He looked at my $28 delivery burger, then showed me his bank account. I have never felt so small.
“Twenty-eight dollars,” Grandpa Frank said. He didn’t ask it. He stated it.
He was sitting on his porch swing, the one that squeaks every time the wind blows. He was staring at the grease-stained paper bag in my hand like I was holding a live grenade.
“It’s just dinner, Grandpa,” I snapped. I was tired. My feet hurt. I make $55,000 a year, yet I’m living in his basement because the city chewed me up and spat me out. “I had a hard week. I deserve a treat.”
“A treat,” he repeated. He took a sip of his instant coffee. The stuff that tastes like burnt dirt. “I drink coffee. You drink a car payment.”
I walked past him, angry.
Inside, the house smelled like it always does—pine cleaner and old paper. The silence was loud.
No Netflix. No high-speed fiber. Just an antenna TV that gets six channels and a landline that only rings when telemarketers call.
I sat at the kitchen table and opened the container. A gourmet cheeseburger and truffle fries. Cold.
Frank walked in. He heated up a bowl of beans and a cut-up hot dog in the microwave.
“Must be nice,” he muttered, sitting opposite me.
That was it. The fuse blew.
“Stop it, Frank,” I said, my voice shaking. “You don’t get it. Everything is expensive now. You guys had it easy. You worked at the plant, bought this three-bedroom house on one salary, and retired at 60. You have no idea what it’s like out there.”
The room went dead silent.
Frank put his spoon down. He looked at me, really looked at me. His eyes weren’t angry anymore. They were just sad.
“Easy?” he whispered.
He rolled up the sleeve of his flannel shirt. There was a long, jagged scar running from his elbow to his wrist.
“I got this when a steel beam slipped in ’78. I wrapped it in a shop rag and finished my shift because if I clocked out, I didn’t get paid.”
He pointed a calloused finger at me.
“Your Grandma packed me a bologna sandwich every single day for thirty years. We didn’t go to restaurants. We didn’t have ‘delivery.’ We had a garden because buying vegetables was for rich folks.”
“But the economy—” I started.
“Interest rates on this house were fourteen percent,” he cut me off. “Fourteen. We didn’t sleep for the first five years wondering if the bank would take it.”
He stood up and walked to his old roll-top desk. He pulled out a small, grey book. A savings passbook.
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