Author’s note: This is a long short story so I am breaking it into three parts.

Grandma’s bedroom reeked of indefinable stench that made me want to retch.
It was not always that way. My earliest memories were of fragrances of jasmine or lilacs. When I mentioned how nice it smelled to me, my father lectured me little boys were not supposed to notice girly things. I think that was why I liked to sleep in grandma’s bed with its feather mattress, sinking into the middle as though enfolded by her large flabby arms. Love–warm, safe and free from anger and hatred—surrounded me.
I never liked to hug Dad. He never hugged back; besides, he smelled like a toilet that hadn’t been flushed for a week. He was a plumber, and he did not like to take baths. Water cost too much for him to be in the tub all the time, he explained, rubbing his big hand across his mouth.
Sometimes I sneaked out the backdoor of our tiny house down the street to scamper to my grandma’s big old place with a wrap-around verandah. Most of the time, she was pulling cookies or pies from her oven. When she made cakes she let me help ice them. Other days she was sweeping when I bounced through the door. I knelt down to hold the dustpan steady as she pushed the dirt on to it. Then I ran outside with the pan, tossing the dust balls into the air, and watched them float away. Just like my problems did when I visited Grandma. Mom and Dad were all right, but sometimes the angry tones in their voices frightened me. My young mind could never understand why they were so mad.
When I sat next to Grandma, either on her big cushy parlor chair or in her bed, she told me stories about how she grew up and met my grandpa. He made her laugh right up to the day he died. Whenever she didn’t feel like laughing, she’d remember something Grandpa said or how he looked as he read the newspaper. She could see every word he read etch itself on his face. Just the thought of his sweet old face made her laugh.
“There should always be something to chuckle about, Eddie,” she told me. “Or else what’s the use of living?”
“Then why doesn’t Dad laugh? It seems like you and Granddad tried to teach him to laugh? Why didn’t he learn?”
“Some things folks have to decide to learn on their own.” Then she laughed and changed the subject.
Other days she read from a big book of fairy tales which had lots of pretty pictures to look at. Every so often those stories worried me.
“Why did Jack have to fall down that hill?” I asked her. “And why did Jill put brown paper and vinegar on his forehead? Wouldn’t that sting?”
“Eddie, you worry too much,” Grandma lectured with an impish tone. “It’s just a story.”
“Did Dad like to have you read to him when he was a little boy?” I asked once.
Grandma looked over my head, as though searching for something she lost a long time ago. “Your father never liked to sit still very long.”
She also read from her Bible. It also had pretty pictures and fancy letters that started each chapter. The language in it, however, was hard for me to understand. I didn’t know why it had to have “thee” and words that ended with “st” and “th”.
“You’ll understand them soon enough,” she explained, “and when you do they’ll make you feel good all over.”
That changed late one evening when I sneaked out the back door. Dad was fussing about why he could not live in the house where he grew up.
“I work hard,” Dad fumed. “I deserve to live in a nice house.”
“Why, this is a nice house, George,” my mother replied merrily. “I work real hard to keep it nice and clean.”
“That’s not what I mean, Judy, and you know it,” he retorted.
He complained about our home all the time, but nothing ever changed. I ran to Grandma’s place to get a good night’s sleep in her big feather bed. I snuggled close to her as she read from the Bible by a dim flame of her kerosene lamp. She had an electric light hanging by the ceiling, but she said the light bulb hurt her eyes.
“Besides,” she added, “the smell of the kerosene reminds me of my childhood.”
“When someone asks me when I grow up what my childhood smelled like,” I told Grandma, “I’m going to say it smelled like you. Jasmine or lilacs.”
She smothered me in her big arms and began to read again.
The shade was drawn, but it quivered. A cool breeze pushed through the open window behind it. I did not comprehend a single word she said, but her soft old voice lulled me to sleep. Almost nodding off, I sat up when a loud crash startled me.
Grandma, in her white nightgown, bounded out of bed and stood between me and the window. The shade pushed its way into the room. As it crashed to the floor, I saw a large dark figure towered over us. Grandma swatted at it.
“Eddie! Get out!” Grandma screamed at me.
They bumped into the bed stand, knocked over the lamp, and the flame jumped to her nightie. Turmoil erupted. A lot of shouting. A lot of thrashing about. A ball of fire hurtling out of the window onto the lawn. I don’t know why but I ran toward it. Instinctively I knew it was Grandma. Then I felt a burning pain on my forehead followed by the sensation of two powerful hands grabbing me and dragging me away. It was all a blur which became darkness. The darkness saved me.
I awoke the next morning in the hospital. Mom and Dad stood by my bed. A thin layer of gauze hindered my vision. The pain on my forehead was unbearable. I was never any good at controlling my emotions. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“What happened?” I managed to ask through the sobs.
“Why, nothing happened, Eddie.” Mom leaned over to smooth out my hair. All she did was to make the pain worse, but I didn’t want to tell her it hurt. I could tell she was doing the best she could to make everything better. “Just a little fire, that’s all.”
“Grandma has gone on to her reward,” Dad added, sticking his hands in his pockets. He forced a smile on his face which looked like it didn’t belong there. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
I squinted at his hands. They were awfully red. I looked away when he pushed them further down in his pockets. My attention went back up to his face. That smile looked mean. I remembered he had told me something about Grandma going on to her reward. Not sure what that meant, I replied in a soft voice, “Yes.”
“You have to stay here in the hospital another few days,” Dad continued, his smile finally going away much to my relief. “The doc’s going to give you some medicine to kill the pain.”
“Yes, then all those bad thoughts will go away too,” Mom quickly added.
“What bad thoughts?” I asked. My brow would have scrunched up, but my forehead hurt too much. “I don’t remember anything. Grandma was reading to me and then everything went blank after that.”
“Of course, you don’t. There’s nothing to remember,” she replied with a nervous giggle.
“For God’s sake, Judy, shut up,” Dad barked. He glanced down at me. “Can’t you see you’re scaring the boy?”
A few days later, the doctor removed the bandages. The pain seemed to be going away slowly.
“There now,” he announced. “That’s not so bad, is it?”
Mom leaned over again and brushed my hair. It didn’t hurt much anymore.
“Don’t worry. We’ll let you grow your hair out a bit and comb it over your forehead.” She smiled and wiped tears from her eyes. “Don’t worry about those few little scars. They just look like wrinkles. And your eyebrows will grow back before you know it.” She paused to nod with optimism. “The girls in school will think it looks cute.”
“Dammit, Judy, stop rambling,” Dad grumbled. “The boy don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” He cleared his throat and stuck his hands in his pockets again. They didn’t look as red as they did the first day in the hospital. “Anyway, Grandma gave us her house to live in.” He put on that strange smile again. “Won’t that be nice? It has a lot more room than our house. It was a waste for that old woman to have all that space by herself.”
“George,” Mom whispered, putting her frail little hand on his strong arm.
My stomach tied up in knots, and I didn’t know why. By that afternoon, we pulled into the driveway of Grandma’s house. Looking out the car window I saw a charred spot in the grass under Grandma’s bedroom window.
“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the burned area.
“It’s nothing,” Mom replied. She got out of the car and opened the back door. “You know, if dogs pee a lot in one place they can kill the grass.”
I was going to mention there weren’t any dogs in Grandma’s neighborhood, but Dad pushed me toward the front porch before I could make my observation.
“We got a big surprise inside there for you, boy.” Again he sounded like he was forcing himself to be cheerful. He needed more practice.
I stopped in the front hall way when I realized he was shoving me toward Grandma’s bedroom. It seemed like they had been working hard on moving in our furniture and getting rid of Grandma’s things they didn’t like.
“It’s a nice big bedroom all to yourself,” he announced.
My feet were planted in the hall and didn’t want to move. Dad placed his large rough hands on my shoulders and coerced me.to walk into Grandma’s room. Clean curtains framed the window. My old furniture looked small in the large space. I stopped when I first went through the door.
“This place stinks.” Grandma’s jasmine or lilac was replaced by a foul smell, something evil.
“Oh, how can you say that? Your father worked so hard to make it nice for you,” Mom chided.
“It’s the new paint smell,” Dad explained. “That will go away before you know it.”
“But this is grandma’s house. It always will be” I mumbled.
“Well, it’s my house now!” Dad retorted. “The deed’s in my name and you have to sleep where I tell you to”.
“George, you don’t have to be mean to the boy.”