffee grounds she was scooping out of the can go flying in the air, landing on the floor.
"What are you implying?" she asks, not even noticing the mess she made. Usually if even a crumb drops on the floor, Grams races to pick it up.
"I wasn't implying anything. I just thought maybe something happened between you two."
"Like what?"
She almost sounds out of breath. What the heck is going on with her?
"Like maybe you two had a fight."
She huffs. "When are we NOT fighting? That man is intolerable!"
"I thought he was nice."
"Because you don't know him. I've had the displeasure of having to put up with him for months now."
"You never talk to him. You can't really fight if you never talk."
"I've talked to him plenty. I've even had dinner with him." She turns back to the coffeepot.
I jump up from my chair and race over to her. "You had dinner with Walter?"
"On more than one occasion."
"Why would you have dinner with someone you can't stand to be around for more than two seconds?"
She looks at her empty coffee scoop, then down at the floor