Gloomy days often lead to gloomy moods. 

Old Sara sat on her porch and rocked the time away, looking out into the distance as she always did on Sunday.  It was cloudy today and Homer wasn’t coming home; she knew that.  Deep in her heart, she knew it.  Somehow, though, he visited her every Sunday.  Funny how it was never a happy visit.  They argued- always about that last day.

They were coming up the lane, dust trailing behind the car.  She always hated that the dust seemed to settle on her wooden front porch.  No matter how far away from the paved driveway it was, it always settled on her porch.  She left her rocking chair to get the broom.  She was sweeping when the car stopped at the edge of the flower garden.

“Don’t park it so close next time, Marcus,” she shouted in her frail voice, as she did every time he drove to the house.  “I got the bulbs in there!  You’re gonna drive right into ‘em one of these days and crush the whole lot!”

“Okay, Momma,” he said, more patiently than he felt.  “I’ll be more careful next time.”  He motioned to his two boys to come out of the back seat, which they grudgingly did- the second sliding off more slowly than the first. 

“Why do we have to come here every Sunday, Dad?” he asked. 

“Hush, now,” was his mother’s reply.  “We come every Sunday because Grannie needs a visit.  It’s God’s work we’re doing- so you just hush and stand up straight.  Show Grannie your best manners.”  She patted him on the behind and forced him to walk up the three steps to the porch where Sara was still busily flicking dust from the boards.

“We’re here, Momma.  We made it,” Marcus said, hoping that she’d stop the incessant sweeping just this one Sunday and give them some acknowledgment of their presence.  But she didn’t.

“Gotta keep this dadgum dust off the porch.  Papa doesn’t like the dust,” she said, pushing and pulling the broom in great motions for emphasis.

“Why don’t I help you with that?  Here, Momma,” Marcus’s second wife, Sophie, offered.  She reached for the broom, only to find Sara in an even more foul disposition than she’d been about the dust and the flower bed.  She pulled the broom from Sophie’s fingers, holding it close to her breast and speaking with an angry voice.

“I told you that Papa don’t like the dust.  I’ve got to get the dust down before he comes, and I’ll thank you to stick to yourself.  You keep your hands off, Missy- Papa’s mine!”  Her face had taken on more than just a look of defiance.  She was angry, almost jealous of the woman who stood in front of her on the wooden porch.  

Sophie’s hands covered her mouth.  She’d been visiting Sara for the past year, since she and Marcus had first met and nothing like this had ever happened before.  Why would Sara worry that she’d take anything from her, let alone her husband who’d been dead for more than fifteen years?  The woman she’d known was now gone and the replacement was unpleasant.  A fierce, old and crazy little creature was what Sara had become and Sophie felt a hard, painful piercing in her heart. 

It was high time that something was done.  Marcus wouldn’t do anything, that much she was sure of; no, it was up to her and she meant to do everything in her power to keep her stepsons from seeing the true nature of their grandmother ever again.