Everybody Loves Grandma
When Secrets Hide Behind a Smile
Today, 9 December is International Anti-Corruption Day - a day we celebrate the rules and keep in check any bending.
But there are times good intentions bend the rules.
🗝️🕯️📜
9th December. The day her grandma passed. Not a day May would forget - for reasons she'd rather erase from memory.
May was a lawyer - and a law degree was the last thing she wanted on her list of accomplishments. The Toh family - hers - had assigned her the unwanted task of settling her grandma's estate.
🪞🏚️💨
One she accepted - and regretted.
Grandma Toh.
Bukit Boon's most upstanding council member had taken bribes
A newspaper article written with words that shamed.
Bribes. Accusations.
Her grandmother - the woman she held in the highest esteem
May sifted hurriedly through the cluttered basement, flicking the dust off each album with hurried precision.
The dust mites parted to reveal her grandmother's life - one she never knew.
But each album she uncovered wanted her to know.
The ledger glared at her, the yellowed pages aggressively promoting their secrets.
The pages parted with a silent call.
May's fingers hovered over them, waiting.
📝💰⚖️
They couldn't wait for very long.
Inside it were documents filled with names and numbers.
Ones that kept increasing.
Her grandmother's offshore account had accumulated more money than May had ever thought possible.
A hidden account. Belonging to the Saint of Straight-Lacedness.
May's eyes hovered over that page of revelation, stunned for a few moments.
The Saint of Straight-Lacedness was also the Devil of Crookery.
📜💌🖐️
May fingered the note - and it stayed in place.
It wouldn't move.
Frozen by surprise - and understanding.
"Aunty Chong," it read, "Thanks for paying our rent these past months. We would have been evicted otherwise."
So the money had gone into a dense, grey corridor.
One where mistakes were as striking as good deeds.
Her grandma's heart had bent where ethics wouldn't - and saved.
Whether rightly or wrongly was anyone's guess.
🏡💛🌗
May left the ledger in the basement - she never showed it to anyone.
The bribes - an offbeat act of integrity.
Out-of-sync, but not hurtful.
Her grandmother was but human. A mix of dark and light.
Able to compromise.
Doing wrong to protect.
🕯️🗝️💭
Would you react like May if you knew? Do share in the comments.
For Mikeydred's December prompt.
About the Creator
Michelle Liew Tsui-Lin
Hi, i am an English Language teacher cum freelance writer with a taste for pets, prose and poetry. When I'm not writing my heart out, I'm playing with my three dogs, Zorra, Cloudy and Snowball.
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Comments (4)
One thing I always loved since I was little, is dusting off stuff that belonged to my ancestors to learn their secrets. Maybe in grandmas time these things were not seen as bad, maybe it was more like a secret survival kit, a way to take care of the family?
The modern super-dirty grandma; the Robin Hood with woman face. A very beautiful and timely piece, because today corruption is what ‘makes the difference’ instead of us helping one another. :))
I think May is reasonable in not airing her grandmother's secrets. On the other hand, if that account was not being used anymore, she could have released info to clear her grandmother's name from the accusations of corruption. Great story, Michelle.
Thank you once more, and we do have to bend and break rules at times