a cane, she didn’t mind. She put an arm around my head and she cried so hard, she soaked half of my pillow.
Grandma Raquel lived next door. She came over every day to help Mom cook and debate politics with Dad. Grandma Raquel practically moved in when I got sick. She’d be at the door at 6 AM and she didn’t leave until midnight.
“Did you try sleeping with one sock on?” she asked as I lay in my bed. “Your Great-Grandpa Armando slept like that his whole life.”
“Well he’s dead now,” I said.
“He lived to be 103!”
“Was he buried with one sock?”
Grandma Raquel smacked me on the forehead with her purse.
“I should have died years ago,” she said. “I survived tuberculosis, measles, chickenpox, whooping cough, flu, and yellow fever! You’re sleeping with one sock from now on.”
“C’mon Grandma, that’s not gonna work,” I said. She tossed my blankets up and slipped off one of my socks.
“You never know what works and what doesn’t until you try.”
Summer rain was rare in Bat Springs. When it did happen, almost the whole town flooded. Everything shut down, except the hospital because it was on a hill, but I didn’t know how anyone could get to it anyway. Our street got so bad, we were stuck at home for three days straight. But not even those big floodwaters stopped Grandma Raquel. She showed up at 6 AM, riding on an inflatable mattress and using her cane as a paddle. Dad, Mom, and me all watched her kayaking to our house.