Rock of Ages by Howard Owen Page B

outright arguing about the legitimacy of a word, dictionary be damned.
    But she and Justin don’t play that way. At least, she doesn’t think they do.
    Georgia has to start peeling and mashing the potatoes 20 minutes before the roast is done, and she will admit later to herself that she does chafe a little when Leeza takes so much time to come up with what often turns out to be a depressingly simple word.
    There are only a few letters left to be uncovered when Leeza’s turn comes around. Georgia, poker-faced, is trying not to look at the bottom middle triple-word space. She is trailing Justin by only 10 points, and he’s just given her an unexpected chance at salvation by putting “bush” horizontally in such a position that the “u” is two letters above the triple word and one below a double-letter space. Q-U-I-T. Sixty-nine points, and dump the Q to boot. Game, set, match.
    She has already won, in her head, when Leeza puts the S and the E beneath the U. “Use,” she says, smiling apologetically. “Nine points. Sorry, that’s all I can do.”
    â€œWell,” Georgia says, feeling her face flush, “it’s enough. Enough to keep me from using this damn Q. Well, that’s it for me. You all finish up. I’ve got to fix those mashed potatoes.”
    She knows she’s being childish, and she knows she’s put a damper on what was a pleasant interlude with her son and the mother of her grandchild, but she can’t help it.
    â€œI didn’t do it on purpose,” Leeza says, but Georgia wonders.
    She can’t resist scratching the forbidden itch.
    â€œYou know, Leeza,” she says, “if you’ve got a S, you can do so many things. You can get, what, 22 points by putting one of the end of this word here, even if you don’t make up another word. Or you can get probably even more over here. Just think .”
    â€œI am thinking,” Leeza says, and Georgia sees that she has bullied the girl nearly to tears. “But I never played this damn game until you and Justin showed me how.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Georgia says. She truly is, but it’s a case, she suspects, of too little, too late, mouth outdistancing brain again. She doesn’t know why Leeza sometimes sets her off. She is one of the most open, sweet-natured people Georgia knows. She sometimes suspects that she is predisposed to take advantage of such guilelessness, disrespecting it as a character flaw rather than the product of a conscious effort at goodness. And then, Georgia thinks, there’s the daughter-in-law thing, assuming she ever is my daughter-in-law. If she’s so sweet and innocent, why’d she let my son knock her up?
    â€œYou know, Mom,” Justin says, a hard edge to his voice that cuts through Georgia and makes her draw up inside, “being queen of Scrabble doesn’t exactly make you ruler of the world. I mean, the last time we played hearts, Leeza kicked your butt, I believe.”
    â€œYeah,” Leeza says, timidly.
    It’s true. Georgia never has been a great card player. She’s never really liked card games that much, always telling herself they were too simple, not mentally stimulating enough.
    â€œWell, anyway,” she says, retreating with her glass of white wine to the kitchen, “I’m sorry.”
    They have a too-quiet dinner, a good roast wasted. Afterward, Justin does the dishes, and Leeza says she’s tired and wants to go to bed. It’s almost nine o’clock. Georgia volunteers to help clean up so she can join him, but he declines her offer.
    Self-defeated, Georgia retreats to her own bedroom. First, though, she goes to take a quick look at her small inheritance from Jenny McLaurin.
    She takes out the old photo albums and flips through them, taking much more time than she had planned, because the past keeps coming up at her from pictures that go back more than a century. Jenny has