{ESQUIRE Magazine has an annual short, short fiction contest. This year, in honor of the magazine’s 79th Anniversary, entries were limited to 79 words. Yes. Only 79 words to tell a story. Here is the first runner-up of the ones I wrote and rejected. It’s about my maternal grandmother. I miss her… And her field peas and rolls and hugs and stories and love… }

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Bumping down the gravel road, a two-story dust plume at the rear, we soon pulled into Grandmother’s shady driveway. I could almost taste the field peas she knew were my favorite, simmering on the stove. There’d be hugs, kisses and “y’all look so goods”. Then we’d eat. And eat. I had no idea they’d ever struggled or were poor or that three of her boys had died as babies. All I knew was love. Here we were loved.