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“I'm so glad your family got its land back – and yeah, some of these cakes are going to those who I'll let know need to do some overwatch on these mad folks who just thought we would forget about who owns the Russell land.”
Gladys Jubilee Trent was loading up the little car she had rented for the day with cake Mr. Thomas Stepforth Sr. had ordered to share with lots of people, and Mrs. Velma Stepforth popped in a pound cake that she had made herself for Mrs. Trent to enjoy until the changing of the grandparent guard that next week.
The Stepforths were the parents of Mrs. Melissa Stepforth Trent, and Mrs. Trent was the mother of Sgt. Vincent Trent, and they all were tight friends because of their love for their children and grandchildren Melvin (21), Vanna (days-short-of-18), Velma (11), Milton (9) and Gracie Trent (8). All of them agreed that the Trent parents definitely had their hands full with Mrs. Melissa recovering from serious mental health challenges, and grandparent relief and support was important. The Trent parents were away in one of the homes Mr. Stepforth owned, having a second honeymoon, and Mrs. Trent would be moving in for a while when the Trent parents returned.
Although all this was a long way of explaining the effect of a single name …
“Gracie!”
Gracie had both the inherent Jubilee-of-the-mountain prowess of her Jubilee-of-the-mountain-born grandmother, and the billionaire mind of her grandfather, Thomas Stepforth Sr.
“And she's trying to be eight and deal with all that, and neither parent is really equipped to deal with that personality combo,” Mrs. Velma Stepforth said. “I mean, Little Velma is me over again and that's OK because nobody here is going to try her and make me come all the way out, but Gracie? I mean, how much coffee from the downspout does anybody need to drink?”
“Well, I mean, she does understand the water cycle though,” Mr. Stepforth said. “The problem is, half of her is blossoming in genius, and the other half is eight.”
“And she's all Jubilee at heart, meaning she's going to run all over folks,” Mrs. Trent said. “I understand the problem myself since she got it from me, and I can help her work out how to solve the problems now that I'm done making sure the right younger Trents got their inheritances.”
Mr. Stepforth shook his head.
“Like my father Theodore Stepforth used to say, 'it be your own people.'”
“I want to thank you for the book recommendation, Tom, about the U.S. financial crisis,” Mrs. Trent said. “I didn't go to college or nothin' like that so that book really passed the time, but having read it, I get what happened, because that last recession was just a pile of people who wanted to get something for nothing combined with people who really needed better for their kids and still didn't understand you can't get something for nothing – a pile bigger than that time Joe the Rancher got mad at his grandkids and made them all get out there and pile up everything his thousand head of cattle left in the field they stampeded into because grandkids didn't handle the business.”
“Oh, gosh,” Mrs. Stepforth said.
“That all proves human beings are human,” Mrs. Trent said. “I said all that just to say that after I read that and looked at my silly Trent relatives, there's no saving them. I can live a better example. I can give them better information and opportunities. I can't change their motivation. Why did the chicken cross the road – because he wanted to get to the other side and didn't know that the slaughterhouse was over there. That's why, from the uppity pheasant to that type of chicken that ends up 20 percent water at the store.. Cain't do nothin' about that.”
“Well, Jesus saves, and sometimes we just gotta back up off of people and get out of His way,” Mrs. Stepforth said. “Those that are coming to Him are coming. It ain't even our call, so just back on up, because you have other work to do.”
“I'm so glad all y'all are still here because I have an idea,” eight-year-old Gracie Trent said as she bounced out of the house. “Why don't we just move your house all the way down here, Grandma Jubilee? The Lees are moving into that house over there but there's still room and Grayson [six-year-old Grayson Ludlow, Lego engineer and architect extraordinaire] says that now that he saw how the house his Lee cousins put up got here, he can just extend out his little red wagon with some Legos and get into the business.”
“I appreciate y'all thinking of all that,” Mrs. Trent said with a smile, “but tell Grayson he still has to take geometry so he can drive houses around these 45-degree-angled slopes.”
“Oh, and he's gotta get ready for that spelling bee this month,” Gracie said. “Sorry, Grandma, but, we'll get it next time!”
“Aren't you supposed to be working with Vertran to enter the school program he's in?”
“Yeah, I am and I'm working on it, but, I had to stop and see if I could make it easier for you because moving is hard and when our parents were going through stuff, you took care of us, so, I gotta check.”
“That's really sweet, Gracie. I'm doing a really simple move, though, so, it's easy.”
“OK,” she said, and gave each of her grandparents a hug before bouncing back into the house.
“The effortless way she just pulls other people in, though!” Mr. Stepforth said as he broke out laughing.
“I told y'all about Melvin and I told y'all about Gracie – that's a Juba-child, and they are going to be running everything, and they need our help,” Mrs. Trent said.
“Basically,” Mrs. Stepforth said.
“Why God let us live to see this age,” Mr. Stepforth said.
“Ain't it the truth, Tom, ain't it the truth,” Mrs. Trent said.
