The Makeshift Treehouse

Mattie hadn't been back to the treehouse since the weekend her step-grandmother came to visit and then ended up leaving in an ambulance. At the dinner table the six of them, Mattie, her mother and step-father, Greg and his friend Tommy and Grandma Jess, ate hamburger pie made with Bisquick and green beans. Greg was the first to see Grandma Jess roll her eyes back and open her mouth just wide enough to allow the gray-colored sludge to roll down her chin. He watched with his own mouth open, eyes wide, frozen as if seeing the water in a stopped up toliet creep to the top of the bowl. Mattie saw Greg and poked him in the arm to get him to close his mouth. Then Grandma Jess started to shrug her shoulders in fast, jittery movements and Mattie's mom jumped up and put both arms around her to keep her from falling out of the chair. Later, when Greg was put in charge while their parents stayed at the hospital until after dark, Mattie went out to the treehouse with the leftover hamburger pie. She divided it out onto her plastic dinner plates, mashing each portion with a wooden spoon, trying to get it to look like it had on Grandma Jess's face.