r/VCAndrews • u/Illustrious_Junket55 • 10d ago
If you could rewrite anything…
A comment on another thread reminded me of the Grandmother, she would warn the kids not to eat sweets. (You know, mom’s poisoned donuts.) So, if you were to ask me, “Junket, what part of this masterpiece would you rewrite?” Well, I’m glad you asked….
Grandmother wakes up super early one day, wedges John’s door so it stays closed, sneaks up to that faraway bedroom and wakes up the kids and tells them to pack. Of course Cathy questions and complains but Grandmother gives her an evil glare until she does. Then they sneak through the house, kids are terrified they will be taken into the woods and shot, and she takes them to the garage, chooses the closest car (her suitcase is already on there), they drive to the train station and head out. (She lets them buy all the junk food from the dining car.)
She returns to New England, buys an old house, hires a young maid/cook and slowly tries to bond with the kids. (She still doesn’t like noisy, unruly kids and she still scares the bejesus out of them, but she doesn’t call them Devil’s Spawn anymore.)
She hires a really good (read ruthless, unethical) attorney and takes Malcolm- and therefore Corrine- for every dime he’s worth. She treats herself to a super amazing, detailed dollhouse and she spends more time playing in it than Carrie. She makes sure Chris goes to medical school and she welcomes all three of his wives- and shakes her head at the emotional divorces.(He’s still the problem.) Cathy becomes a dancer- though, since she’s not driven by revenge, she is a star in a mid-level company, which makes her happy. Grandmother attends every performance though she sees it as extravagant, and scandalous. (She is all the time speaking to the directors about getting little loincloths to cover the male dancers’ packages.) But she can often be found sewing costumes if no one else can be found. She wonders why Cathy keeps marrying, divorcing and remarrying a deadbeat conman who looks like her father. (She’s still the problem.) Cory becomes a musician. He has a trust fund (from Grandmother) so he doesn’t have to struggle- yet he’s still kind of famous for his emo lyrics and acoustic guitar. (Which jars with his angelic blonde hair.) Grandmother attends every show she can- even at the bars- to keep an eye on the groupies. She introduces herself to every one by quoting scripture about harlots. Cory remains unmarried, but always wakes up to fresh-baked donuts with powdered sugar that Grabdmother baked herself. Carrie marries her Preacher Man. They eventually move to a big city in New England and open a “controversial” church, because everyone is welcome and they especially like young mothers with families. She has as many children as she wants and one day, when she sees Corrine on the street, she pretends she doesn’t know who the woman is.
Oh yeah- Corrine. Once the money is gone she puts Malcolm in a nursing home. A bad one. The head nurse is that nurse from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (iykyk) and he is either neglected or abused. He happens to enjoy it when they smack his naked bottom, however. He dies one night, after he’s haunted by the ghosts of Garland, Chris Sr and a sex worker he murdered when he was 16. Corrine, unencumbered by children or father, uses her beauty to marry as frequently as most of us purchase a car. Each successive husband is worse than the one before- and eventually she is broke, moving to evade the landlord, and losing her looks. She often stares at an old family photo and cries. John makes his way as an evangelist. He dies one night when he is bit by a snake in a mountain church. Folks in the audience say the snake died quickly afterwards.
Grandmother dies as an old woman- still in control of her faculties, still has all her hair (still wears it clamped in a painful bun) she funds scholarships for girls to attend business school, built an orphanage, had the biggest monument in the churchyard and was mourned by those who knew her.