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Visiting Grandpa Shermie and Grandma Freida was always fun. They didn't really know anything about video games - plus, Mabel and Dipper usually weren't allowed to bring any - but they had jigsaw puzzles that made funny pictures, a bucket full of colourful and weird magnets they'd collected over the years, and a fun lineup of toys for them to play with. Mom was always kind of weird about it, but Dipper sometimes shot curious glances at Mabel's dolls, and Mabel had a lot of fun with Dipper's dinosaurs.
Plus, Dipper could line up all the cars he wanted without anyone getting annoyed, while Mabel got to flip through pages and pages of pretty stamps - Grandpa Shermie would just shake his head and smile, saying something about "old times". They would stick magnets everywhere they could, shaping out funny little people, and making Grandma Freida laugh at the scenes. Unlike Grandpa Shermie, their parents, and basically everyone else they knew, she talked with her hands, not her mouth - they didn't always understand very much, but she loved them a lot, and they knew what that one looked like.
They had once been told by Mom that her dad - their Grandpa Fred - had hit her when she was growing up. Mabel was never really comfortable around him since then, worried that he might do it to one of them, even though Mom said he had changed. Plus, even if he did try, she said she would personally hit him back to teach him a lesson.
Grandpa Shermie and Grandma Freida felt a lot safer, and they lived closer anyways - Dad said they didn't always know what the best solutions were, but that they were still trying their best. Grandpa Shermie knew what it was like to be hurt - so much that he didn't feel welcome in his own family, barely spending time with them by his teens - so he didn't want to repeat any of that. Grandma Freida felt a lot of the same - not being able to talk meant a lot of people assumed she wasn't able to think, that she didn't have anything worth living for. That seemed scary and... mean.
And they were going to meet their Great Grandma Caryn, hopefully really soon! Grandpa Shermie hadn't talked to her for a long time, and she still lived far away. But then something happened to Great Grandpa Filbrick - Dad did once call him "a stubborn old fool" - and now she was all alone. Great Uncle Stan, who lived out in Oregon and who they had never met before, couldn't do anything for her - so that's when Grandpa Shermie stepped up. They hadn't heard a lot about her, but that made her moving here even more exciting! Maybe she knew about yarn crafts so Mabel had another person to make things with, and Dipper was hopeful she'd have some really cool stories because she had been alive for so long.
...But Mom wasn't so excited when she heard about that. She had said that Great Grandma Caryn used to lie for fun, so she couldn't be trusted. Dad didn't like that, saying that she had probably changed over the years too - and it wasn't "for fun", anyway. Mom just huffed, saying a quiet we'll talk about this later.
As always, later came when Mabel and Dipper had gone to bed. It wasn't long before they started talking, thinking the kids were already asleep - at first, Mom and Dad's voices were soft, neither of them really able to make out what their parents were saying. But as they tended to lately, they started getting louder, more annoyed with each other.
"She'll set a terrible example for them!"
"She's my grandmother, Sandra," Dad said. "I never really knew her myself, only what my father's told me - and so do you."
"And what I know is that she made not only a habit, but a living, off of lying!" Mom huffed. "You can't tell me you seriously want our kids learning that that's okay."
"No, I don't, but-"
"Then you have to-"
"Let me finish!" ... "Thank you. No, of course I don't want them to learn that - but how often do they visit my parents in the first place? How often would they actually get to talk with her? And they're smart kids-"
"They're impressionable."
"-They're smart kids. Can't you trust that they know how to ask questions, ask for help, if they're unsure about something? That even if she tells a lie that seems plausible, we can help them figure it out?"
"David, we shouldn't have to do that."
"Are you-" Dad asked, sounding annoyed. "Are you serious? You know that even some of the things you and I learned in school have changed these days. Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore! It's important they know how to ask questions, not just hope that they're only ever going to hear some perfect, unchanging truth."
Mom scoffed, "That's entirely different. One is scientific authority learning new things, the other is a batty old woman making things up about being the Queen of France."
"...say what you really mean."
"What?"
"Say what you really mean. Batty old Jewish woman. Isn't that right?"
She sputtered, "David-!"
"Well, what is it? Are her lies so obvious and so easily disprovable that the kids could never believe her, or so insidious that they just might? Why is it fine that your father hit you and the kids can still visit him, yet not that my grandmother might tell a few lies that, again, they can just ask us about?"
"I- I'm feeling very- very attacked right now."
"I'm sorry, you're feeling attacked? You? You're the one who just called my grandmother, who you have never met in your life, a batty old woman!"
Dipper whined softly, then, burying his head underneath his pillow. "I want Mom and Dad, I want Mom and Dad, I want Mom and Dad..."
Mabel took a deep breath, throwing back her blankets and putting on her slippers. She opened the door, yawning as loudly as she could, and in that moment the arguing stopped.
"Dad?" she called out softly. "Can I have some warm milk, please?"
"...Of course, love. Just give me a moment."
In a few minutes' time, Mabel had a glass of warm milk in her hands, with Dad giving her a kiss on the forehead. She giggled softly, taking it back to her and Dipper's room. She took a few sips of it herself with a happy little sigh, then asked Dipper if he'd like the rest.
When their parents' voices started up again, they didn't seem to get so loud or annoyed. As Dipper finished off the drink, his teary sniffling turning to soft hums, she smiled contentedly and nodded off, knowing she had done good.