The Simple Reality

Nation's Greatest Secret

Agnetha had placed the basket of garden vegetables she had just hand picked on the counter top beside the other produce she pulled out and she picked them up from the bunch one by one to wash them. Today's menu would consist of a bake of stuffed salmon with a side of mini potatoes, something that made her enticed since late morning. It had been some time since she'd made it, and today all the ingredients were at hand and freshly stocked.

Her mind was running the usual domestic thoughts: Was the laundry finished? Were the plants watered? Did she remember to dust the house this week? And did they plan to stay here to to eat? Now she was about to make this tasty dish, she had hoped that they would be.

The handle was turned on the sink to turn it off and she neared towards the fridge for the rest of the items when she heard her daughter speaking with seriousness to who she assumed would be her daughters. The refrigerator was closed carefully and she walked back to see what the matter was as it wasn't often it'd be heard.

"What's going on?" Agnetha asked. The eyes of her two older grandchildren were with a frown, sad and irritated with the lecturing they'd received.

"Do you want to say it?" Linda asked them gently.

"Mom, she already knows!"

"I know what?" Agnetha intervened again.

"Then I hope you apologized."

"Hey, Linda," her mother approached, setting her arm on her daughter to ease her. She didn't have to lecture them so hardly. She hadn't even known what the issue was.

"Obviously I apologized! Do you think it makes me happy to know? I didn't mean to say anything about them. And I talked to one person! Just one person!" she cried. "It's not because of me everyone thinks they're together." Oh. That topic again, Agnetha understood.

"Ester, that isn't the point. It's that you should really know better than to trust someone you don't know about your grandparent's privacy."

"Okay, well I get it. Is it better if I don't go next time?"

"It's not what she means," her older sister told her.

"No. No, of course not," Agnetha added in. "Darling, it's not that serious. You did nothing and we already told you. It's not all up to you. It's beyond you."

"All I ask is that you be more careful next time," Linda told her daughter.

"She will be," Agnetha turned her head to say, and then faced Ester once again. "Why are we bringing this up again? It's fine, darling. It's nothing that we can't move past. So you said a word..."

"Even less."

"Exactly. You said less than a word and I have millions saying more than a hundred things."

"What's going on?" wondered Signe, entering the conversation, but only to the shy girl at the door.

"Ester's in trouble, kinda. For saying something at the after party. At Voyage. A lot of people are talking about grandpa and your grandma," Edith filled in. Signe frowned listening and she remained quiet.

"I really didn't mean to," she told her grandmother. "It came out. I wouldn't say anything about you guys to anyone."

"I know. I know you wouldn't," she smiled. Her eyes then drifted to Tilda and she looked at her playfully. "So that's what you wouldn't tell me yesterday? Hm?" Tilda's laugh was encouraged by her gentle grandmother meanwhile sitting with her legs up and arms around her knees.

"How do you think I practice keeping people's secrets?" Tilda leaned into her sister softly. "Take lessons," she teased.

"Who's going to help me with dinner?" Agnetha offered, pushing up off her knees, and groaning at the feeling in her legs for crouching like that. A subject change was necessary. She looked at her daughter and urged her to let it go. There was no use.