"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
― Anton Chekhov


Uncle Charlie had no reason to believe it was a lie. Mabel had never lied, cheated, or stole anything from him as far as he could recollect. He lowered his shotgun.

"She belongs to you."

"How so, and if so, how you come about to keeping her and never telling me until now?"

"My girl child Suzanne left her for me to care for. Fresh from the titty if you ask me."

"Say what now?"

"I had to make a visit to Big Sister Sadie to know who the daddy be. No way to know other than that. Paper and words are facts that can't be erased."

"I am an old man. You see that for yourself. You see that with your own eyes. Any child of mine has long been buried. What do you say to that, Mabel?"

"Uncle Charlie, I am going to read from this here piece of paper that says it so. I am not saying it is. This here paper is saying it. I am going to just read what it says to you."

"For true?"

"You know it's what happens when your old ass still tossing seeds."

Uncle Charlie was going to put Mabel to the test. If she was of the mind to pull a fast one on him, she had another thing coming. He didn't discriminate when it came to shooting at someone to get them to hightail it off his property.

"What kind of paper would have my name on it?"

Mabel knew she was being quizzed. She had any and every answer, and what she didn't know, she would repeat over and over as if he didn't remember; she never lied to him, she never stole anything from him or cheated him out of what was rightfully his at any time. If she kept to the facts, she would have a place for her and her grandbaby to stay until she could think of somewhere else.

"Says from Kings County, V-tall," Granny moved her body and arm to motion for her Granddaughter to help her with the word, "What is this word here? Look at it child and tell me how to say it."

Michonne had only shown her face enough to look at what her Granny told her to look at before hiding as quickly as the word left her lips.

Michonne whispered, "Vital."

Granny quickly corrected what she was telling Uncle Charlie from 200 yards away from his front porch.

"Vital records. Your name on here says you this child's Daddy."

Uncle Charlie was already impressed that the young girl could read better than the adult that kept her.

"She sho enough got a good hold on you."

The remark was enough for Michonne to cling even tighter to her Granny who almost lost her balanced.

"Having a hard time is all, Uncle Charlie."

"She got a good hold on you."

"Scared I am going to leave her with you."

"Well, I don't bite none."

"I know that. She doesn't know that."

"What you suppose I am to do about it?"

"Tell me what you THINK you are supposed to do for your Girl Child. I can't seem to reckon why I need to tell you how to be a Daddy."

"I suppose neither one of us have an answer then since neither of us had one during a time we should have had one."

"That is a lie Uncle Charlie. Don't go lying on me. I heard about what you told my own child about my Big Sister is my real Mama. I never lied to you, but you have lied about my family. You can go to hell with that one. You hear me. Hell for you as God as my witness."

"I deal with facts still, Mabel. No stories. Facts. I know what I know because I was there. I'm older than you, you know. Now, tell me are you planning on leaving her here?"

This question had sent Michonne in full panic attack mode. She had fainted. She was out cold on the wet grass that cushioned her fall. Michonne never heard her Granny's response to the question when posed.

"Not with any man, I'm not nor ever. Not while I am breathing and she still living." Now everything was up in the air with no thought of going to the hospital or calling on the doctor.

Took two whole days for Michonne to wake up. Granny tended to her while she was out due to exhaustion and fear. And when there was no change in the slight fever getting any higher, and the steady sound of her granddaughters breathing, Granny began to make a home for them in the trailer that Uncle Charlie offered as a secondary option to being on his property. Granny was surprised the old man had the strength to lift the poor child up off the ground and was able to carry her the number of yards it took to get from the front of the house to the trailer.

Uncle Charlie wasn't there when Michonne finally came to her senses. Granny had told him all about it when the young girl finally raised from the dead. He was concerned enough again to ask about his child on the third day, and Granny told him everything was okay and that his Girl Child was doing some book reading.

He spied her sitting at the small table from the doorway. She had never once looked over at him or acknowledge he was there. Mable was quick to turn him around to get going back to doing whatever it was that kept him busy before they had ever arrived looking for shelter.

Uncle Charlie didn't know what to do with the ache he felt from having he in his arms where his Girl child seemed to have imprinted herself on him. Her face pressed to his chest as he carried her after scooping her up off the ground caused him to go straight to his moonshine that he had almost forgotten about up under the porch.

From his vantage point she had his eyes, and his cheekbones and his nose. His girl child only had her mother's heart-shaped lips and skin tone from what he remembered of the day he met the young woman and the day she left him.


Moonshine.

He ruminated over the word, Vital. He wasn't one to know about all the words that books held and the meaning behind them. Vital in the war meant absolutely necessary. Important. Someone on the paper designated it to be so, and to him it was, Vital.

A few days later Uncle Charlie realized that there wasn't a shy thing about his Girl Child. He knew the difference between shy and fear. The war provided him glimpses in the eyes of falling soldiers whether it was the Confederates or in Vietnam.

He was a man who had lived a long time by his own estimation. Any war he spoke of could rightly be any war that occurred within the last fifty years, but some details suggested otherwise.

Doctor Deanna found the old African American man quite fascinating. She imagined him a great story-teller. She didn't believe most of what he had told her, but she found it riveting none the less as he described a time he could not have possibly gone through and still be alive. He didn't look a day over 75 years old.

"Tell me something, Uncle Charlie, exactly how old are you?"

"I don't rightly know." Uncle Charlie held his straw hat in his hand. He began to wring it like a wash rag needing to be wrung dry.

He was conflicted about his Girl Child out in the waiting room without him keeping an eye out on her himself. A woman promised to keep watch since the Mind doctor wanted to speak to him and him alone with the door closed.

Uncle Charlie began to fret more now that the Doctor had brought him to his senses, with wanting to know more about present day by asking him about his age.

If the Mind doctor had asked him his Girl Child's age, he knew the answer. He even had an idea of how old Granny was, and it wasn't sixty-something even though Mabel believed she could pass for fifty-nine as sure as day carried the sun, and the devil spit lies. He had a strong suspicion Granny wasn't sure about her exact age.

"Based on what you are telling me and the things you say you have witnessed first hand, you would have to be over 150 years old, Uncle Charlie." Dr. Deanna did not hide her skepticism.

Uncle Charlie paused from working his hat in such a way he would need to toss it if Granny had no idea of repairing it. He never before had someone very good at math as was the doctor before him.

"I suppose that is impossible?" Uncle Charlie ventured a guess.

"It is."

"For true?" Uncle Charlie wanted to be sure he was hearing her correctly. He was going to report it back to Granny as it was said to him but only if it was true.

"Highly doubtful. Would you like for me to see if I can locate your birth records, Uncle Charlie?"

"I would appreciate that very much, Doctor, ma'am. I would."

"Do you know where you were born?"

"On my property. It is mine now. I waited a long time to own it. I was born there and will one day rest there."

"Very well. Also, I have some pills I would like for you to give to Michonne. It is for those who want to participate in a clinical trial study. Michonne so far is a classic case that may benefit tremendously."

"Tremendously." Uncle Charley tested out the unfamiliar word aloud with no grasp in meaning.

"Beneficial."

"Beneficial?"

"Yes."

Nothing made his fifteen year old Girl child more crazier than a Bessie bug until after she swallowed that very first pill.


High pitched screams were enough to wake the old man from his deep slumber. Uncle Charlie could hear the young twelve year old Girl child even over the sound of clapping thunder. He shuffled over to his faded denim overalls. He didn't think to wear a shirt with it because he was in a hurry to see about the one that came to him with the word Vital attached some 200 yards from the house. Uncle Charlie felt if he was indeed the father as Mabel read from the paper than it was absolutely necessary for him to be a Daddy. He thought of Andy Taylor, Ward Cleaver and a little of Charles Ingalls as his only examples from what he recalled from TV shows he watched before the electric was turned off.

In his rush to grab only his shotgun, drenched by the pouring rain, Uncle Charlie banged twice when Mabel opened the door with her housecoat secured tightly, like the pink sponge curlers in her hair.

"Everything okay, Mabel?"

Granny glanced behind her to make sure they were not being overheard since the screaming quieted down significantly.,

"No, it is not! And, what I tell you about calling me, Mabel? Call me Granny!"

"You are her Granny. Not my Granny." Uncle Charly asserted.

"Ya somebody's Uncle but ya certainly not mine, how about that?" Granny snapped.

"I ain't asking you to call me that either. If you want to call me something according to your good book, I am a Blessing. A blessing I am."

"Do you think I got time to go back and forth with you, you got another thing coming. I call you Uncle Charlie because that is what everybody calls you and you answer it to it. I will only answer to Granny from here on out. Coming here with no shirt for? My God is up high keeping the devil down Low, Amen. Girl child sees you like the way you are ain't going to be no reasoning with her. I need you to listen real good cause I don't want your girl child to have it in her mind you a Mister calling on me and soon when my back is turned, you calling on her."

"What you say, now?" Uncle Charlie was stumped at Mister and how many may have been around.

"...you bringing things we need for now. Fresh fish from the River we can make do with as long as we got some corn meal and some frying grease I say that is plenty. I can go out to that henhouse and collect our own eggs for a decent breakfast. Can't complain about nothing with blankets to keep us warm and a bed to keep us up off the floor. Your girl child's mind will come to accept some things even if she doesn't know how to think about it. Some explanations will never make sense to her but as long as you keep saying it and don't deviate from what you said two minutes ago of answering the same damn thing she stays calm. She is going to go on your actions and what you actually say to her. You need to be careful what you do and what you say."

"She had a nightmare?"

"Likely gave me a hard attack most times when I ain't prepared. Didn't know water dripping by the bed. I moved it more to the other corner and put a bucket to catch the drops. Dripped on her leg, and she likely lost her mind..."

He listened intently to what was being told to him that he felt should have been said to him early on. It grieved his heart to hear just a piece of the story that was enough to cut him like a shard of glass across his heart he had no idea was there or could feel deeply.

Mabel kept talking while the old man was partially standing under the awning, any closer he would be standing to close to Mabel who wasn't likely to budge and allow him to enter like he had been doing the last few days since they arrived.

"You may be old but you ain't too old to change your ways and think differently. I am putting it in your mind and if you have any heart what so ever you will call me Granny. No Mister is looking for a Granny. They looking for Mabel or Mabeline. Not a Granny. You come here, calling on me she will believe in every fiber of her body your intentions are dirty. I need you to accept it as the way it has to be. You can't be calling me Mabel here on out."

"How many misters?"

"Don't rightly, know. Not safe in the church either. So many lies have been told on her."

"How many misters, Granny?"


"Too much to worry about when there is a house full of people and little ones that can be anywhere they ain't got no business and the pretend people can come and go as they please. Lord knows the devil stay busy. I can't be everywhere with eyes on everyone at all times. I guess I would be God if I could and the thought is just blasphemous in and of itself, I say."

The only reason Granny left from out of the laundry room where the delivery men were trying to explain the issue with GFI sockets to Uncle Charlie was to get the children's Daddy to speak some sense into whoever was deemed not to have enough. She needed that Glinty eyed devil or the dazed one to get up and help.

"Shoo, now. Shoo. Y'all too old to be sitting on a grown ass man's lap. Now get up from there or find your seat on the couch. I promise you there are enough chairs at the table. Go on ahead. Go on now. Jasmine shouldn't be the only one keeping an eye on your Mama trying to make blueberry muffins from some Jiffy. Who in the hell brought that up in here while I wasn't looking needs to be the one to eat every single one of them damn things she's baking."

Rick was surprised that his daughters, Abigail and Billie Jo were being told to remove themselves from his lap.

If Granny had looked directly at Rick, she would have seen the confusion on his face. It was unclear to him what the harm was when he too was concerned about a few things like, the cookout, the delivery of the washer and dryer and how long must he continue to dig around the well-pump before he is either electrocuted or damaged it beyond repair. Harming Abigail and Billie Jo was something that would have never occurred to him to do because it wasn't in his heart nor his spirit.

The two girls waited for the final verdict from their Daddy.

Sinclaire had Granny on momentary ignore.

"I think we have some shopping to do to find the prettiest dresses and shoes..."

Both his little girls gasped in sheer anticipation to hear the date and time this would all take place. Shopping was a word that wasn't used often, and it was music to their ears.

"...Your Mama will have to be in charge of the decision making. When your Mama is ready, we will all go out and make a day of it. I bought us a big enough vehicle to get us around."

"Can't believe there is just that much room." Granny had to admit. She really enjoyed getting out of the house and seeing her Grandchildren have a good time running and playing with the other kids

"Made sure of it. Bought a smaller one for their Mama." Rick looked directly at Granny.

"There's a second vehicle?" Granny's tone couldn't hide her surprise.

"May need a third. A car. I haven't discussed it with their Mama on what she wants to drive daily. In the meantime, what we have, we will make do. All we need for now."

"There's only one out front. There is no second one." Granny wanted to be the first to tell whoever he was at that moment a truth to deal with any way he saw fit. Didn't see no second one."

"It's on order. Mercedes Benz. Fewer seats but it will seat the kids we have just as comfortably."

Granny had so many questions on how, and with what, this man was able to claim two vehicles. She had decided against asking. Too much knowledge was equally dangerous. She wanted to ensure that if she were hauled in for lying detection by the police, she could say she had no information or knowledge, and it would be the truth.

" I see I need to keep you on track AND include you in my head counts. Right now there's a washer and Dryer that has been hauled in here while you've been walking around here dazed and confused. There is no way to explain it to Uncle Charlie for him to understand when it comes to parting with more money for what he considers no real reason. You are needed in the washroom. Now, Abigail and Billie Joe don't have me repeat myself, or it's going to be your bottoms I'll be after with my slipper. Your Daddy said no switch, but he didn't say a damn thing about not using my slipper. Now get up and go get."

Granny waved her hand for them to lift themselves off of his lap.

Rick nodded, lifting them each up and off of his leg.

"Go on." He told them. "When I am done I will have a talk with your Mama about shopping." Sinclaire gave them an incentive to remain cheerful. He ran his hand along the length of their hair.

Rick waited for his visibly disappointed little girls to have the top of their heads lightly tapped by Granny before making their exit towards the kitchen. He stood to address the older woman with a few words in private but he was struck mute within seconds upon spying his son whip around towards them in the living room and then take off in a different direction.

Marty was avoiding head count as he was known to do when there wasn't a Daddy in the home. Now there was a Daddy and it made no difference, the novelty had worn off of having one. Marty had reverted back to Marty who was in everything and wound up anywhere if no one was paying attention.

Granny saw exactly what the Daddy saw around Marty's neck and there wasn't any word for it until Marty crashed into Coveralls who spied the item he had been looking for going on two years. His strap on.


A/N:

So many stories to tell and proofread. Facepalm. I will make correction after posting this. I have no idea if it makes sense. I wrote this months ago and thanks to Ms. J for bringing it back to my attention. I plan to close out Peace Through Chaos next.