Grandma Millie (Part I)

I always enjoyed spending time with Grandma Millie.  For two weeks every summer, I’d visit her on her farm.  They were usually my favorite weeks of the whole year.  The first time I drove a car, rode a horse, fished, fired a gun, killed a snake, and camped outside occurred while staying on my grandma’s farm.

It was also where I got my first period, had my first orgasm, and, eventually, grew very, very fat.

But more on those things in a bit.

My friends thought I was crazy.  What teenage girl wants to spend time on a farm?  There was no cell phone reception, no Wi-Fi, no cable, no shopping, and no one remotely close to my age.  Truthfully, that’s why I loved it.  It was like a vacation from my own life.  I don’t remember all my times mindlessly scrolling TikTok, or my vacuous text conversations with gossipy girlfriends, but sleeping beneath a curtain of stars and landing a twelve-pound bass?  Those things stuck with me.

As did all the weight I gained. 

But again, I’m getting ahead of myself…   

The memories weren’t always good, of course—I broke my ankle falling off a ladder, got bitten by a snake (the same one I killed), and itched myself raw from all the chigger and mosquito bites--but even the bad ones proved indelible.  Isn’t there a famous expression that it’s better to have a bad experience than no experience at all?  If there isn’t, there should be.

And, of course, Grandma Millie was great.  She showed me how to do most of the fun activities I mentioned and, unlike my mother, always seemed to care about what I said and did.  I don’t suppose it’s fair to judge someone on two weeks out of an entire year, but during those two weeks, I was grandma’s center of attention, and she made me feel special.  

Like many southern grandmothers, she showed her love through cooking and expected me to show mine by eating.  Refusing wasn’t an option.  Doing so would have been considered a personal rebuke as much as turning my head to her kisses.  Fortunately, she was a dynamite cook, and refusing never crossed my mind. 

“Let me have a look at you,” she would say at the airport after smothering me with said kisses.  “Pretty as a peach, but as thin as a rail.”   Then she would tsk, “Doesn’t your mother feed you?” 

I’d shrug.  Of course, she fed me, but unlike grandma, she served healthy, well-balanced meals.  Mom only allowed treats occasionally, and when she did, they always came with a “cheat day” caveat that soured their taste.  There was no such thing as a cheat day with Grandma.  It was more like two weeks of culinary debauchery.   

“Well,” she’d say with a devious smile.  “I guess I’ll just have to fatten you up,”

That always sent a pleasant shiver through me.  I assumed it was just the anticipation of her making my favorite meals, but it went much deeper than that. 

Literally. 

“How are you going to do that, Grandma?” I’d ask, goading her into continuing the shiver-inducing conversation.

“Well, first things first--we’re going to stop in town and get all your favorite snacks and pops.”  (Grandma always called soda ‘pop.’)  “None of that nasty sugar-free stuff your mom drinks.  Next, we’ll stock up on bacon and eggs, and potatoes, and steak, and hamburger, and cake, and ice cream.  Everything a growing girl needs.”

“Then what, Grandma?”  Depending on where we were during the iteration of the conversation, my hands would either be plumbing the depths of my Levi’s pockets or fidgeting restlessly in my lap. 

“I’m going to strap you down and stuff you silly!”

Then we’d cackle like a witch’s coven.  It was all in good fun, after all.  I wasn’t as rail thin as Grandma Millie purported, but I was slender and had always been so.  Not willfully—apart from eating my mother’s regimented meals, I was just an active girl with an even more active metabolism.  Grandma’s playful threats notwithstanding, there was no reason to believe that I would ever actually get fat.

Oops.

My welcome meal was always the same—chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, and fried okra.  I didn’t even know what okra was.  All I knew was it was delicious.  As was the rest of the meal.  If it could be breaded and country-fried, Grandma could cook it! 

Millie’s husband, Grandpa Dan, had died from heart disease when I was very young, and, though she would never admit it, Grandma Millie probably had a greasy hand in it.  Not wittingly, of course.  That was just how country folks of a certain generation cooked.  Grandpa—a naturally big and barrel-chested man—had largely been able to metabolize Grandma’s fried fare while he’d been working.  It was only after he retired that Grandma’s cooking really began catching up with him.

I never held it against her.  Folks back then didn’t know better, and old habits died hard.  Like smoking.  Another bad habit Grandpa Dan had that no doubt contributed to his passing. 

My mom, on the other hand, held lingering resentment.

“Why don’t you ever stay with Grandma?” I once asked her.

“I don’t think my heart could take it,” she replied. 

At the time, I assumed she was referring to the mountains of lard Grandma Millie cooked with, but there was sadness in her voice that bespoke underlying anguish.

After my inaugural chicken-fried feast, I would lie in my room, “filled to the gills” as my grandma used to say, and watch my overstuffed belly round out to meet my feet.  Sometimes I’d be in PJs, but if it were hot and sticky, as most summers in the country were, I’d only be in underwear.  With each labored breath, my stomach would rise like the sun, obscuring all but the tips of my toes.  When I wiggled them, it looked like ten stubby children descending a hill.  Sometimes, after grandma went to bed, I’d sneak into the pantry for snack cakes or cookies and gobble them in bed until the little foot family disappeared completely. 

After that first night, however, my food fornications were forgotten in a flurry of fun farm activities.  There were horses to ride, ponds to fish, and BB guns to shoot.  After a big breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, and sausage--the same meal grandma used to prepare for grandpa before he’d leave to check the wells--I’d be off.  Most days, I wouldn’t report back until noon, when grandma rang a large Liberty-like bell mounted on a pole in the yard, announcing that lunch was ready.  Over a burger—sometimes two—I’d regale grandma with tales of record-breaking bass I’d nearly hooked and death-defying evasions of angry snakes and hornets.  All the while, grandma would smile, nod, and refill my plate with fries. 

Occasionally, I’d collapse on the sofa in a food coma, but if I did find myself pinned beneath the boulder of burgers in my belly, it wasn’t for long.  Grandma only got about six channels on the TV.  Besides, I could watch TV at home.  I couldn’t row a boat or hike up a mountain.  (It was actually a hill that was butted up against the farm, but grandma called it a mountain.)  My afternoons would be spent searching for treasure or the perfect fishing hole.  Most evenings, I returned empty-handed, but occasionally I’d find a scrap of old metal--usually from a piece of farm equipment grandma helped me identify--or catch some fish, which grandma, of course, quickly fried for supper.

After dinner—sometimes fried chicken and waffles; sometimes spareribs with all the fixings; and sometimes my fried fish—I’d help grandma clean the kitchen, after which we’d adjourn to “the parlor” (basically a small area of the living room occupied by either a card table or a Christmas tree depending on the time of year) for checkers or card games like Go Fish and Old Maid.  With no distractions apart from chirping crickets and brainless games, grandma would make up for lost time, pressing me about school, boyfriends, and other details of my life.  I didn’t mind.  Grandma was a great listener, and our conversations were always accompanied by loads of laughter and homemade chocolate chip cookies. 

Grandma went to bed at 10 PM, and, by that time, with my belly full of food and adventure, I’d be yawning too.  Sometimes, I’d struggle to stay up to read, or watch TV, or call my mom, but often I was asleep before she was.  Once or twice per visit, however, usually in the middle of groggily brushing my teeth or changing out of my clothes, something would jolt me awake faster than the sugary sodas grandma let me drink. 

During my first visit, as I peeled off my skin-tight Levi’s, I received a visitor of my own.  Grandma was great.  She drove me into town the next day for supplies (she was long past the point of needing them herself) and a McDonald’s Big Mac.  Near the end of my second visit, I gasped when breasts seemed to suddenly appear in the bathroom mirror, replacing the tiny nubs that, upon my arrival, had barely tickled the cups of my training bra.  Once again, grandma was great, and we returned to town for a bigger bra and an even bigger burger.

There were other pulse-pounding discoveries—a roll of fat bubbling over the waistband of my shorts when I removed my shoes; the spread of my thighs when I sat on the toilet; the way my entire body seemed to jiggle when I brushed my teeth—but I didn’t alert grandma to those (at least not initially).  Instead, I crept into the kitchen for midnight munchies to enhance their sensations.

And that’s how my visits went.  In a blink, it seemed we were driving back to the airport and grandma was kissing me goodbye.  She’d hug me for a long time--as if she was trying to memorize every inch of me, including all my new ones--before letting me go.  As I descended the ramp, I would turn and give a final wave, which grandma returned with a wistful smile.

“It looks like somebody had a good time at grandma's,” my mom would say after I emerged back into civilization.   She’d be smiling and glad to see me, but her scrutinizing gaze informed me she wasn’t referring to my sun-soaked smile or my ridiculous farmer’s tan.  Despite mom’s tacit acknowledgement that grandma’s efforts to “fatten me up” had at least partially succeeded, the tingle was gone, and the party was over.

At least until next year.  

***

Despite grandma’s best efforts, and contrary to mom’s passive, catty comments, I never gained much during my initial visits.  I was too active.  Most of the thousands of calories I overate vanished in the ether of exercise and my tomboy metabolism, and the souvenir pounds I did bring home were usually gone by the time school started.  When I returned to the farm the following summer, I’d be back to my slender self.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

Then, one summer, it was inordinately rainy.  Under constant weather watches and warnings, I spent most of my two-week visit inside, huddling around the TV with grandma, awaiting instructions to head for the cellar.  Although I missed running around outdoors, it was exciting in its way.  We didn’t get severe storms back home, and the dramatic lightning, lashing winds, and marble-sized hail were every bit as heart-pounding as catching a 12-pound bass or hunting sparrows with a BB gun.

But it didn’t burn the same calories.  The nervous tension also resulted in a lot of stress eating, which grandma happily enabled.  When we spent a night in the cellar under threat of a tornado warning, we took so much junk food with us that, when I expressed concern about being rescued in such a remote location, grandma responded, “if it takes more than a couple weeks, all they’ll find are two very fat women.” 

The tingle was back.

And so, very quickly, were the pounds.  In the absence of other distractions, I leaned into eating.  Pantry raids became a nightly occurrence, as did lengthy periods of self-exploration, which resulted in complaints from grandma that I “was using too much hot water” or “spending too much time in my room.” 

One night, after a break in the weather sent me outside for the first time in days, I stripped down to my underwear in preparation for another long, hot water-draining shower.  Rather than acknowledging the fattened fruits of grandma’s culinary labor alone, however, I decided to involve her in the process.    

"Grandma,” I called from the bathroom.  “Can you check me for ticks?"

My heart pounded as I heard her creak down the hall and shuffle up to the door.

Knock! Knock!

"Come in," I said, sticking my stomach out as far as it would go.

"Did they get you?"  She asked, opening the door and peeking in.

I inched toward the bathtub to make room for her in the tiny space.  "I think so.  I walked through a lot of tall grass today."

"Those buggers love virgin flesh.  Let me have a look at you."

Grandma squatted and placed her hands at my sides, her warm hands resting on the nascent flesh muffining over my underwear.  It was nothing compared to the pot in front, which, aided by my forced protrusion, rounded well beyond the banded border of my cotton panties.  I imagined I looked like one of the pregnant women sometimes pictured in my mom's health magazines.  My belly obscured my legs and all but the toes on my feet (even more than it did after my welcome feast).  It must have obscured grandma's view, too, as she needed to squat lower and crane her neck sharply to see beneath it.  

But she didn't say anything.  Her face was intense but inscrutable as she scanned my pasty legs for insects.  Then she spun me around by my love handles to assess my backside.  I faced the tiled wall of the shower, noticing tiny cracks and mildew stains as surely as grandma was noticing flaws on me that she'd never seen before--the shadowlike creases beneath my shoulder blades; the fresh beef sagging my bum; and the gentle jiggle of flesh clinging to my inner thighs. 

She still didn't say anything, however.  Not until her inspection was satisfactorily concluded.  "You look clean to me!"  

"Thanks, Grandma," I said with palpable disappointment.  Not having ticks was good, but I sounded like I'd just been gifted socks for Christmas.

“I just want to check one more thing," she said.  

I expected her to spin me around again, or check my hair, which the little bastards sometimes took refuge in, but she didn't.  Instead, she opened a small cabinet beneath the sink and removed a dusty old rotary scale.

"Hop on," she said.   

I did as she instructed.  After pushing my belly out, I now struggled to suck it back in so as not to obscure the spinning blur of numbers.  After fluttering around like my heart in my chest, they finally settled on 132.

"What did you weigh before you came?" Grandma asked.

"About 110, I think."  I had no clue.  I never weighed myself (we didn’t even own a scale) and, outside of visits to the doctor, where my vitals were quickly taken by the nurse and scribbled clandestinely without comment, no one else knew either.  

Nevertheless, grandma nodded and smiled as I stepped off.  After putting the scale back, she rose to her feet, but not before giving my belly a gentle pat.  “Looks like my skinny little girl is blossoming into a woman.” 

“Thanks, grandma,” I croaked, my heart beating into my throat.  Grandma had once told me how women “swooned” in old movies.  I thought it was the silliest thing.  I didn't think it was silly anymore.  My head was spinning.  My knees were weak.  Had grandma said, “blossoming into a butterball” instead of “blossoming into a woman,” I probably would’ve fainted dead away right there on the spot.

Fortunately, she left without another word, closing the bathroom door behind her.  She didn’t even say anything after my 45-minute shower used up all the hot water.

***

The weather got better over the last few days of my visit, but I rarely went outside.  It was muggy and buggy, and my clothes were clingy, sticky, and tight.  (‘Sleepy’ and ‘sluggish’ rounded out the Seven Dwarves of misery that kept me inside and my pallor snow white.)  At least I had a new toy to play with when I wasn’t sleeping or eating or absent-mindedly snacking in front of the TV—

The scale.    

I checked it every chance I got and, after grandma went to bed, I would stand on it while eating from a big bag of mini-powdered donuts on the sink.  I studied its dial with an intensity normally reserved for spotting fishy ripples on the pond or wildlife through grandpa’s old binoculars.  Any sign of upward movement, any little jittery pulsation, sent a jittery pulsation through me and another donut into my mouth. 

And when the big dial wasn’t moving like I wanted, I fiddled with the small one on the base that raised the scale’s resting weight.  I knew it wasn’t the same, but seeing higher and higher numbers on the scale after I got on—140, 150, 160, 170—was almost as good.    

The only thing better than having my progress measured by a machine was having it measured by Grandma. 

On my last night, I retrieved my Levi's from the bottom of the suitcase—it had been way too hot and sticky for denim—and slithered into them like a snake molting back into shed skin.  “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything,” my grandma had once told me; however, I doubt she expected me to utilize her wisdom for the strength to put on my pants.

What a waste.

The thought sent a satisfying shiver through me that threatened to undo my progress in favor of another shower, but I persevered.  I gradually inched my jeans up my thighs and over my bum--pulling, tugging, sweating, and swearing--until they finally latched beneath my belly, which dangled precariously beyond the constricting denim.  

What a waist.

A pink crop top, emblemized ‘Girl Power,’ completed the ensemble.  Ordinarily, it only suggested tummy when I stood at certain angles, but now it screamed skin from every direction—back, sides, and especially from the front, where my jelly-belly jiggled.  The only thing quivering more than my stomach was the button on my Levi's, which fought to keep the fleshy mass aloft.

“Ready for game night, Grandma?”

***

“Go fish,” Grandma said, studying the cards in her hand.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I responded, fishing the largest chocolate chip cookie remaining on the dwindling plate.   

Grandma had beaten me in every game we’d played so far.  Not surprisingly, since my mind was occupied devising ways for her to notice my body.  So far, however, she’d been stubbornly imperceptive.

Fortunately, that was about to change.

“It looks like you’re getting some guns,” Grandma said, spying the meaty bicep pinched in the sleeve of my ‘Girl Power’ shirt. 

"Pop guns," I said, chasing the cookie with the rest of my Coke.  My grandma's nonplused expression told me she didn't get the joke.  

Time to break out the heavy artillery.

I leaned back in my chair and patted my belly, but Grandma had returned her attention to the card game.  

So, I decided to up the ante.

"BRRRAAAAAAP!!"  

"Young lady!" Grandma turned to me, her eyes immediately dropping to the pale flesh rolling over my waistband.   

My hand shot to my mouth.  "Sorry!" 

"That's OK, dear."  Grandma's eyes remained where my hand had been.  She slid the cookie plate closer.  "Have another.  It will sop-up all that pop."  

"I probably shouldn't," I said, my hand returning to my belly.  "I've already had four."

"Nonsense," Grandma said.  "You're still on vacation for one more night."

Grandma pushed the plate until it was nearly off the table.  Those cookies were going to end up in my lap one way or another.

“I suppose you're right," I said, discriminately picking the next largest cookie from the pile.     

"Of course, I'm right," the suddenly reenergized septuagenarian said with a wink.  "Grandma knows best!"      

"Mmmm."  I moaned and licked my lips, making a gluttonous spectacle of myself.  “I love your cookies.  I could eat them for every meal."  

“Thank you,” Grandma beamed.  “I’d send a batch home with you, but I don’t think your mom would approve.”

“Then I’d better eat all I can while I’m here."

Grandma's eyes lit up like fireflies. "I’ll get some more."

***

After that, I won six games in a row.  Grandma didn’t seem to mind.  She simply watched in wonder as all her chips—those of the chocolate variety—slowly disappeared into my pot. 

“What about this last cookie?” Grandma asked after the final game.  There was a sole survivor left on the crumb-covered plate.  

“You can have it,” I moaned.  I’d lost track of how many I’d eaten.  12?  15?    

“I can’t, dear.  Sweets before bed give me acid reflux.”

“I can’t either.”  

I cradled my belly in my hands.  It was rock hard.  I suddenly remembered an ad I’d seen in one of Mom’s magazines.  Rock-hard abs in six weeks, it promised.  I didn’t need six weeks.  All I needed were a dozen cookies. 

“Of course, you can,” Grandma said, picking the cookie from the plate and offering it to me. “It’s the smallest of the batch.”

I turned my head like a toddler refusing pureed broccoli.   

“Come now.”  She wiggled the disk as if it were a fishing lure.  “It’s wafer thin.”

“Fine,” I sighed.  I took the cookie and shoved it in my mouth. 

I immediately regretted my decision.  With no soda left to rinse it down, it mushed in my mouth like wet cement.  I hoped Grandma would see me struggle and fetch some milk or something, but she just sat there wearing a goofy anticipatory smile.   Finally, after what seemed like forever, I swallowed hard, and the doughy lump slid slowly into my swollen stomach.

PING!

Across the room, something ricocheted off the fireplace screen just as my boulder-belly avalanched into my lap.  I wasn’t sure what happened, but I was grateful for the ease of pressure. 

Grandma bent from her seat and retrieved a shiny copper disk from the floor, holding it to the light like she’d discovered a diamond. 

My button!  A finger probe of the open flap found nothing but a threadbare hole where it had been just seconds prior.

“Don’t worry,” Grandma beamed.  She looked as if she might pop a button of her own.   “I’ll stitch this on before we leave for the airport.  We wouldn’t want your mom to say anything.”    

***

Mom didn’t say anything.  Literally.  After a quick hello and a hug at the airport, it was nothing but silence and sideways glances during the car ride home.  I sucked in my stomach under my mom’s appraising gaze, but it did little to stem the flow of fat spilling over the elastic waistband of my cotton shorts and oozing around the squeeze of my seatbelt. 

As soon as we got home, I retreated to my room.  I was about to shower away my vacation until next year when I heard my mom yelling.  I crept downstairs to listen.  Even though I missed most of her diatribe, I knew she was on the phone with grandma and, unsurprisingly, I was the topic of her rant.

“I almost didn’t recognize her at the airport.  What did you do to her?”

My heart raced and my head spun.  Normally, when mom made weight-related comments, it only made me angry or ashamed, but this time was different. 

Had I really gained so much weight that I was unrecognizable?

If not for my sturdy grip on the railing, I might’ve face-planted onto the tile floor at the base of the stairwell.  Funny how swooning women in old movies always did so in the arms of a nearby man or the cushions of an aptly named ‘fainting couch.’  They never ended up in the hospital with a broken nose and missing teeth.      

There was a pause at Mom’s end, during which I sat down on the steps to steady myself.  Grandma must have said something to the effect of “She just has a healthy appetite” because Mom responded curtly, “It’s not a healthy appetite when she’s eating your cooking.”

Another pause, then--

“Let’s not trudge up ancient history.  I just won’t send her next summer.”

No!  I wanted to run screaming into the kitchen.  Grandma must have had a similar reaction because Mom quickly backtracked.

“Maybe I’ll just send her for a day or two then.  Anyway, things need to change, Mom.”   

After they hung up, I scurried back upstairs and into the shower.  It was a long one, but not for the reasons you think.  I was numb.  Would Mom really keep me from visiting Grandma?  What would I do?  Should I confront her?       

My thoughts were interrupted by an angry rap at the door-- 

“Quit hogging the hot water!” 

Was it my imagination, or did Mom emphasize the word “hogging”?

“I’ll be finished in five minutes!”

It only took me two. 

***

That night in bed, bathed in scented soaps and post-coital clarity, I decided I had nothing to worry about.  It would be just like every other summer.  By the start of school, the weight would be gone, and by next summer, it would be forgotten. 

Only that’s not how it went.    

The pounds didn't melt away this time.  I didn't need Grandma’s scale to tell me that I was still considerably heavier at the end of summer than I was at the beginning.  Of course, Mom grumbled about having to buy me a whole new wardrobe.  I don't know what the big deal was.  She purchased back-to-school clothes for me every year.  Maybe she hoped now that I was in High School, my growth would slow.  

Fat chance.

The bigger deal to me was the reaction of friends and classmates.  David Demonte, a boy I liked, told a friend of a friend, who promised not to tell me but did so anyway, that I "used to be cute," but had "really chunked up over the summer."  My girlfriends weren't quite that blunt, but they gave me the same sideways stares as my mom. 

I was a jumble of competing emotions--shame, embarrassment, arousal--but more than anything else, fear.  If I couldn't get my weight under control, I might not even be allowed to see my grandma.  

So, for the first time in my life, I dieted.  I didn’t need to adjust my eating much at home, as my mom's meals were already healthy; however, I cut out snacks and cafeteria food and began exercising in my room at night.  When Mom realized what I was doing, her attitude improved, and she even invited me to attend classes with her at the gym.  

Of course, I refused.  I had zero interest in being her exercise buddy.  

Progress was slow.  By the middle of the school year, I was still carrying excess weight, but it had been redistributed to more aesthetic areas.  My potbelly flattened as my ass rounded, and my jiggly arms and legs were replaced with an even jigglier pair that drew more sideways stares--this time from the boys.  The slender tomboy may have been gone forever, but at least something sexy had emerged from the fleshy cocoon I had ensconced myself in. 

As summer approached, I no longer worried about my mom’s threats.  I was more concerned about what I was going to wear to the year-end formal and who would take me.  (David Demonte was out.  Not only was he a jerk, but he had chunked up some himself over the holidays.)    

That’s when fate intervened.

“Grandma Millie fell and hurt her hip,” Mom said to me one night from the doorway to my room. 

I was lying in bed and immediately looked up from my phone.   

“It didn’t break, thank God, but it’s unstable and she needs to wear a brace.”

“Dang,” I said, sparing mom’s virgin ears.  “Does she not want me to come this year?”

“That’s the thing,” Mom said, joining me on the edge of my bed.  “She asked if you might be willing to stay a bit longer this summer.  She’s having trouble getting around and thought you’d be a big help.”

“How long?”

“About six weeks.”

Six weeks was over half the summer.  I planned to go waterskiing with Heather Thompson. I planned to go to Six Flags with Jeff Smith.  I planned to get a job.  Something besides playing nursemaid to my infirm grandmother. 

“You don’t have to, hon,” Mom said, seemingly reading my mind.

I didn’t like Mom’s placating smile.  She obviously hoped I’d say no.  Now, I felt guilty for even thinking about it.  This was Grandma Millie we were talking about.  The woman who taught me to cook, shoot, and fish.  The woman who listened to me drone endlessly about boys and baseball games, and sick pets.  I couldn’t turn my back on her.

“Of course, I will,” I said, sounding more defiant than tender.

Mom’s smile turned tight.  Then she patted my leg and left without saying another word. 

***

Worry kept me awake that night.  Not for my injured grandmother, but for myself.  Six weeks was forever.  Three times as long as my usual stay.  If I could get chunky in two, how fat would I get in six?  They might need to buy me an extra seat for the plane ride home.

No.  I wasn’t a kid anymore.  I could control myself.  Besides, grandma was disabled.  She wouldn’t be serving as my personal short-order cook this time. 

I wouldn’t get fat. 

Would I?

My words from earlier in the evening kept echoing in my head.

Of course, I will.