This happened a long time ago. I was seven years old.

Aunt Rosa raked off some seeds from the watermelon slice and then sliced the watermelon out of the rind and cut it up, removing some more seeds. This was back when watermelons had black seeds only. The big food companies, nowadays of course, have pretty much deleted any personality from fruits and vegetables.

I’d walked down to Aunt Rosa’s from my house because my grandma was sick in bed and I was told I needed to give her a visit and to do what Aunt Rosa told me to do.

Grandma lived with Aunt Rosa. “If she talks,” said Aunt Rosa, “she might talk a little out of her head. Sit in that green chair where she can see you with that watermelon. Just go on in there.”

I remember very little about the visit, but I do remember thinking that talking out of her head meant talking out of her nose and ears, and that scared me, as I recall.

***

My name is Flossie. I’m walking into the room where Grandma is sick and I have some watermelon in a plate and a fork and napkin. I know some things: I know Grandpa made coffins in his funeral home, and Grandma kept the books that were in a back room at his funeral home. And there was a fireplace in there, and Grandpa had some long black cars that carried dead people in the back. I could go in there until Grandpa died.

I’m in the room now. Grandpa’s first name was I.O. and that is printed on a long board in Aunt Rosa’s garage: “The I.O. Walker Funeral Home” and some other long words. They took it down and put it in there because Grandpa died, and Mr. Gibby took over.

I heard Daddy talking to Mr. Abernathy at the grocery store and they didn’t know I was listening, and Daddy said that Grandpa used to pull gold teeth out of dead people before he got caught. He said Grandpa made them into wedding rings and bracelets, and he made them into these money pieces like pennies and dimes that he said were a thousand years old and he said Grandpa put scratches in the money things and then rubbed in black ashes that had got wet and that made them look real, like they were from some country far away.

And Grandpa and some other people started a Mule Funeral Militia a long time ago, too. They buried mules just like in a funeral because people loved mules more back then. They cut the head off a mule one time and buried that because of some reason. The mule was dead, though. But Grandpa just died not long ago and there was a big funeral for him, and now Grandma is down here sick at Aunt Rosa’s house. Mama told me I had to walk down here for a visit.

I take the watermelon on into the room where she is laying in a big bed, and there is that green chair beside her bed and she is under the covers and her head turns toward me on her pillow when Aunt Rosa says, “Mama, here’s Flossie,” and Grandma stares at me kind of hard. Her face is skinny. It used to be kind of fluffy and puffy. Her eyes have got these red lines under them and her hair is in these patches kind of. She seems real little. She won’t that little before she got sick. Mama told Mrs. Tally that Grandma was “wasted away,” but she hasn’t wasted away. She’s still there — right there in the big bed.

She says, “Hey there, Barbara.”

“This is Flossie,” says Aunt Rosa and now Aunt Rosa leaves and I’m a little bit afraid.

Grandma says, “Hey there, Flossie. I’m sorry, Honey. I get everybody mixed up. You come on and sit in that green chair. You are so pretty. Are you married yet?”

“No ma’am,” I say.

“That’s okay. You’ve still got some time. Can you eat some watermelon for me? I used to grow watermelons.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And I fork me some watermelon and take a bite.

It gets quiet. She is looking at me, smiling a little bit. Mama’d told me to talk to her, so I say, “Where’d you grow them?”

“In my garden,” she says. “Me and I. 0. always had the biggest garden you ever seen, but you stand up straight and you won’t have to go far before you can get married if the right beau comes along. Could you take another big bite?” and I do and she says, “Ain’t it good?” and I say, “Yes ma’am.”

I look through the door into the middle room to see if I can see Aunt Rosa, but she’s not in there.

“Would you go ahead and eat it all?” Grandma says, and she reaches up and puts her hand behind her head so that her head tilts up a little. Her arm has saggy skin. She’s looking right at me. “It’s good, ain’t it?” she says.

“Yes ma’am,” I say.

“You’re the one likes cornbread so much, ain’t you?” she says.

“Yes ma’am.”

I keep eating the watermelon. It’s cold and crispy and sweet. I want to ask her about the gold teeth, but I don’t know if that was a sin, and I think I will not ask her, because I am a little bit afraid, but anyway I go ahead and say, “Did Grandpa pull gold teeth out of people’s mouths?” and she says, “Why, who told you that?” And I say, “Nobody,” and she says, “He’d use a set of needle nose pliers and pull ’em out and find somebody down in Baldwin to make whatever you want out of that gold. A ring, a coin. ’Course they probably ain’t still over to Baldwin — fellow named Swanson. I.O. got that fella to make some mighty fine gold coins that looked like they come right out of Mexico, right out of that city of gold that that explorer looked for. Did you learn about that in school?”

“No ma’am.”

She rubs one of her eyes, then looks at me again. “Go ahead and take another bite,” she says.

I do.

***

I was probably fourteen when we were taking a trip to Florida — me, Mama, Daddy, and my little brothers when Mama told me about that visit with Grandma and the watermelon — and the meaning behind it all, the big story behind it all: Not long after Grandpa died, Grandma got real sick, and she told Dr. Gibson that on account of Grandpa being gone she didn’t want to live anymore, but she didn’t want to take any poison, so what would happen if she just went to bed and didn’t eat anything or drink anything like she’d heard about old Miss Cain doing back a long time ago? And Dr. Gibson told her she would likely live no more than a couple of weeks. So Grandma decided not to drink or eat so that she could die, and she went to bed at Aunt Rosa’s where she was living. She lived two weeks and one day. And then Mama said, “She loved to eat watermelon, so she asked Aunt Rosa to get one of her grandchildren down there in that green chair every day to eat some watermelon in front of her, so she could watch.”

I wish I could remember more about that visit. I only remember going into her bedroom and eating some watermelon in front of her, and it seemed to make her happy.