Million Dollar Dilemma. Judy Baer

of black seeds and added it into my developing fruit salad, to be tossed in a concoction of cottage cheese, black persimmon pulp and honey. The recipe sounds pretty scary, but sometimes it’s good to live on the edge.

      Cooking helps me ease the loneliness I’ve been feeling.

      I went to church this morning, and came back reluctantly to my empty apartment. I’m “church shopping,” going in ever and ever bigger concentric circles in the area of my apartment. I’ve been praying that the Holy Spirit will give me a big “thumbs up” sign when I find my church home.

      The phone rang. I checked caller ID to make sure it wasn’t Ken again. Sometimes I’m just not up to being loved by him.

      “Hi, Grandma?” I took the phone into the living room and sprawled across the couch I’d borrowed from Jane. “What’s up?”

      “That’s what I called to ask you, my dear.” Grandma Mattie’s voice was robust and cheerful. I couldn’t help but smile just hearing her.

      “I went to the market yesterday.”

      “My, my, now what?”

      I suppose she has a right to be apprehensive. I’ve been going a little overboard at grocery and specialty stores. For me, unfortunately, everything from canned rattlesnake to sushi tastes like chicken.

      “Black persimmons—‘chocolate pudding fruit’? How could I resist?”

      “It would have taken a saint, I’m sure,” Grandma said tranquilly. “I’ve heard that grocery stores and Laundromats are wonderful places to meet men—so clean and wholesome. And men who shop and do laundry at night obviously aren’t frequenting nightclubs….”

      Visions of men too ashamed to show their dirty underwear by light of day invaded my thoughts. Ewww. “Grandma, have you been talking to Jane?”

      “Your sister thinks you’re lonely.”

      “My sister thinks a lot of things. That doesn’t make them all true. She’s sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.”

      “That’s where her nose has always been,” Grandma Mattie agreed cheerfully. “Are you lonely?”

      There’s no use beating around the bush with Mattie. “A little. The people at work are great, but they live all over the city and none near me. My apartment building is quieter than I’d expected. In fact, I didn’t meet any of my neighbors until today…and I managed to make a royal fool of myself, too.”

      “Oh?” Mattie can pack volumes into a single “Oh?”

      “I didn’t expect the Cities to be like Simms, where I can dial a wrong number and talk for half an hour to whoever answers, but I also didn’t realize how much I’ve missed my friends until I followed a man into his apartment today.”

      There was a long, potent pause on the other end of the line. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

      “There’s nothing much to tell, really, but he has the most awful cat….” I unfurled for her my long, wretched story. To my surprise, instead of asking where I’d gone wrong in the common sense department, she changed the subject.

      “Do you like your job?”

      “It’s fine. I’m still learning.”

      “You’ll find something in your field soon. You didn’t get a degree in child development to waste it now.”

      “I need to finish my master’s and maybe even my doctorate in child psychology, Grandma. Right now I’m a well-educated unemployable.”

      “You left school to help your grandfather and me and didn’t complain once about your sacrifice. The Fifth Commandment and all.”

      Honor your father and your mother.

      Grandma, too, was accustomed to talking in biblical shorthand.

      I recalled the day my grandfather had had his first heart attack. That moment had changed my life. I had known for certain that I couldn’t let Mattie struggle alone, and once I realized Grandpa Ben was disappearing in inches, a little each day, it became crystal clear that my place was with my grandparents. I would only have felt remorse if I had decided my own life was “too important” to spare them the time and had missed the opportunity to share so many powerful weeks with Grandfather before he died.

      “You and Ben have been like my own father and mother in so many ways. You were there for us when our parents were away, foot soldiers right there in the trenches with us.”

      “I never considered raising you two a war, dear. Of course, there were a few skirmishes.”

      I winced, hoping she wasn’t thinking of that time Jane and I were so determined to play with the same doll that we pulled it in half. Or that nasty incident with the scissors while we played beauty shop. Of course, that did work out in the long run. Jane still wears her hair in a bob.

      I heard a knock and a voice in the background on Mattie’s end of the line. Then she said, “Can I call you back, dear? I’ve got company.”

      “Don’t worry about it, Gram. Call me when you aren’t busy.”

      Because I certainly won’t be.

      It should be the other way around. I should be telling my grandmother how to adjust, not vice versa. She has taken to city life like a duck to water. Mattie turns down invitations from Jane and me because her social life in the assisted living center is so busy. While Mattie is enjoying her social whirl, I already have all my photos in photo albums and my recipes typed nicely and filed in a box. I’m going to alphabetize the spices and the cleaning products next, then refold the bath towels in a new configuration I saw in Good Housekeeping. I’ve even started to iron.

      The phone rang again. Twice in a day. A new record. I picked it up without checking the ID, only to hear “Are you ready to come home yet?”

      The familiar, proprietary voice set my teeth on edge. “Hello, Ken. How are you?”

      “Don’t play games with me, Cassia. I miss you and I know you miss me. You can be here in time for the spaghetti feed before the baseball game tomorrow if you pack tonight. What do you say?”

      “I’m fine, thank you. How nice of you to call. Now, if you’ll just excuse me…”

      “Okay, okay. I’m sorry I jumped into it like that, but you are driving me crazy, darlin.’You don’t belong in Minneapolis. You belong in Simms with me.”

      I could just see him, hair the color of ripe wheat buzzed into submission, that intentional three-day stubble of beard that so many men wear these days, pristine white T-shirt with tight sleeves stretching over refined biceps. I could imagine his even white teeth with a wad of gum lodged between the back molars and his practiced sneer, an expression he hoped looked just like Elvis’s. A fine specimen of a man he is, even if Ken thinks so himself.

      “You don’t need me in Simms. The game will go on without me.”

      “So will the Twin Cities.”

      “We’ve discussed this a dozen times….”

      “And you never get it quite right. I love you, Cassia. I want you here with me.”

      “But I don’t love you. Not like that…”

      “Sooner or later you’ll realize that love isn’t about hearing bells and being swept off your feet. Love is about the time you’ve put into the relationship, the history you share.”

      But I want bells. I want to be swept off my feet. Besides, this romantic deductive reasoning comes from a man who considers venison, codfish and sauerkraut gourmet foods.

      “Then you should love your pickup truck and your dog, Boosters, very much. I know how much time and history you all have together.”

      “I can see this wasn’t the right time to call.”

      Finally,