Grandmother's Pinking Sheers

My grandmother came into the T.V. room waving her pinking sheers, brightly proclaiming "It's time to cut my toenails!"

I sat up fast, shoving aside the Parade section of the Sunday paper, scattering it on the floor beside me. "You mean with the pinking sheers?" I leaned forward, leg muscles both ready to launch and holding me down.

"My toenails are so tough only these will do." She thunked her right foot onto the small black vinyl ottoman, grabbed her big toe with her left hand, and swung at it with the sheers.

With a scissoring sound, the tip of her toe was open and blood trickled down the side of her foot, tracing the arch, hooking under her heel and dripping down the side of the shiny ottoman. Blood quickly soaked into the acrylic brown shag carpet underneath. I had been mere inches away, but my hand reached out so slowly I was afraid she'd cut her toe off before I had a chance to stop her. I finally got my hand on hers, and gently closed the pinking sheers. "Now you're bleeding," I pointed out. "Let me bandage it for you." She did not resist as I slid the sheers out of her hand

"Oh, it's just a scratch," she p'shawed, dismissing it with a wave of her empty hand.

Blood continued to drip into the brown shag rug. I looked at the glossy fibers in their long pointy clumps and blinked at the distant decade it must have come from. "Stay there. I'll be right back with a band-aid. Don't move." I ran to get the bandages, knowing that whether she stayed or walked away was entirely a matter of her whim.