Dear Grandma:

Dear Grandma:

fiction
edward w pritchard

Dear Grandma:
page two

I don't see myself ever having children since the divorce. Nick and I were waiting till I finished graduate school. Now, I don't see myself remarrying or having children. It makes me sad to think about it, regrets and all.

Something interesting. I went down to see cousin Ramses last July two weeks after the final divorce hearing. I always had such a crush on him. First in the ROTC uniform and then as a lieutenant going overseas. I think Ramses was the most handsome man I ever saw. At least that's what I thought when I was twelve. Nick was always jealous of Ramses, now I am glad.

Ramses lives in a small trailer park in Newell, West Virginia on the Ohio river. He's put on a lot of weight and is eccentric since he got back. He made me comfortable and went out of his way to comfort me. He only has a 10 by 10 trailer but I got the couch and he slept on the floor.

Ramses gets up very early. He doesn't sleep well. He goes down to the Ohio River at dawn and sits in an old blue lazy boy chair, the kind with the movable wood handle on the side, and writes and logs the movement of the early morning planets. He does the same thing at dusk.

He told me while I made him some fried walleye one of his white neighbors brought over that he had to chart and log the morning stars because of what he did over there in Pakistan when he was a pilot and squad leader. Apparently he did some thing that he feels he should atone for. He saw a psychologist for a while at the VA hospital in Canton, Ohio but quit driving up last winter because of the ice on the roads.

Ramses said he was part on a unit that along with the flying, pulled dirty tricks on the indigent Muslim supporters of our enemies there. One morning he orchestrated a flight of five jets in formation and with the intense bright exhaust from behind their jets they wrote anti-Muslim symbols in the early morning sky. Ramses won't tell me any further what he did wrong but he feels he was responsible and it happened during Ramadan at dawn, a sacred time to Muslims. He says God took offense and that's why he has to do the penance with the charting of the morning and evening planets.

No, Grandma I don't plan on never dating again. Let's give it some time. I will come and see you in a few weeks. By the way, Ramses doesn't cash his Veteran's monthly checks. They sit on the coffee table in his trailer. You should get Mom to drive you down to see Ramses.
Love,
Katey