William was just about to settle in for a post-lunch nap in the garden gazebo when he heard a car pull up to the gate.
"Who on earth could that be?" he wondered. "And why isn't the dog barking?"
He didn't really want to open his eyes, but then the gate creaked, and Lily's bright voice rang out.
"Grandpa, it's us! Where are you?"
Little Sophie looked like she was right on the verge of tears when William's son called out.
"Dad, you home?"
"Where else would I be?" William replied, pushing himself up from the bench and tugging on his hat. "I'm here, I'm here! Come on in. What brings you all the way out to see your old man?"
"Dad, we have to run into the city," his son said, nodding toward the car where his wife sat in the driver's seat. "Can you watch the girls for a bit? We don't want to drag them around the shops."
"You don't even have to ask," William said, catching his oldest granddaughter in a hug after nodding to his daughter-in-law, who had waved a greeting first.
"Of course I'll watch them. We'll read a book, won't we?"
Lily didn't say anything, but she squeezed her arms tighter around his neck. William tried to set her down to give the younger one her share of the affection, but Lily wouldn't let go. He had to scoop Sophie up with his free arm and try to pull them both close. But the older girl started pushing her sister away, and this time, Sophie actually started to cry.
"Hey, hey now! What's all this, Lily?" William set the girls back on their feet. "You know I don't like it when you two start bickering. Grandpa's a big guy; there's enough of me for everyone. Run along to the gazebo—there are some grapes on the table. I need to finish talking to your dad."
The granddaughters raced each other to the gazebo, bumping into one another at the entrance. Sophie started wailing again, while Lily was already reaching for a bunch of dark purple grapes. William shook his head and turned back to the gate to ask his son how things were going. He didn't get the chance; his son was already climbing back into the car.
"Can we bring you anything back?" his son called out just as the engine started.
"I think I've got everything I need. Maybe just some treats for the dog."
"You got it!" The door slammed shut, and the car quickly disappeared around the corner.
***
"So, girls," William said, stepping into the gazebo, "shall we read a book, or do you want to go to the swings?"
"I don't want a book, and the swing is boring," the older granddaughter answered for both of them. "Grandpa, do you have any ice cream? Mom promised we'd get some, but who knows when they'll be back!"
"Let me check the freezer," William said, trudging toward the house. On the way, he noticed Sophie had headed for the swings anyway.
In the freezer, he found exactly two pre-packaged ice cream cones. Looking out into the yard, he saw Lily now pumping her legs on the swing set while Sophie stood nearby, wiping her eyes and eyeing the sandpit near the tool shed.
"Oh, girls, girls," William whispered to himself. Then he called out louder, "Come into the gazebo! There's ice cream, but you have to eat it slowly, or your mom will be mad at me. And I don't need that, do I?"
William put the ice cream into small bowls, tucked spoons into them, and set them on the table.
"There! You can wait for it to melt a bit or just take tiny bites with the spoons, okay?"
"We get it," Lily said, already standing there. She pulled her spoon out and laid it on the table. Then she settled onto the bench and started licking the top of her treat.
Sophie didn't seem to hear him at all. She had found an old metal pot somewhere and was already busy making sandcastles. William thought about calling her over, but then decided it was better this way. The ice cream would melt a little, and his daughter-in-law wouldn't scold him for giving the girls sore throats in the middle of summer.
"So, Lily, are you excited for school?" William sat down next to her. "What grade are you starting? Second?"
"Yeah," the girl said, continuing to lick the softening top of the ice cream. "School has my friends; it's interesting there. Not like home." She looked over at her sister, who was now shoveling sand into the dog's empty water bowl. Buster, William's dog, just cracked one eye open and rolled onto his other side.
"Do you have a lot of friends?" William took a bunch of grapes and started popping them into his mouth one by one.
Lily looked up at the ceiling, her lips moving silently as she counted.
"Four," she finally answered, returning to her ice cream. A moment later, as if remembering something important, she added, "Almost five. Chloe wants to join our group. But she's kind of a brat, so we're still thinking about it."
For a while, the gazebo was quiet. William chewed his grapes, Sophie grunted near the sandpile where the dry sand wasn't holding its shape, and Lily licked her ice cream in circles. Suddenly, the girl froze, narrowed her eyes, and looked at her grandfather with a judging gaze. She huffed and asked, "Grandpa, are you really old?"
William nearly choked on a grape. He coughed and then asked, "Where did that come from? What are you thinking about?"
"I just remembered Chloe. Her grandpa is like, really old. Like, ancient."
"Well, I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself. See? My hair is all white. But what does 'ancient' mean to you?"
"Chloe says her grandpa remembers when ice cream only cost a quarter. She says that was a long, long time ago. I asked Dad, and he doesn't remember that. Did you ever eat ice cream that cheap? What did it taste like? Or did Chloe just make it up?"
"Oh, I see," William said, wiping his mouth. "To be honest, I don't really remember how much ice cream cost when I was young. I ate it, sure, but I've forgotten the taste. I might even be older than Chloe's grandpa."
"You can't remember anything? What other good stuff was there? Chloe says her grandpa's face lights up when he talks about the old days. He says everything tasted better back then."
"I can't speak for everyone, but do you know what I remember most?"
"What?" Lily looked at him with genuine interest.
"I remember the very first time I tried to make beef stew all by myself." William picked up Sophie, who had just wandered into the gazebo. He wiped her hands with his handkerchief and handed her the bowl of ice cream.
"Tell me, Grandpa," Lily said, sliding closer to William and glancing sideways at her sister, who was happily scooping up the melted soup in her bowl. "Mom never makes stew. She only knows how to make oatmeal. And mac and cheese."
William sighed. "You should ask her nicely. These days, you can get everything you need at the supermarket. Back then..."
"I was working at a factory back then. One day I came home from the night shift, slept for a bit, and suddenly I had a craving for a real homemade stew. Not the kind from the cafeteria where it's just watery broth with a single piece of potato and some limp carrots, but a real one, like my mother—your great-grandmother—used to make. I stayed in bed just trying to remember what went into it. I'd eaten it a thousand times, but I'd never actually thought about how it was made. I remembered potatoes, carrots, onions, and beef. I found all that at the little corner grocery store. I didn't even think about oil; I had some bacon fat, so I decided to fry the onions in that. But I couldn't for the life of me remember what else it needed. And I had no one to ask. Back then, we mostly communicated by letters. That took forever! To write to my mother and get an answer would have taken ten days. By then, the craving would be gone."
"Why didn't you just call her? That's faster," Lily said. Her ice cream was running, so she finally picked up her spoon.
"We hadn't even heard of cell phones back then. And not everyone had a landline, either. Your great-grandmother wouldn't have even dreamed of having one. So I couldn't ask her. And there was no one in the boarding house where I lived; everyone was at work."
"What's a boarding house?" Lily had mashed the rest of her ice cream and was trying to drink it, but the cone kept falling out of the bowl and hitting her on the nose.
"A boarding house is like a big apartment building with one long, long hallway. Like from the front gate all the way to the back of the garden," William explained. "There are rooms on both sides of the hall where guys or girls live. At one end of the hall was the bathroom, and at the other was a shared kitchen with a big fridge and stoves. Can you imagine that?"
Lily slowly scanned the yard, standing up to peer past the shed toward the back fence. She couldn't see the end, so she sat back down and wiped her nose.
"Whoa. That's a long hallway."
"Anyway," William said, setting Sophie's bowl on the table. The little one didn't want any more; she climbed off his lap and, mimicking her sister, headed back to the swings.
"In my building, it was just guys. We rarely cooked—mostly just fried eggs or hash browns. Sometimes we'd buy frozen dinners or canned ravioli. We tried making dumplings once, but they turned into a total mess. They fell apart, the filling fell out, and we had to eat the whole thing like a doughy soup so we wouldn't waste the money! So, there I was, I ran to the store, got my groceries, grabbed a big pot, and started making the first stew of my life. I threw in the potatoes, the meat, the carrots, and the onions I'd fried in bacon fat. I salted it. I did everything I could remember, but the stuff in the pot didn't look like stew at all. It didn't even look as good as the cafeteria stuff."
"Grandpa, why didn't you just Google the recipe? That's what Mom does when she doesn't know something," Lily said, scraping the last of the cream out of her bowl with her finger.
"I wish," William laughed, sliding the younger girl's bowl over to Lily. "Back then, honey, not only were there no cell phones, but nobody had ever heard of the internet. You had to look recipes up in books."
"So get a book!"
"Cookbooks weren't that easy to come by either. So your grandpa had to rack his brain—what was it that made the stew taste right? It needed that kick, that tang."
"And?" Lily had finished the ice cream and was now carefully chewing the waffle cone.
"I thought about it for a long time until I remembered. Stew needs a bit of acidity! But I couldn't remember what to use. Eventually, I decided vinegar was the way to go. While my stew was simmering, I ran to the grocery store. But they were out of white vinegar. I had to go to another store, then another, and another, until I finally found a bottle at a shop three bus stops away. I grabbed that glass bottle and ran back to the boarding house. I splashed some vinegar into the pot—the liquid hadn't boiled away yet—and took a taste."
"Was it good?" Lily asked, cleaning the sides of the bowl with her thumb.
"Kinda!" William chuckled. "I wouldn't exactly say that. It was... something, but it wasn't right. I splashed in a bit more vinegar and tried it again. Still not it. I added more, stirred it, took a big gulp, and realized I'd completely overdone it. I don't even remember if I actually ate that mess. I think I just fished out the potatoes and carrots and ate those for lunch. But maybe I ate the whole thing anyway."
"So how do you really make it?" Lily pushed the empty bowl away and sat watching her sister, who was happily flying through the air on the swing.
"I eventually wrote to my mom and found out people usually used tomato paste or red wine to get that flavor. That was my very first stew. I remember it because I practically ran across half the city for a bottle of vinegar. And you're asking about ice cream!"
"By the way," William said, standing up and patting his pocket, "how about we walk down to the corner store, girls? You can pick out whatever ice cream you want. If you can't finish it, Grandpa will put it in the freezer for the next time you visit. And listen—pay attention to how it tastes. One day your own grandkids might want to know what the ice cream of your childhood was like. And you'll be sitting there like me, wrinkling your forehead, trying to remember. You'll be telling them all sorts of nonsense, like I did about that stew. But who knows if they'll even want to listen to those old stories?"
William lifted Sophie off the swing and took her hand, offering the other to Lily. And so, the three of them headed out to the street, walking slowly toward the store for some ice cream.
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