Eunice was the first to notice that she hadn't seen Ella Maude for awhile. Not in her room. Not anywhere outside that she could see. "Have you seen your mother?," she asked John. He hadn't seen her and now Eunice was increasingly concerned. John said, "Let's give it a couple or three weeks and see if she shows up." Eunice had just told him that they had better call the Sheriff's office when the phone rang. It was the police station in Grants Pass and they had Ella Maude. She had told them a disturbing story and the policeman asked Eunice and John to come into the station.
She had carefully timed her move when nobody saw her leave the house and she crossed the Redwood Highway, where she flagged down an eastbound car (she knew which direction to go) and told the driver she was fleeing from a threat to her life and needed to get to the police. The story she told the police was that she had not been given food for three days. After the police established that the old lady was in no danger of being murdered (they probably understood why she might be) they sent her home.
From time to time Grandma would make another run for it and a policeman (who Eunice and John were now on a first-name basis with) would call and say, "Grandma's back."
At another placement in cosmic time Ella Maude might have won fame in Vegas as a standup comic because her timing was dead on. Dinner time became her favorite venue. John was known for misplacing things (he was always losing his cane) but when his false teeth went missing from his night stand jar where he put them at bedtime, it became a three or four day mystery. Then his mother made her appearance at dinner one evening with those choppers wedged in her mouth, sticking out in a bizzare face-mask from hell. Virginia almost went under the table laughing, as did Bill and Mary. John, of course, exploded with a lot of new words and Eunice lost it. "Good God," she gasped as she sprung up and snatched the teeth out of Ella Maude's mouth.
Another dinner with a slow start and no dessert. You think that's hard to top? Don't leave.
(To be continued)
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