Three Sisters Finished the House He Left

Grandma’s Birthday

Grandma turned eighty-nine on the second Sunday in October. We had her party after church in the fellowship hall, the way we have every year since Grandpa died.

It was a sunny afternoon and somebody had propped the side doors open, so the room smelled like coffee and cake and fallen leaves. The ladies from her Bible study had made a sheet cake with yellow roses on it.

The whole family came. My aunt and uncle. Jody and Jolene and their two boys. Mom and Dad. Annika, Mira and me, and Tate, who had driven all night from Boise to make it.

But Grandma asked. She always asks.

“Raelynn,” she said when I set her plate down, “how is that house of yours coming? Your mother says you girls have been working on it.”

The table went quiet. I felt everybody look at me and then everybody look at Jody, who was standing by the coffee urn.

“It’s coming fine, Grandma,” I said. “The walls are all up and the roof trusses are on. The bank inspector passed the framing on Wednesday.”

“Passed it?” Grandma said. “Well, I should think so.”

“First try,” Mira said from the other end of the table. “He said he doesn’t see that very often.”

Grandma set her fork down. She is eighty-nine, but there is nothing wrong with her memory. She looked down the long table, all the way to the coffee urn.

“Jody,” she said. “Didn’t I hear you told the whole counter at the diner that the girls could never finish it?”

The fellowship hall went so quiet you could hear the coffee urn ticking.

Jody stood there holding a paper cup. His face went red from the collar up. Jolene looked at the floor. His mother put her hand on her mouth.

“I did say that, Grandma,” Jody said finally. “I was wrong.”

“Yes,” Grandma said. “You were.” She picked her fork back up. “Now come sit by me and have some cake. And then you go and make it right with your cousin.”

That was all she said. She did not raise her voice. She did not need to. Every grown man and woman in that room had been raised by her, and every one of us knew that voice.

Jody sat down beside her. He ate his cake. He did not look at me, and I did not look at him. A few minutes later, the Bible study ladies started singing “Happy Birthday,” and then Grandma asked for “How Great Thou Art,” and the whole room sang it for her.

I sang it standing next to my dad with his arm around my shoulders. Across the room, I saw Jody singing it too, with his head down.