I wrote this piece for a 24-hour short story contest. I ended up whittling it down to the 800 word limit and received an honorable mention. Here is the original version which was born from a cheesy prompt about a spring festival and thievery.

Eddie drove. He always drove. He was a cautious driver, never exceeding even 5 miles over the limit, and this infuriated Tamera. Yet, she bore her indignation in silence. This was the Peters’ way.

Not today. I can’t take it today.

“Can’t you go any faster?”

“Honey, the speed limit is 65.”

He was trotting eastbound along I-84 at a reasonable clip of 67.

Through the side mirror, Tamera eyed much older vehicles approach their tail bumper and slide over into the left lane, leaving them in the New England dust. They were still a good 45 minutes from Grandma Josephine’s apartment, and her anxiety had been building since crossing the George Washington Bridge.

“Tam, I know things are going to be a little different this year. But, you usually love seeing your family. Relax. Breathe. Grammy is going to be okay.”

Grammy?!? She had never once referred to her grandmother as Grammy.

Tamera shifted around as if to check on Maxine, their 7-year-old daughter, who was sleeping soundly in the backseat.

At least someone is at peace, Tamera thought.

While the large Peters clan got together every Spring, she hadn’t seen her grandmother since Maxine was just a toddler. And, she most certainly had not made the trek to Connecticut. Her childhood memories of the state– well-maintained historic homes fenced in by stonewalls and inhabited by friendly Yankee do-gooders– had been tainted some years before when the annual reunion was held in Stonington, Connecticut. She and Eddie, early in their marriage, before Maxine was a glint in their eye, had made their way from Atlanta to New Haven by Amtrak and had secured lodging in nearby Norwich. The sad state of affairs that she witnessed– dilapidated buildings with Xs drawn on them, vagrants sleeping in the parks and the parking garages— had her longing for her southern home the entire time she was there.

Yet, Grandma Jospehine was dying and she had never left the city of Waterbury no matter how downtrodden it had become.

They approached the “Brass City” just as the sun slipped beyond the still bare trees.

There it was, lit up as if by a funeral pyre, the cross on the hill. Simple, white, beckoning visitors welcome, Tamera almost smiled. Despite the forlorn appearance of the city, the cross looked the same as she always remembered. She could almost feel her grandmother’s soft embrace, smell the sweetness of a hot strawberry-rhubarb pie, envision the mesmerizing porcelain faces of the Dickens’ characters Grandma had hanging by her bedroom door. Yet, the warm nostalgia quickly evaporated as great moths of panic and shame filled her desperate belly.

Focus, she pleaded with herself. You know why you are here.

“Max, Max. Wake up, doll. We’re almost at your great grandma Josephine’s home.”

Grandma Josephine was 97 last month and still lived alone. And, though cancer was spreading its black fingers through her esophagus, she chose no treatment. She had told Tamera she would rather die at home, in her bed, where she had always slept and where she was most comfortable.

“The Universe will see that I am cared for,” she claimed.

Eddie made a slow right turn off the ramp and they were on Meadow Street, just 5 minutes from Grandma’s apartment.

And, suddenly, the streets were lined with them– droves of men cloaked in purple, “flowers,” they called them– and Tamera squeezed her eyes shut, choosing to block the sight of them out.