"Waltzing With Grandpa" by Edie Hemingway

One of my favorite childhood memories was dancing with my grandfather, and I managed to work this scene straight from my childhood into ROAD TO TATER HILL:

On the morning of August 7th, I lay in bed, knowing that it was my birthday of course, but thinking it would probably not be much different from any of the other days during the last few weeks. Oh, I knew Grandma was baking my favorite angel food cake with orange glaze drizzled over it, and there would be some presents. Bobby might come up to eat dinner with us. But Daddy wouldn't be home from Germany, and Mama wouldn't suddenly become her old self again. That much I knew for sure.

Something was different, though, and it wasn't just the smell of bacon. It was sound. Not the clanging of pans or an electric mixer buzzing away in the kitchen, but musical sounds. The house had been silent for weeks now, as if a cloud of red dust from the road had clogged our ears and throats. Even though Mama smiled once in a while, there was still no laughter or singing or music in the background, the way there always was when Daddy was home.

But yes, it was music. Not a record of Mama's favorite piano sonatas or a symphony orchestra. This was Grandpa's music. The tunes he'd waltzed to as a young man. The kind he had ice skated to--once even with Helen Hayes before she became a famous actress.

Flinging back the covers, I didn't stop to get dressed or to grab my slippers from under the bed. I ran out to the living room with my nightgown fluttering around my ankles. Grandpa was leaning over the open hi-fi set, the jacket of the record album still in his hands.

"Grandpa, it is you."

He turned around, grinning. "I thought this house needed some waking up," he said. "May I have this dance, Annie Annabel? Miss Eleven-year-old?"

"Oh yes, Grandpa. Yes." I composed myself, held the skirt of my nightgown out, just like it was a fancy ballgown, and curtsied.

Grandpa bowed low, reached out his right hand, and swept me into a waltz pose. He bent to my level, while I danced on my tiptoes. We'd done this before, though not for a long time. I knew the moves. Only Grandpa would dance with me like this, whirling around and around like those wonderful ballroom dances in movies--where you could go on forever in joyous motion--forgetting everything...