"To me it's country!" Grandma said.

I heard the water running upstairs. "I think they're up. Should I go see?"

"You mean should you go tell!"

"Well, should I?"

"Of course," Grandma said.

I ran up the stairs and into my parents' bedroom. My father was putting on his socks. My mother was brushing her teeth in their bathroom.

"Guess who's here?" I said to my father.

He didn't say anything. He yawned.

"Well, aren't you going to guess?"

"Guess what?" he asked.

"Guess who's here in this very house at this very minute?"

"Nobody but us, I hope," my father said.

"Wrong!" I danced around the bedroom.

"Margaret," my father said in his disgusted-with-me voice. "What is it you're trying to say?"

"Grandma's here!"

"That's impossible," my father told me.

"I mean it, Daddy. She's right downstairs in the kitchen making your coffee."

"Barbara… " My father went into the bathroom and turned off the water. I followed him. My mother had a mouthful of toothpaste.

"I'm not done, Herb," she said, turning on the water again.

My father shut it off. "Guess who's here?" he asked her.

"What do you mean who's here?" my mother said.

"Sylvia! That's who's here!" My father turned the water back on so my mother could finish brushing her teeth.

But my mother turned it off and followed my father into the bedroom. I followed too. This was fun! I guess by then my mother must have swallowed her toothpaste.

"What do you mean, Sylvia?" my mother asked my father.

"I mean my mother!" my father said.

My mother laughed. "That's impossible, Herb. How would she even get here?"

My father pointed at me. "Ask Margaret. She seems to know everything."

"In a taxi," I said.

They didn't say anything.

"And a train," I said.

Still nothing.

"It wasn't so dirty after all."