And Death Goes to . . .

by Laura Bradford

  He pulled my hand off the edging on the throw pillow and held it close. “It’s not that. It’s just if you’d seen how devastated she was out on the sidewalk this evening, you’d know there was no way she could have kept that out of her voice for anyone or any reason.”

  “So then why didn’t he call her back? Or try to track her down at the vet?” I pushed off the couch and wandered around Andy’s living room, the built-in shelves and the treasures they held little more than a blur in my peripheral vision as I revisited my earlier conversation with my grandfather. Granted, he’d said very little, but what he had said could certainly explain all of this. “My grandparents were grade school sweethearts, did you know that?”

  A quick glance back at Andy revealed the sweet smile I loved. “I knew they went back a long way, but I didn’t realize it started when they were little.”

  “Miss Appleton’s first grade class, to be exact.” I loved the sound of the words on my tongue almost as much as I’d loved hearing them in my formative years. In fact, as much as I’d loved the storybooks my grandparents had both read to me upon my repeated requests, the story I’d loved more than any other hadn’t come with pictures. Instead, through my grandfather’s animated re-telling (and my grandmother’s answering smiles, chuckles, addendums, and blushing), I’d felt their story in a completely different way. Now, when I shared the story the way it had been shared with me over the years, it was as if I were in that first grade classroom…or with them on the playground…or walking beside them on their way home. And the smile my grandparents both wore during the telling became mine, as well. “He said she was the purtiest thing he’d ever laid eyes on, and he knew he was going to marry her.”

  Andy’s laugh stopped my forward motion and brought my attention, albeit briefly, back on him. “In first grade?”

  “He married her, didn’t he?” Then, without waiting for his nod, I lowered myself to the hearth and hugged my knees to my chest. “He never left her side after that first sighting, with the exception, of course, of the time they spent with their families. They played together on the playground, walked to and from school together every day, and helped each other with their studies—although my grandfather says Grandma did most of the actual helping on account of her being pretty and smart.”

  “Did they date other people along the way? You know, as they got older and into actual dating ages?”

  I was shaking my head before he’d finished his questions. “Nope. They found their other half and they didn’t see any sense in wasting time.”

  “Wow.”

  “They were that way my whole life—until my grandmother slipped away in her sleep. In his arms.” I tried to keep the shake of emotion from my voice but the moment I saw Andy rise to his feet and head in my direction, I knew I’d been unsuccessful. Still, I had more to tell and for whatever reason, I needed to tell it. “Until that moment, I’d never seen my grandfather without a smile. But now that she’s gone, it’s like the candlelight that burned behind his eyes—a light that was directly connected to his lips—simply doesn’t exist anymore.”

  I closed my eyes at the memory of my grandfather standing over my grandmother’s grave, a dozen wildflowers clutched in his hand. I’d never seen someone look so lost before and just the memory of it made my heart ache all over again.

  “He went away for a little while after that. Didn’t tell anyone where he was going, just that he’d be back. And as he walked out the door, he told me not to worry. And I didn’t. Because Grandpa Stu told me not to.”

  “How long was he gone?”

  “A month.”

  “And you didn’t worry?”

  “I missed him something fierce, but I didn’t worry. He’d told me he’d be back and he always kept his word.” I took a deep breath and leaned my head against Andy’s shoulder. “I’ll never forget the moment he walked back in my parents’ front door. My best friend was back. He was and is different now, but he’s still my Grandpa Stu.”

  “Was and is different how?”

  “It’s hard to explain. He just is. He’s still wonderful, he’s still funny, he’s still all the things I love about him, but yet there’s something that’s not quite the same. Like a puzzle where you have all the pieces but one—the picture is still there, you know what it is, yet it’s not entirely whole.”

  “Have you seen the missing piece at all since your grandmother passed? Even for just a moment or two?”

  I allowed my mind to travel back to a time when my grandmother was still alive—the way Grandpa Stu’s smile almost blinded, the way he hummed almost non-stop, and the way he liked to tease her until her cheeks turned red.

  Yet now that Andy was asking, I had seen my grandfather’s smile approach its former wattage a few times. I’d also been lulled into more than a few impromptu games of Name That Tune around the house since he came for his latest visit. And as nauseating as it was to watch, I’d also caught him teasing—

  I jerked my head up off his shoulder so hard and so fast I would have toppled off the hearth if not for Andy’s quick movement and fast hands.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, holding me steady.

  “I…” I smacked my hand over my mouth in an attempt to hold back my scream, but it did nothing to stem the whole body shudder that followed.

  “Tobi?”

  “Oh my God.”

  “What? What did I miss?”

  Slowly, I slid my hand down my chin. “I don’t understand. How could…” My thoughts petered off only to return in a slightly different spot. Rapple? Really? But how…

  He caught my hand just as I let go of my chin and held it until my thoughts were in sync with my eyes. “Tobi, what’s going on? Where’d you go just now?”

  “My grandfather. He…” I stopped, swallowed, and then made myself continue, my stomach protesting my every thought with an appropriate flip and a counteracting flop. “I-I think he’s…in love again.”

  I saw the confusion in Andy’s face, even wished I could still be there myself, but I couldn’t. Not any longer.

  Yup, it all made sense now.

  The increase in visits…

  The humming…

  His sudden curiosity in attire that matched.…

  I closed my eyes against the images of upcoming Christmases with my grandfather in his favorite pair of red flannel pajamas sitting next to a flannel-pajama-wearing Ms. Rapple, Thanksgivings with the two of them side by side as we shared the things we were thankful for that year, my future children running to the door to see Great Grandpa Stu and—

  Great Grandma Rapple?

  I allowed myself a tiny shudder for old times’ sake and then, as much as I hated to do it, I brought Andy up to speed on my breath-hitching new reality. “Grandpa Stu. He’s in love with Rapple.”

  ~Chapter Thirteen~

  It was nearly ten o’clock when I made my way up my front walkway. I was pretty sure, as I pulled up, that I saw the curtain in my living room window move, but if it had, it had been quick. Still, knowing my grandfather the way I did, there was no way in hell he was asleep.

  First, there was the fact that I was still out. And although I was a week shy of my thirtieth birthday and had been living on my own for quite some time, if I was out and my grandfather was visiting, he waited up until he knew I was home, safe and sound.

  Second, my grandfather was a late night TV junkie. Granted, he invariably nodded off halfway through the host’s monologue, but when I’d suggest he call it a night for real, he’d pop his eyes open and look at me as if I’d lost my mind.

  And last but not least, my grandfather had a glass of milk and a single chocolate chip cookie every night at eleven o’clock. No one knew how or why that was a thing with him, but it was.

  We needed to talk.

  I knew this.

  I also knew I needed to apologize for the things he
’d overheard me saying about Ms. Rapple last night—things that had obviously hurt him deeply based on his behavior today. Then again, if my suspicions about my grandfather’s feelings for the old biddy were correct, why would he dodge her calls?

  Could it be that they’d had a fight? That he’d already wised up?

  One could hope, and hope I most certainly did. The fact that I added a fair amount of finger crossing and silent praying was an additional for-good-measure kind of thing.

  “Hey, Tobes.”

  I stopped mid-step and looked up at Sam’s bedroom window. Sure enough, the sixteen-year-old’s screen was open and he was hanging out the window, waving at me.

  “Don’t you have school tomorrow?” I called out.

  “Nope. This is my spring break, remember?”

  “I guess I forgot that. Sorry.”

  He waved off my apology and then pointed toward the front door he and his mom shared with Ms. Rapple. Like the two-story house I shared with Carter, the outer door led to a vestibule and a pair of interior doors—one for the downstairs apartment (Rapple’s), and one for the upstairs apartment (Mary Fran and Sam’s). “I developed my pictures from the award show the other night and I’d love to show them to you if you have a few minutes.”

  I looked back at my own house and tried to see into my living room.

  A quick flicker of blue around the edges of the curtain I’d hung to keep Ms. Rapple’s prying eyes out let me know the television set was on. Which, extrapolating a step further, meant this whole notion of my grandfather having gone to bed early was, in fact, a crock. But even if I tiptoed up the stairs and stealthily let myself inside before he could feign sleep, I knew the likelihood I’d be dealing with the same bleh mood as earlier was high.

  Unless I got creative and made it so his curiosity would get the better of him.

  “Why don’t you bring them over to my place?” I asked, glancing back at Sam. “That way Grandpa Stu can see them, too.”

  “My mom knocked on your door earlier to see if he wanted to come over for her famous meatloaf, but he wasn’t home.”

  I considered correcting Sam’s assumption, but let it go in favor of waving him over to my place. “I have chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Did you say cookies?”

  “Yup.”

  Sam pulled his head back inside his room and slid his window closed. Two and half minutes later, he met me on the walkway with a bulging white envelope in his hand and a sheepish grin on his face. “We’re out of cookies at my house.”

  “Hmmm… Might that be because you consider a single-serving to be six cookies?”

  “Eight, actually. And yeah, that’s probably a factor.”

  Laughing, I led him up the steps and across the front porch I shared with Carter. As we walked, I pointed at the envelope. “I take it those are the pictures?”

  He nodded. “I kinda feel bad wanting to remember Saturday night after what happened to that lady.”

  I looked back at Sam while simultaneously slipping my house key into the front door. “What happened to Deidre Ryan is awful. There’s no getting around that, Sam. But I don’t want you to ever forget your accomplishment that night. Because that was—is—huge.”

  Sam’s face flushed red with the praise. “Thanks to you.”

  “I didn’t take those pictures.”

  “I took them because of you.”

  I turned the key and pushed. “And that’s because of your talent.”

  “Yeah but—”

  “Give it up, Sam. I give you work because you’re talented. You won that award because you’re talented. Stop selling yourself short and just own it, kiddo.”

  This time, the increased color in his cheeks was followed by a smile that spread like wildfire across his mouth. I matched it with one of my own and then led the way into my living room. Sure enough, the television was on, my grandfather was on the couch, and his eyes were wide open.

  “Hey, Grandpa. I’m glad you’re still awake. Sam has the pictures he took the other night at the award show and I figured you’d want to see them, too.”

  Sam stepped around me to extend his hand to my grandfather, but his face fell as the gesture was returned with a straight up handshake rather than with the handshake-elbow-thump-pinky-hook routine they’d come up with within moments of their first ever meeting. After an awkward beat or two of silence, Sam looked at me, wide-eyed.

  I wanted to offer an explanation, something that would help Sam make sense of the perceived snub, but until I understood it myself, I wasn’t sure what to say. Instead, I clapped my hands and then hooked my thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “I promised Sam some of those chocolate chip cookies I bought the other day, Grandpa. You want some, too?”

  His answering shrug wasn’t necessarily the level of enthusiasm I was aiming for, but at least it was something. Still, I could feel the questions firing away in Sam’s head as he filed into the kitchen between me and my abnormally taciturn grandfather. Halfway into the kitchen, they veered off (as per standard operating procedure) in favor of my two-person Formica tabletop while I ventured over to the cabinet tasked with housing my Cocoa Puffs, my cookies, my pretzels, and my set of four Bugs Bunny melamine bowls and matching snack plates.

  I grabbed the cookies and three snack plates and carried them over to the table while Sam set up the folding chair I kept in the corner for those times when my two-person table needed to accommodate a third. When the chair was at the table and I’d poured a glass of milk for all, I plopped onto my chair and tapped my finger on the envelope now serving as a resting place for Sam’s non-cookie-holding hand.

  “So let’s see ’em.”

  Shoving the rest of his second cookie into his mouth, Sam reached into the envelope and pulled out a stack of pictures that, even from my sideways angle, I could see were crystal clear and exactly what I’d expect to see from the award-winning photographer.

  “Ese irst—”

  I held up my own cookie-holding hand and laughed. “Chew and swallow. We’ll wait.”

  He chewed, he swallowed, and then did the same with one more cookie before wiping his hand off on his jeans and turning the stack so Grandpa Stu and I could see the top photo. “These first half dozen or so are of Mom helping me with my tie.”

  “Which, I will point out, would have gone a little easier if you weren’t trying to document the moment in the mirror at the same time.” I blinked off the misty haze that made me feel all mom-like for about thirty seconds and, instead, reached for another cookie and dunked it in my glass. “That said, these are really cute pictures.”

  Sam groaned at the word cute and moved on to the next set of pictures in his stack. “I shot this one of Andy as he was walking up the sidewalk to pick you up. Mom says you can tell how crazy he is about you.”

  I stopped dunking and stared at the picture, Andy’s smile a near carbon copy of the one I see in the mirror when I know he’ll be showing up at any minute. And even though it was just a photograph, I could sense anticipation in his step.

  “Best feeling in the world right there,” Grandpa Stu said, tapping the picture. “Makes you feel like you’re king of the world—at least your own little corner of it, anyway.”

  Snapping my head to the left, I couldn’t help but stare at my grandfather. Yes, I was shocked he’d said something with multiple syllables, let alone multiple words, but even more than that was the wistful tone in which he’d said them—a tone I’d come to associate with memories of my grandmother. But before I could offer a comforting word, he rolled his hand at Sam in a keep going gesture.

  Sam obliged and moved on to the next picture—this one of me, Andy, Grandpa Stu, Rapple, and Gertie standing in front of the maple tree in my front yard. Andy and I were laughing thanks to Carter who’d positioned himself just over Sam’s shoulder as the picture was being taken. Even Rapple,
who was never amused by anything Carter-related, was smiling. And my grandfather, he was looking down at Rapple and—

  “You look like Andy in this picture, sir.”

  I looked up at Sam and waited for him to explain his odd comment. When he didn’t, I added in my best quizzical brow.

  “Look.” Sam pulled the last picture out from the bottom of the pile—the one of Andy coming up my walkway—and held it next to the one on top. “See the expression on Andy’s face? Now look at Grandpa Stu.”

  I did as Sam asked and instantly felt my mouth go dry.

  Sam was right. The expression Andy had worn just moments before seeing me was the same one my grandfather donned as he looked down at Rapple. The same anticipation, the same excitement, the same—

  “Makes you feel like you’re king of the world—at least your own little corner of it, anyway.”

  I swallowed, sans cookie, and slowly slid my gaze to my grandfather. He, too, was looking at the picture, only instead of the crimson hue I knew my cheeks were sporting, his face was pale and his eyes sad.

  “This next one my mom wants framed even though I didn’t take it.” I followed my grandfather’s focus back to the stack of pictures in front of me—a stack now topped by the picture of my crew at the award show.

  Mary Fran.

  Sam.

  Carter.

  JoAnna.

  Andy.

  Me.

  Grandpa Stu.

  And Rapple.

  I took a moment to study each person, their place in my life and in my heart resurrecting the earlier mist and making it a lot harder to blink away. Mary Fran had been stunning in her black cocktail dress, but it was the smile of pride she had for her son, seated next to her, that jettisoned her beauty to a whole different level. Sam looked dapper in his suit and tie, his excitement over being there as a nominee plastered all over his face. Carter glowed as he always did, and JoAnna’s quiet yet pleased-as-punch presence was on full display. Andy had pulled me close just as the picture was snapped and the joy I saw on my face warmed me down to my toes. And, once again, Rapple was smiling a real smile and so, too, was my grandfather. Only his smile wasn’t aimed at the camera. No, his encompassed Ms. Rapple on his immediate left, and me one spot beyond.