Janet Kagan - The Stubbornest Broad on Earth

“Yarik says you’re the stubbornest person he… she?… ever met.”

“Yes, dear,” said Cora Jowett. “I know. But I couldn’t see leaving the moon behind. After all, the National Geographic says even clams respond to the tides—and there wouldn’t be a tide without a moon, now would there? And, as for having the kids pick up the Evacuation Fleet—well, I could hardly wait forty years for you to arrive, now could I?”

Probably she could have, Harry Johnson thought. And he’d have found her just the same, flour up to her wrists—or throwing feed to the hens, the only animals she kept these days. Or he might have found her sneaking milk to the barn cat with the new litter of kittens or on her knees in the garden, pulling out the dandelions. The tenderest parts of the dandelion would go into the salad…

“Gramma,” he said, shaking himself from this reverie. “Gramma, the president of the UN wants to see you.”

“Tell him I’m busy,” she said. “And while you’re at it, tell him you and Milly and Seabright and all my grandkids are busy, too. You’re all taking two weeks off. You can arrange to take two weeks off, can’t you? Susie Williamson can take over for that long.”

Harry Johnson laughed. “Gramma, the world will give you anything you ask for—that’s what he wants to see you about.”

“Good.” Cora took the rolling pin to the pie dough. “Then tell him I want an airplane and a pilot.”

“I beg your pardon?”

She draped the dough expertly into the pie plate and raised the plate to eye-level to shave around its edge. “I’m taking my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren to Egypt to see the pyramids. And I’m not sure where we’ll go from there—but it’s a big world, Harry, and Yarik and Sproole and Tan and I never got to finish our tour.” She heaped the pie with sliced apples, dotting them with butter, and laid the upper crust atop it. When she’d pricked the top, she slid it into the oven. “You’ve time to stay for pie, haven’t you?”

Harry Johnson knew he had time to stay for pie—and time to see the pyramids—after all, Grandma Cora was the stubbornest broad on Earth. Granddad always said so.