The Tale of Lil Red

Modernized, with our new wolf

Gather ‘round the campfire, young ones. I’m here to tell you a tale.

You all remember Little Red Riding Hood, yes? Good. This is a new version, a version for our times.

Put your phones down. Turn them all the way off, so that you can’t see them or hear them. That’s right. I know, it’s hard, but trust me… to hear this particular story, you’ll need to let them go for now.

Good. Now, make yourself comfortable. Close your eyes, if you like, and just listen to my voice. Or gaze at the fire, or up at the stars twinkling above you. Ready? Here we go.

ONCE UPON A TIME…

TODAY, in fact, Little Red Riding Hood sets off to visit her grandmother at Big Woods, an assisted living facility just outside Boca Raton.

The food there is so bad that Grandmother’s arthritis has flared up permanently, leaving the old widow unable to knit or sew anymore, which has sunk her into depression. No longer can she make outfits for family members — like the crimson cape and hood she crocheted a few years back that delighted her lovely little granddaughter so much that the girl wore it non-stop, inspiring her mother to call her “Little Red Riding Hood,” which morphed into “Lil Red” when the girl started school. Her classmates at school thought she was kooky for wearing a pilling, too-short crocheted cape and gave her the name as a joke.

Lil Red, hungry for acceptance and mistaking their derision for approval, happily adopted her new name. Unaware of its sardonic gangsta rap overtones, she insisted that everyone in her family (which consists only of her divorced mother and Grandmother) call her Lil Red. They think the moniker is endearing.

Big Woods dispenses small blue pills daily to prevent Grandmother from feeling sad, because they prevent her from feeling anything at all, and they dry out her eyes and further mess up her digestion, already constipated from plates of beige comestibles designed to be gummed.

Big Woods is a “nice” facility, and Grandmother is “lucky” to be there, so she doesn’t complain. But every now and then she just takes to her bed — not because she’s sad, but because she’s lonely and defeated — and the staff calls Lil Red’s mom, to inform her in perky voices that Grandmother’s not feeling well and could use a visit.

Years ago, Lil Red’s mom and Grandmother had a falling-out over the divorce, and since neither one could apologize, they’ve remained cordial but distant, so Lil Red is always sent over to cheer Grandmother up and bring her a treat. But it was Monday when Big Woods called, and Lil Red couldn’t go until today, Saturday.

“I just got the Kelloggs Jumbo Snax Variety Pack at BJs, take her a couple of those,” calls Lil Red’s mom from her bedroom. “And a Yoo-Hoo. She’ll like that.”

“Okay.” Lil Red slips on her Crocs.

“And don’t talk about your dad.”

“Uh huh,” Lil Red sighs.

“And go right there and come home straightaway. I don’t want you riding your scooter in the dark.”

“I know, Mom,” Lil Red replies, placing the treats next to a deck of cards in her Hello Kitty backpack.

“I know you know, but I have to say it anyway. I love you.”

“Loveyoutoo,” says the little girl, meaning it, then skips out the door.

Plenty of other parents wouldn’t let a child that young ride by herself, but Lil Red’s mom believes in free-ranging her kid. Yes, Lil Red is quirky and a bit of a dreamer, but she’s also smart for her age. She loves dreaming up and writing stories under the shade of a spreading oak, or having tea parties with her cat, or tending to a little garden where she grows lettuce and sweet potatoes. Her mom can’t understand why such a nice girl doesn’t have any friends.

Outside, the Florida heat engulfs Lil Red as she lifts her Razor from the front porch and carries it down the peeling steps. She places one foot onto the deck, kicks off with the other foot, and twists the throttle. The tiny wheels spit gravel out behind as she accelerates out of the driveway and onto the steaming pavement of Orange Grove Lane, one of the many citrus-named streets in her development.

She doesn’t mind these trips to Big Woods. Grandmother is always glad to see her. Sometimes they play cards, or Grandmother tells her stories about her own life as a young girl growing up on a farm in the north. They laugh about the awful food at Big Woods, and the heinous “treats” Lil Red’s mother sends. Grandmother braids Lil Red’s hair — the one thing her hands can still manage despite the arthritis — and Lil Red asks her questions about Lil Red’s dad, whom Lil Red can’t remember. All she knows from her mom is that when she was two, he went away and never came back, but she doesn’t know why. Grandmother has told her that he ran a successful tech company that somehow went bankrupt.

The ride to Big Woods is always fun, too. Lil Red zips around parked cars and onto sidewalks, maneuvering along the sweltering streets like a tiny superhero, her bedraggled red cape flapping behind in the breeze.

Before long, she arrives at the many-tentacled, low complex with its symmetrical landscaping and peach-colored vinyl siding. She glides to a stop at the main entrance, buzzes the intercom, and waits until it crackles and asks for her name.

“Lil Red” she states, and the imposing metal door unlocks. Grabbing the handle with one hand, she guides her scooter with the other into cool darkness, her eyes momentarily unable to see the front desk.

“Lil Red!” she hears, “Here to see your grandma?”

Enough light returns for her to make out the doughy face of an attendant looking up from her computer.

“Yes, I am,” Lil Red says, leaning her scooter against the floral wallpaper. She signs her name on a clipboard, and looks at a clock to record the time as well.

“Wonderful, sweetie!” chirps the attendant. “We arranged for your grandmother to have a visitor earlier this week, and now she’s doing SO MUCH better. She’s out of bed!”

Lil Red is puzzled. “A visitor? Who?”

The attendant smiles mysteriously and returns her attention to her laptop. “I’ll let you find out, hon.”

Lil Red nods uneasily, then starts down the long hallway that leads to Grandmother’s room. Something feels off, but she can’t place it. The smell is the same as always — a sickly mingling of bodily decay, pine disinfectant, and reheated “food” — but quickly she realizes what’s missing: where normally there would be rows of wheelchairs filled with elderly residents smiling intently at her as she passed, or cupping an ear to hear one another, or dozing in a patch of sunlight, today only patterned carpet and wall railings greet her. The extra-wide corridor is completely empty.

Strange, she thinks as she walks. Maybe they’re taking a trip together. A story begins to take shape in her mind, of white-haired folk heading to the zoo on a school bus. She imagines all of the wheelchairs stacked up and strapped to the top of the bus, and the old people bumping along happily, singing “The Wheels on the Bus,” and…

Suddenly she finds herself standing in front of Grandmother’s door. Closed. Just like all the other doors in the hallway, Lil Red is now noticing. More strangeness.

She can hear muffled voices from inside the room. Is there another visitor? She knocks, for the first time ever, and there is no response. Lil Red’s heart pounds violently in her chest. Why am I frightened? Is Grandmother okay? She knocks again, more forcefully.

“Who is it?” asks a weak, scratchy voice from inside, to which she replies loudly, “It’s me, Grandmother! It’s Lil Red.”

“Come in, dear,” says the voice, which doesn’t sound the way Grandmother usually sounds, so Lil Red gathers her courage to turn the knob and peek around the opening door.

Are you with me so far? Yes? Good. What do you think she finds on the other side of the door? A wolf, you say. Hmm. Well, let’s find out.

WHAT she encounters disorients her immediately. There’s a great deal of noise, and yes, her grandmother is out of bed, but she’s practically prone, stretched out on a Barcalounger under a knitted afghan… watching television. Not only has Lil Red never seen Grandmother use the chair that way before, she’s also never seen her watch television. It’s a huge screen that takes up half the wall in her tiny room, and it’s loud enough that Grandmother doesn’t hear Lil Red enter.

Lil Red stands there for a moment, taking it all in, before she shouts “Grandmother?” to be heard above the din of a car chase. Grandmother turns her head, and recognition sparks her eyes. “Lil Red, hello sweetheart,” she croaks, just as a siren wails from the tv. The spark disappears. Her attention veers back to the screen.

“Is your voice okay? It sounds different,” says Lil Red.

“Hm?” Grandmother says, but it comes out like a cough. She looks at Lil Red and clears her throat. "It’s morning,” she says, still froggy.

“It’s four o’clock.”

Lil Red waits, expecting a response, but none is forthcoming. She watches Grandmother turn back to the program; she sees her eyes film over. Grandmother hardly blinks, even though her dry eyes are webbed with red.

“Your eyes seem different, too,” says Lil Red.

“Mm hm.”

Lil Red looks at her more carefully. Grandmother’s skin is sallow, and her normally tidy grey hair is wild and matted.

“Would you like to braid my hair?” she asks. “You always say it’s good for your hands to stay busy.”

Grandmother smiles for the first time. “Oh no, my hands are too… too…” She shrugs, her tremulous voice trailing off as she loses herself once more in the world on her wall.

Lil Red snaps: “Grandmother. Let me see your teeth.”

Still tracking the tv, Grandmother complies, revealing teeth the color of beeswax. It is clear, even to a little girl, that she hasn’t brushed her teeth in days.

Flummoxed, Li’l Red perches on a footstool. She is at a loss. How can she reach her Grandmother? Her shoulders slump with the weight of confusion and sadness. Her shoulders are so… heavy…

Aha, she thinks. This will do it. She unslings her backpack and shivers as the cool air hits her sweaty back. Feeling lighter already, she unzips the pack and pulls out the Snax and the Yoo-Hoo, setting them on the coffee table.

“I’ve brought you some ‘treats,’ Grandmother,” she states, in the sing-song way one might use to entice a dog, and then pauses, awaiting the usual chuckle, the good-natured ribbing.

Nothing.

Lil Red pours it on: “They’re from Mother…”

All that Grandmother mumbles in return is a vague “thank you,” her eyes firmly fixed on the tv. Lil Red is crushed. This is not right. This is not the Grandmother she knows.

Gustave Doré's engraving

There is a loud knock and the door swings open. “Dinner! And time for your meds, sweetie!” the doughy-faced attendant sings as she breezes into the room, two small Dixie cups in one hand, a tray in the other.

Lil Red is relieved. Finally, a grown-up. She’ll know how to help.

The attendant sets the tray on the coffee table and offers the cups to Grandmother, who unquestioningly throws back pills from one and downs water from the other. “Good job!” she coos, then looks at the little girl. “Aw, isn’t it great to have Lil Red visiting?”

Grandmother nods, but it’s unclear she actually heard the question. Lil Red ventures a question: “She’s having dinner in her room?”

“She likes to watch tv while she eats.”

Lil Red frowns. “She used to sit with her friends.”

“Well, they’re all happier in their rooms now,” she says, bristling just a bit, then aims her voice at Grandmother: “Isn’t that right, sweetie?” Grandmother nods, and the attendant says “See?” with a hint of triumph. The attendant continues, raising her voice: “Did you give her her present?”

“What?” barks Grandmother.

“Her present!” Ms. Doughy shouts, then mutters, “Let’s mute this for a sec.”

She grabs the multifunction remote from the coffee table and aims it at the wall. Silence, so sudden, shocks the room. All three exhale and stare at one another.

“Thank you,” says Lil Red. She feels tears welling up but doesn’t know why.

Ms. Doughy repeats her question, and this time Grandmother receives it.

“Why no, I didn’t,” Grandmother says, her eyes blinking with confusion. “That’s right, I bought… Now where did I put it?” She throws off the afghan and fumbles with the low lever to bring the chair back to vertical. It releases suddenly, pitching her forward. “Woops!” she exclaims, and laughs, catching Lil Red’s eye.

Lil Red laughs, too. Grandmother has returned! “Can I help you find it?”

“No, dearie, I think I know where it might…” Grandmother says, opening the top drawer of a pale blue dresser. “Aha! I found it!”

She pulls out a small paper gift-bag with handles, and offers it to Lil Red, saying, “the nice man who sold me that” — she gestures behind her toward the muted but still flashing tv — “thought this would help you make friends.”

Lil Red is thrown, but she accepts the bag and opens it as Ms. Doughy responds, “He’s right!”

Inside is something she never in a million years imagined her grandmother would ever give her, something that her mother has forbidden her to have, something she’s always secretly wanted:

A phone. With a sparkly Hello Kitty case.

She lifts it out, her mouth open in astonishment. “Oh! Oh, Grandmother…”

Grandmother beams. Ms. Doughy swoops in. “Here, sweetie, I’ll help you set it up,” she says, grabbing it and switching it on. While she swipes and taps and taps and swipes, Lil Red feels herself heating up with remorse. Mother would be furious if she knew. But Grandmother gave it to her! Sweet, wonderful Grandmother! Lil Red has to say something.

“Grandmother, thank you so much—” she starts, but Grandmother interrupts.

“Dear girl, you’re so welcome. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to give you this. I know your mom has wanted you to wait ‘til you’re 16—”

“Oh my god, 16? Really?” Ms. Doughy exclaims. “That’s ancient! Doesn’t she know how impossible it is to make friends without one?”

“Well… you’re my friend, Grandmother,” Lil Red offers earnestly, but before Grandmother can say anything, Ms. Doughy jumps in with, “Aw that’s sweet, honey, but your grandmother isn’t— I mean, she’s probably not— Um…” Swiping and tapping, she doesn’t finish the thought. “Almost done here…”

The recliner whooshes as Grandmother sits back down on it. “I know your mother means well, dear. But she didn’t want me to have a television, either.” She gestures again to the mute screen, but this time her eyes follow. They can’t resist the silent action on the screen, and she falls mute.

“There! All set!” Ms. Doughy proclaims. “Let’s get you started.”

Lil Red looks to her grandmother for guidance, but she’s gone. Well, she thinks, I should at least try it. Excitement to try this forbidden fruit subsumes any misgivings, and she exhales. “Okay.”

Ms. Doughy places the phone in her tiny hands, gives her a quick tutorial, and within minutes, Lil Red is rapt. So many games! So many possibilities! Hello Kitty has an Instagram page! And a TikTok!

Her Good Samaritan work almost complete, Ms. Doughy picks up the remote and unmutes the tv, unleashing its cacophony of blaring urgency. Lil Red startles but doesn’t look up. The attendant smiles a tight little smile and heads for the door.

“Don’t forget your dinner, k?” she hollers on her way out, but her words are lost in the surround sound. Both Lil Red and her grandmother look utterly content. She returns to the rest of Big Woods, satisfied. Now her work is done.

HOURS pass.

When the door swings open and light from the hallway slices in, neither Grandmother nor Lil Red looks up. When a tall man in old clothes that hang loose on his thin frame steps into the room, they ignore him. When he says “Mom?” and then, with a half-sob, “Becca?” they don’t hear him.

It isn’t until he reaches the remote control in three strides, picks it up, and presses the power button that Grandmother stirs. The room is now completely dark, save the tiny blue light glowing in Lil Red’s hand. The man sets down the remote and switches on the dresser lamp, illuminating the room in a soft glow.

Grandmother turns her head, squinting in the low light. It can’t be. “Robert?” she asks, her voice quavering.

He moves toward her, takes her hand. “Yes,” he whispers. “It’s me.”

They stare at each other, marveling at time’s handiwork.

“You’re so skinny,” she says. “You’re so grey,” he responds, and they both smile. “And she’s— she’s—” he starts, but can’t finish. She pats his hand. “She’s a miracle,” she says. They both nod. She un-reclines the recliner and her feet touch the floor.

“It’s been so long, Robert. Where did you go?”

He inhales, exhales. The question he’ll answer forever. “Prison,” he says, looking at her intently. “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

“Oh dear,” she murmurs, shaking her head, “I thought as much.”

He looks away, and his eyes find Lil Red. He watches her for a moment, then another, waiting. She’s utterly lost in the world emanating from the palm of her hand. He turns back to Grandmother. “This is not okay.”

Her eyebrows lift. “I didn’t expect you to say that.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“Well, so’ve I. It’s good, Robert. It is. Thank god for television, I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

His eyes are hard. “Are you hearing yourself?”

She sighs. “Things change. People change.”

“Something we agree on.” He looks over at Lil Red, still lost. “How did she get a phone, anyway?”

Grandmother stiffens, pauses. “I gave it to her.”

He stares at her, shaking his head slowly in disbelief. “Okay,” he says, “okay.” The line of his jaw strengthens, and he stands up straighter. He runs his hand through his buzz cut, and looks through the ceiling. Then he nods, looking at her again and saying “okay” one more time, but this one sounds different. Purpose lies within it.

He moves toward Lil Red until he’s standing right by her. She senses his close presence, glances up, and offers a feeble “hey” as she returns to the screen. He leans over and in one swift motion, plucks the phone from her hands. “Hey!” she shouts, startled and confused as she watches him carry it past Grandmother to the window.

“What are you doing? That’s mine!” she yells, but he ignores her, raising the dusty blinds, then jerking the window latches. Nothing budges. He can see that the latches are purely cosmetic, put there to make the residents think they could breathe fresh air if they wanted.

Lil Red is on her feet now, scared of this tall man but also angry. “Give it back!” she shouts. Grandmother, worried now, also stands. She joins in with a more modulated, “Give it back to her, Robert.”

“You know him?” Lil Red asks, but before Grandmother can answer, there is a loud CRACK and they both watch as the tall man lifts the phone again and smashes it again, driving it into the corner of the metal windowsill.

“STOP IT!” shrieks Lil Red, but it’s far too late. The phone is disintegrating in front of her eyes, bits of plastic and glass flying, and now metal innards are dangling, attempting to cling to what’s left of the battered Hello Kitty case as he repeatedly pounds the phone into the sill. It’s clearly dead, but something else has taken hold of him; he’s attempting to kill something from long, long ago.

“That’s enough, Robert,” Grandmother says quietly. He hears her, and his shoulders release. His hand opens, letting the mangled hardware drop to the floor. He turns toward them. “I’m sorry,” he says, looking first at Grandmother, then at Lil Red. “I’m sorry, Becca.”

Lil Red, her little face still flushed with anger, meets his gaze with her own clouded eyes. “You should be,” she retorts, but the echo of her spoken name rings like an ancient bell inside her, reverberating and filling her heart with the opposite of anger and she doesn’t know why.

“You’re right. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says gently. “I just… I just felt like I had to rescue you, fast.”

Her eyes are clearing. This man’s face, so strange yet familiar… How do I know him? Something tugs on her insides. She shakes the feeling away, wanting to hold on to her righteousness.

“Rescue me from what? My phone?”

“Yes,” he says.

“Who are you, anyway?” Becca asks, but even as the words leave her, she knows, she already knows, is already moving toward him with her small hands reaching out when she hears Grandmother say, “This is your father.”

Robert gathers her up into his arms, and she buries her face in his neck. Over and over, she says something that Robert and Grandmother can’t quite make out until she pulls her head back enough for them to understand: “thank you.” When she finally disentangles herself from him, her face is wet.

“It’s late, Becca,” Robert says. “Mom must be worried about you.”

Becca nods, wiping her face with her arm. She feels the way she often does when she wakes in the morning from a complicated dream and is not sure what is real. She hears her father — her father! — say “I’ll take you home,” and she nods again, picking up her backpack.

Robert moves toward the door, and Becca turns to follow, then stops. She suddenly drops her backpack on the floor and flings herself at Grandmother, wrapping her arms around the old woman’s waist. “I missed you so!” she cries.

Grandmother’s voice catches. “I’m right here,” she says, but Becca just squeezes her more tightly.

“But you weren’t, before. I came to visit you and you were gone.”

Grandmother says nothing, but she and Robert exchange a look. “It was horrible,” says Becca, “Promise me you won’t go away like that again.”

“I promise,” says Grandmother. Becca untwines her arms and looks up at her to make sure. “Truly!” says the old woman, not looking her in the eye.

“Okay,” says the little girl as she picks up her backpack yet again. She drops the deck of cards into it, then jokes, “I’ll leave these treats for you.”

“Why thank you, Lil Red,” Grandmother counters. They share a wry smile.

“Oh,” Becca says, “You can keep my cape. I think I’m too big for it now.”

“That you are, my dear.”

Robert holds his hand out to his daughter, but instead she says, “One more thing,” and walks over to the dresser. She grasps the remote and stuffs it into her backpack, zipping it shut. “Just in case.”

Grandmother sighs, then nods. “I’m just… so lonely, dear.”

“Don’t worry, Grandmother,” Becca says, walking back to her father and taking his hand. She looks up at him earnestly. “Everything will be different from now on. Right, Dad?”

“Right,” Robert says, squeezing her hand. Then he laughs suddenly, as though he’s just thought of something, and he extends his other hand out to his former mother-in-law.

“Come with us,” he says.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” she says.

“Yes, you can,” he says.

And as simply as that… she does.

THE END. In one universe, this is The End. But in another universe, there’s another End. Put a few more sticks on the fire, and I’ll tell it to you. Walk back in your mind to the moment when the attendant hollers “Don’t forget your dinner, k?” as she leaves Lil Red and her grandmother looking utterly content.

Are you there? Good. Here’s the other End:

HOURS pass.

The room has darkened, lit only by the small flickering phone and the huge flickering screen. The dinner tray has vanished though no one saw it leave, and Grandmother is recumbent again, covered with the afghan, with no recollection of how, or if, she made that happen.

Lil Red is sprawled on the floor with her head propped against her backpack, her red crocheted hood lying tangled in a heap under the coffee table, almost as though it was tossed there in an embarrassed attempt to hide it.

Neither one minds the darkness, or notices the other, because both of them aren’t really here. In their minds they are flying elsewhere. Grandmother floats from a hospital where the life of some young beautiful person hangs in the balance; to an exotic island where young beautiful people fall in love; to a dilapidated house where a young beautiful couple looks at samples of kitchen flooring.

Lil Red snaps from a dorm room, to a bathroom, to a bar, to a sporting event, to a closet, to a car… all places where ageless girls with lacquered skin and dead eyes shame her into being different, being more than she is right now.

The young girl and the old woman are together, trapped in the warm, dark belly of an unseen beast that has swallowed them whole without leaving a single tooth mark, without disturbing a single hair on their heads. There was no shouting or an attempt to run away; who flees from the invisible? Even now, they don’t feel compressed into confinement; to the contrary, they believe they are free. In this world, there’s no moist, hot breath of the beast’s innards, no pulse of a heartbeat not their own. There’s a logic, an urgency to this world inside the beast that overrides all that. In this narcotized new reality, they don’t miss the laughter and the shared intimacy of hair-braiding and jokes and card games; those memories are as remote as a past lifetime.

Alone together, they are happy, busily devouring someone else’s memories now. There is no one to rescue them, and they don’t mind at all. Indeed, what is there to rescue them from?

THE END.

The fire has burned out. Now you get to decide: which ending do you choose? And the biggest question of all, young ones:

Do you pick up your phone again, or not?

---

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Tea makes me happy, too.

As always, keep your light shining bright.

xox
M