That morning Grandma smiled at me a lot more than usual, her eyes sparkling, and after being skittish around her for a bit, her easy-going attitude and body language wore off on me and I began to relax. The incident seemed to have evolved into some kind of private joke/shared experience between us. When I tried to wash dishes after breakfast she even came up beside me and gave me a sideways hug, then bumped me firmly aside with her generous hip and took over.
Grandpa stayed home that day so I was able to borrow the truck and wander around the valley, revisiting my childhood haunts and reminiscing. I wandered over to the next town, even smaller that Union, which had a pool built over a hot spring. Then back to Union to spend an hour in the tiny but awesome museum. Before heading home I walked across the street to the post office to pick up the mail for Grandma, there were no mail boxes in Union, and everyone came to town to pick it up.
While I was waiting for the clerk to bring the mail up front, a best friend of my dad’s from high school, Ronald, recognized me and invited me over to dinner at his place.