Granddaughter stared at her grandmother across the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
“What did you call them?”<\/p>\n
Grandma smiled and took a slow sip of tea.<\/p>\n
“Back then, dear, we called them… friends.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter blinked.<\/p>\n
“Friends?”<\/p>\n
“Of course.”<\/p>\n
Grandma nodded confidently.<\/p>\n
“You know… a dancing friend, a poetry friend, a motorcycle friend, a guitar friend, and a rich friend who bought me dinner.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter nearly dropped her cookie.<\/p>\n
“Grandma!”<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
“Those aren’t friends!”<\/p>\n
Grandma raised an eyebrow.<\/p>\n
“They weren’t?”<\/p>\n
“No!”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter started counting on her fingers.<\/p>\n
“You went dancing with one.”<\/p>\n
Grandma nodded.<\/p>\n
“You wrote love poems with another.”<\/p>\n
Another nod.<\/p>\n
“You rode motorcycles with one.”<\/p>\n
“Wonderful motorcycles.”<\/p>\n
“You listened to guitar songs from another.”<\/p>\n
“He played beautifully.”<\/p>\n
“And the rich one paid for fancy dinners.”<\/p>\n
Grandma smiled warmly.<\/p>\n
“He certainly did.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter threw her hands into the air.<\/p>\n
“Grandma, that’s not friendship.”<\/p>\n
Grandma looked genuinely confused.<\/p>\n
“No?”<\/p>\n
“That’s five boyfriends!”<\/p>\n
Grandma burst out laughing.<\/p>\n
The kind of laugh that made her shoulders shake.<\/p>\n
Finally, she wiped a tear from her eye.<\/p>\n
“Oh sweetheart.”<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
“The difference is…”<\/p>\n
She leaned closer.<\/p>\n
Lowered her voice.<\/p>\n
And whispered:<\/p>\n
“None of them knew about each other.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter’s jaw dropped.<\/p>\n
“GRANDMA!”<\/p>\n
Grandma calmly took another sip of tea.<\/p>\n
“What?”<\/p>\n
“That’s even worse!”<\/p>\n
Grandma shrugged.<\/p>\n
“It was a very different time.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter couldn’t stop laughing.<\/p>\n
“So what happened?”<\/p>\n
Grandma smiled.<\/p>\n
“Eventually?”<\/p>\n
“Yes?”<\/p>\n
“I married the motorcycle friend.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter blinked.<\/p>\n
“Really?”<\/p>\n
Grandma nodded.<\/p>\n
“He was the only one who could afford neither poetry nor fancy dinners.”<\/p>\n
“Then why him?”<\/p>\n
Grandma smiled toward an old photograph hanging on the wall.<\/p>\n
“Because he was the only one who stayed when my motorcycle broke down, my poems were terrible, and I couldn’t pay for dinner.”<\/p>\n
The granddaughter softened.<\/p>\n
“Aww.”<\/p>\n
Grandma pointed a finger.<\/p>\n
“Don’t get sentimental.”<\/p>\n
“Why?”<\/p>\n
“Because two years after we got married, he found out about the guitar friend.”<\/p>\n
“GRANDMA!”<\/p>\n
The laughter could be heard all the way from the kitchen to the front porch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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