Grand Daughter’s Weekend

I had just dropped off my wife at the airport for her annual 2 week trip out to see her 91 year old mother. She lived on a farm out in Oregon all alone and still can take care of her garden, her flowers and her house better than most, plus she still drives into town to get her groceries and such. She is a remarkable woman, my mother-in-law, and I only hope that I can outlive her.

On the way back home my cell phone rang and I saw that it was my grand daughter Marty. We had just celebrated her graduation from high school a couple of days before and I knew that she was unencumbered for a few days so I had asked her out for breakfast while my wife visited her mother. I figured that she was calling me back to confirm the where and when so I answered it with my usual cheery greeting.

“Hey Kidd-o, how’s my favorite grand daughter?”

“Oh Gramps, I’m your only grand daughter,” she said for the thousandth time with a twinkle of sunshine in her voice. “Did ya get Grandma off?”

“Just now,” I told her. “Now I’m fancy free and ready for the hoochy koochy girls to come over.”

“Oh Gramps, you always make me laugh,” she commented with the love that we had for each other ringing out clearly for me to hear.

Marty was the only child that my own daughter and her husband had and being so, she was the apple of not only my eye but her parents and everybody else’ who knew her also. She was an attractive little thing and smart as a whip. She got a scholarship to the State University in Science and was on her way to becoming whatever her heart led her to do. She was also so attractive that my son-in-law had to beat the boys away with a baseball bat nearly every Saturday night. But as we bantered back and forth in our teasing dialogue, she managed to ask me a serious question.

“Gramps, I was wondering, or actually my parents were wondering, if I could come to your house and spend the weekend with you. Daddy has to go to this thing and Mom wants to go with him up to New York and they don’t trust me to stay by myself for the weekend,” she explained.

“Is it that they don’t trust you or all the boys that you seem to attract?” I asked with my tongue stuck squarely into my cheek.

“Oh Gramps, who side are you on anyway?” she said with a little glint in her tone.

“To answer your first question, I don’t see any reason that you can’t stay over here, I’ll just call the hoochy koochy girls and reschedule them for next weekend,” I said in my best dead pan voice.

“Gramps, I can’t believe you. I’ll tell my parents that you said that its okay and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Okay Kidd-o, see ya in the morning,” I said clicking off the phone.

The next morning, I awoke, got up and took my pills, showered and shaved and got ready for the arrival of my Marty. I fixed myself a cup of instant coffee and waited and then I fixed another cup and waited some more. I was on my fourth cup went I saw her pull into our driveway and I saw her struggle with a suitcase as she made her way to the front door. As I opened it to let her in, I commented, “Holy cow Marty, I didn’t realize that I said you could moved in.”

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said out of breath, “but my alarm didn’t go off and I stayed up too late last night so I, ah, overslept.”

“And what about this suit case full of, what, clothing I presume?” I asked her with a twinkle in my eye.

“Oh Gramps, you are such a tease,” she said, not realizing that my question was asked in more of a serious tone than I let on.

“Okay, you know your way back to your room.”

When she came back out from our guest room where Marty always stayed when she was over and asked if I was ready to go out for breakfast. I made an under-the-breath comment about it being almost time for lunch but I locked the door behind us and we took off for my favorite diner.

On my third cup of coffee, I was about to burst so I excused myself to go to the restroom and shake my snake but when I came back out, Marty seemed deep in thought so I asked her, “Penny for your thoughts?”

“Oh Gramps it would take a heck of a lot more than a penny to talk about what’s on my mind,” she said giving a slight smile.

“Wow, that sounds serious,” I commented and then added, “Marty, you know that if you want to talk, I’ll listen.”

She looked up into my eyes and reached over the table to take my hand between both of hers. She smiled and said, “I know Gramps and I love you for it,” and gave my hand a little squeeze with her own.

The mood was broken for the time being anyway and we drove back to my house in silence. I parked the car and walked up to the house when Marty suddenly asked me, “Gramps, can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” I told her.

“When was the first time you ever made love with Grandma?” she blurted out.

“Holy Cow!” I said to total shock. “Where did that come from? I mean, ah, okay, ah, the first time that I made love to your grandma was on, oh, about our 10th date or so. We were all alone at her parent’s house and we started kissing and making out and then one thing led to another and we found ourselves in her bed making love. But I knew by that time that I loved her and I wanted to marry her, in fact, I had already proposed and she said “yes”. We hadn’t set a date yet but we got married later that year. That was 45 years ago and I have loved every minute of it.”

There a long stretch of silence and finally I asked, “I’ve told you the truth about Grandma and me, now you have to tell me what’s going on that prompted that question.”

“Oh, I don’t know, my Daddy asked me to sign a pledge a year ago not to have sex until I get married and I was just wondering if I should have signed it,” she asked with this wishful look in her eyes.

“Let me guess, you’ve met a guy and he’s pressuring you to make love with him. You’ve fallen in love and you want to show him just how much you love him but you have this pledge that’s holding you back,” I said.

She thought for awhile and then she looked into my eyes and confessed, “Yeah, that’s about it. How did you know? Am I that transparent?”

“No Kidd-o, it’s not you at all. That was a line I used when I was young, you know when Moses was a baby, and I’m proud to hear that they are still using it to this day,” I said with a grin on my face.

“But he says he loves me as much as I love him and he’s willing to prove it to me if I’m ready to prove my love for him,” she told me in a convincing voice.

“And I bet that he said that he was going off to college or the Army and that he may never come home and he is a virgin just like you and…”

“The Navy,” she said with bended head. “He told me that he was considering going into the Navy.”

I sat there in silence for the longest time and then I told her, “I’m sorry Kidd-o. I don’t even know this kid. He must be a wonderful guy to grab your heart like this but he’s just a kid, a horny, hormone raging kid who will say most anything to get in your pants and who knows what he would do after you let him. Maybe he’s honest in voicing his true love for you and maybe you’ll get married, settle down and have a bunch of kids. But more likely, he’ll tell you good bye right after he gets what he wants and you will have given him the only thing that you can only give once.”

“They’re all creeps,” she said under her breath.

“Oh Kidd-o, not all men aren’t creeps.