After grandfather passed away the house fell into an almost immediate disrepair. Our grandmother took to resentment and bitter avoidance. She would refuse, for instance, to come out of the piano room when others were in the house, and soon that room filled with the rancor of the dying. Upon entering the house, it looked and felt as if a grave had been upturned and left open. Her spoiled eyes peered out from a sunken face, squeezed tight with rage, loss, and something of fear. When I helped her to remove her sweater this morning, she winced and smacked my hands away, growling like a frightened puppy. I took my leave of the house and drove to my job at the wharf, remembering fondly how cute my grandmother and grandfather were together when I was younger, and how much they loved each other; nothing ever seemed to hold them down. That’s the way a boy should have to remember his grandparents. Not like this, with a house unfit to bury the dead in.