I’d had time to buy a new outfit, and since Nina was the only one Ham allowed me to talk to about all this, she’d gone to the mall with me. So I was wearing a new berry-red sweater, Lucky jeans, a killer belt, and a pair of high-heeled boots that were so expensive, even back in the day when things were good in the shop, I would never have even looked at them.
But now I was going to be a millionaire.
Since her impromptu meeting with Ham, Nina had actually looked at Grandpa Val’s will and she said it would take an act of God to break it. This was her professional opinion, of course, but she had added evidence, seeing as she’d also discovered from court papers that all three of Grandpa’s offspring had tried to do that at the time Grandpa died and they’d all lost.
Unfortunately, after this battle was fought, the executor of the will, one of Grandpa’s cronies, had taken a trip to the Pearly Gates. For some reason now lost with him, he’d not set the money up in trust and he’d not made provisions for his demise, so there was no one official to keep track of the money and Dad had jumped on that, taking control of it.
To keep Aunt Wilona’s mouth shut, he eventually gave her Zander and the money to keep him.
But to keep Aunt Dahlia’s mouth shut, he’d just given her money.
Money Nina was making moves to get back, either from Dad, whose money it wasn’t to give, and if that didn’t work, she was going after Aunt Dahlia, seeing as she knew this was ill-gotten gains and she accepted it anyway.
So, although Nina shared that it might be tied up while all the legal stuff was handled, I’d eventually get it.
She’d done what she had to do and, tomorrow, those accounts would be frozen until the legal issues were settled.
Therefore, since I was eventually going to be a millionaire, I could afford Zander’s school and an expensive pair of boots.
I knew Ham thought I was insane, me being hell-bent to buy a new outfit to meet my nephew in. I knew this because he was wearing a wine-colored shirt I’d seen him wear more than once since he’d been back and his standard faded jeans that were so broken in, they looked like they’d been bought around the dawn of time.
Still, he looked great, like always, even if his outfit wasn’t new.
But to me, that day I’d be meeting my nephew.
And my nephew would be meeting the only good part that was left of his mother.
So I had to do it right. For Zander.
And for Xenia.
“I know you’re excited, baby,” Ham started and I tore my eyes away from the door to look at him. “But you gotta pay attention, all right?”
I nodded.
He kept going.
“Decisions to be made, big ones for Zander. Your aunt’s right. He grew up with her. Tearin’ him from his home. The woman who raised him. You gotta have a good reason to do that. But she’s a Cinders and she might give you one. So you got any bad feelin’ about him, you clock it, we talk about it, we share it with Nina, and we make our plans. Yeah?”
We’d already discussed the plan, at length, and I was down with the plan so I nodded again.
“She’s fuckin’ him up, though, don’t ’spect she’d walk him right to you. Also don’t ’spect this first meeting will expose if shit’s not good. This has gotta go good so we can get another meet without her there. So you play it cool.”
“I’ll play it cool, Ham,” I assured him, still fidgeting, moving my ass in the seat nervously, unsure what to do with my hands, all this saying my words were a lie.
Seeing as Ham didn’t miss much, that would be, he didn’t miss anything, he didn’t miss this. So he turned fully to me, grabbed both my hands in both of his, and pulled them to his chest.
Then he declared, “No one, man, woman, or child would not love you, Zara.”
At his words, I went completely still.
After I let them sweep through me, I whispered, “Again, awesome… er.”
He grinned.
I heard the door open and my eyes shot to it.
Ham let me go and turned away but I sat there, hands still raised where he’d released them, staring at Aunt Wilona and the blond-haired boy in front of her wearing a private-school uniform and craning his neck to look around.
My heart started hammering so fast, so hard, if I could pull my eyes away from my nephew and look down, I would have sworn I’d see it beating in my chest.
But I couldn’t tear my eyes away so I saw Aunt Wilona put a hand to Zander’s shoulder and point our way.
His eyes came to our table.
I held my breath.
He smiled, then bopped toward us with nine-year-old-kid exuberance.
Ham slid out and I slid out after him so I was on my feet when Zander came to a halt two feet in front of me.
“Jeez, you look like me,” he declared.
I felt my eyes sting.
“Yep,” I replied.
His eyes went to Ham and his head tipped way back.
“Whoa, you’re, like, really tall,” he remarked.
“That I am, boy,” Ham stated.
“Zander, honey, this is your Aunt Zara and your, um… I guess, your uncle, uh…” Aunt Wilona stammered.
“Reece,” Ham grunted.
“What kind of name is Reece?” Zander asked.
“It’s my last name,” Ham answered.
“What’s your first name?” Zander went on.
“Graham,” Ham replied.
“Don’t you call yourself Graham?” Zander queried.
“Would you call yourself Graham?” Ham returned.
Zander grinned.
My heart flipped.
“Nope,” Zander said.
“So you get me,” Ham noted.
“Yep,” Zander agreed.
“Why don’t we sit down?” I butted in. “Get you a drink and something good to eat.”
“Cool,” Zander muttered and scrambled into the other side of the booth.
I watched and then my eyes went to Aunt Wilona. She was looking at Zander then she looked at me. I nodded and gave her a small smile. She returned the gesture.
After that, we all piled in.
Once we were settled, Zander launched in.
And he did it looking at me.
“Okay, so, I forgot to bring my clothes to school to change but I wanted to get here so I told Nona to just come here and that’s why I’m wearin’ this,” he stated, flipping his hand in front of him. “I go to a school where they make you wear uniforms.”
He was excited to meet us.
My heart squeezed.
“I know,” I replied.
“The girls hate it ’cause they can’t wear fingernail polish or different shoes but I don’t mind much,” he shared.
“Well, that’s good,” I told him.
He kept chattering. “Nona says girls that age shouldn’t wear fingernail polish anyway and ’spose she’s right, but really, it’s the older girls who’re always whinin’ about it. The school goes from first grade to twelfth,” he stated proudly, then added, “Though, first to fifth is in one building. Sixth through eighth in another and the high school is all the way across the way so we don’t see them much except at assemblies. Still, I hear the high school girls complaining about nail polish, even at assemblies.” He paused, then finished with, “The older kids talk a lot during assemblies.”
“They probably shouldn’t do that,” I remarked.
“Nah, they shouldn’t,” he agreed. “But they’re better at it. They’ve learned to talk quiet so they don’t get into trouble.”
“Well, uh…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say to that.
Zander didn’t need a response. He kept right on yammering.
“What I don’t get is, who cares about fingernail polish? I mean, is it that important?”
“I’m thinking that at nine you probably shouldn’t tax yourself to try to understand the female mind,” I advised and he grinned at me.
My heart turned over again.
; “Just sayin’,” Ham put in, “I’m way past nine but I quit tryin’ to do that a long time ago.”
Zander laughed.
It sounded beautiful.
So beautiful my hand shot under the table and I curled my fingers tight around Ham’s thigh.
When I did, his hand covered mine, pried my fingers away so he could wrap his fingers around mine and hold them close.
Trudy came to the table with menus. Drinks were ordered and I got my chance to suggest Zander try the mile-high mud pie.
Without even looking to see if it was okay with Aunt Wilona (Dad never let us have dessert unless it was a special occasion), he went for it.
Aunt Wilona went for one, too. In fact, Ham was the only one who took another road and got a slice of turtle cheesecake.
After Trudy left, Zander turned back to me.
“So, do you look like my mom?”
My fingers still held in Ham’s squeezed hard and I felt the tension coming from Aunt Wilona but I powered through all that and held Zander’s gaze.
“No, darlin’. She was blonde but lighter. And she had blue eyes but they were very pretty,” I told him.
He nodded.
“You’re gonna be real tall, I can tell, and she wasn’t all that tall either,” I went on.
He scrunched his lips to the side and I didn’t know if that was disappointment or him simply not knowing what to do with this information.
“I”—my eyes went to Aunt Wilona and back to Zander—“brought a picture if you’d like to see?”
Zander looked at Aunt Wilona. She gave him a shaky smile and then he turned back to me and nodded.
I let Ham’s hand go and went to my purse that was shoved into the seat at my side. My fingers fumbling with nerves, I found the picture of Xenia I’d chosen to bring. I’d done it carefully. And I hoped I’d done it right.
In the picture, Xenia and I were outside at a party. A barbecue some friends were giving in a park. I was sitting cross-legged on the top of a picnic table. She was beside me, standing, leaning into me. We were both smiling, big and bright at the camera, but my goofy sister had her hand behind my head, giving me rabbit’s ears.
She looked beautiful, young, and happy.
I pulled in a breath, put the picture to the table, and slid it across to Zander.
“That’s her,” I whispered. “That’s your mom. My sister. Xenia.”
Eyes riveted to the picture, hands in his lap under the table, he just stared.
“She joked a lot,” I told him, my voice husky so I cleared my throat and felt Ham’s arm slide across the back of the booth and around my shoulders. “She was always joking around,” I continued. “And she told really good scary stories.”
Zander’s eyes lifted from the picture. “Scary stories?”
I nodded. “She’d have you trembling so bad, you’d shake your bed. And when she went in for the kill, you’d jump out of your skin.”
He turned his head to look up to Aunt Wilona and then he looked back down at the picture.
Moments passed and no one said anything.
Zander broke the silence. “Do you remember those stories?” he asked, eyes still on the picture.
My throat started tingling and through it I forced my lie, “Every last one.”
It was a lie but if I got my shot to tell him the ones I remembered, I’d then make up new ones and lie again and say they were Xenia’s.
I just hoped I made up ones that were as good as hers.
He looked again at me and tipped his head to the side, his eyes weirdly astute.
“Why didn’t you come see me before?” he asked and Ham’s arm curled tighter around my shoulders as more tension came from Aunt Wilona.
“I—” I started.
“I don’t live real far away,” Zander pointed out.
Surprisingly, Aunt Wilona spoke.
“Your granddad and Zara aren’t close,” she said and Zander looked up at her. “Grownups do funny things and your granddad does a lot of them.”
Unfortunately, the look on his face stated that he knew that and that didn’t make me feel all that great.
Aunt Wilona wasn’t done but what she said next shocked the crap out of me.
“I should have explained this when I first told you about your Aunt Zara, but your grandfather didn’t want your aunt seein’ you so he made that happen. We’ll talk about that more when you’re a little older, honey, but right now all you need to know is he didn’t do right and your aunt didn’t even know you were as close as you were. She thought you were far away and she couldn’t get to you. But when she found out you were close, Zara made a point to find a way to do what we’re doing right now and she did it. Fast. So here we are.”
Zander looked my aunt straight in the eyes when he stated, “But you knew Aunt Zara was close, too. You told me when you told me about her and my mom.”
I winced when I saw the pain slide through Aunt Wilona’s face.
It was then I came to Aunt Wilona’s rescue by announcing, “Your granddad wouldn’t let her tell you, and I suspect we’ll explain that more when you’re a bit older, too, but she didn’t have a choice but to do what he said.”
He glanced at me when I spoke, nodded when I was done, then looked back at Aunt Wilona and asked, “Why would Granddad do that?”
“Your granddad is a mysterious man,” Aunt Wilona replied vaguely.
“I’ll say,” Zander muttered, looking back down at the picture and his words and all they exposed meant my body tightened and Ham’s arm around my shoulders pulled me into his side.
“You’re here now,” I declared in an effort to lighten the mood and Zander looked up at me. “And I’m here. Aunt Wilona’s here. Reece is here. We’re getting chocolate cake. No, we’re getting the best chocolate cake ever. So it’s all good. And if you want to keep that picture,” I nodded to the picture, “It’s yours.”
“Yeah?” Zander asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, smiling at him. “And now, before your mouth is busy shoving cake in it, I want to know everything. What subjects you like in school. Your best friends’ names. Do you play sports—”
“Linebacker. Football. Like Tate Jackson!” he stated immediately. “And after I finish my pro career, I’m gonna be a bounty hunter like him, too.”
Tate Jackson lived one town over. He’d also had a short-lived NFL career that led to a longer career as a bounty hunter.
And thus his life path was any nine-year-old boy’s dream.
“You could be a bounty hunter,” Zander advised Ham. “You’d scare them into givin’ up with just a look.”
“Might be too late for a profession change for me, kid. But also, thinkin’ you might reconsider, as it looks like you’re givin’ both your aunts heart palpitations with your future career plans,” Ham replied.
“Don’t worry. In ten, fifteen years, I’ll be a bada… uh… I mean, I’ll be tough. They’ll be good,” Zander reassured Ham. Then he asked, “Do you work out?”
“Most every day,” Ham answered and it occurred to me that Zander was bonding with Ham and this might not be because he was uncomfortable around me, being his newly-learned-was-dead mother’s sister, but because he had no man in his life.
“Looks like you do it, like, five times a day,” Zander noted, his eyes moving to Ham’s wide chest.
“Only need to do it once, boy, just do it right,” Ham replied.
“You know,” Aunt Wilona broke in, “if… erm… Uncle, uh… Reece would be okay with it, maybe you could, I don’t know… go running with him or something.”
My eyes went to my aunt and for the first time in my whole entire life, I wanted to hug her.
Then I looked to Zander as he bounced in his seat, completely oblivious that Trudy had arrived with a tray full of drinks and plates of cake.
“That would be so cool!” he cried.
“I run five miles every day, Zander. Can you keep up with that?” Ham asked.
“Totally,” Z
ander answered, then looked at me. “Are you going to run with us?”
I really wanted to say yes. I really, really did. But I also didn’t want to drop dead of a heart attack trying to run with Ham and Zander when I’d never run for exercise in my life. In fact, I couldn’t even remember the last time I ran at all.
“I’ll get the protein shakes ready for your arrival home,” I offered.
“Awesome,” Zander whispered and finally looked at the cake that was sliding in front of him.
It was then he burned a whole straight through my heart.
Because Trudy got too close to the picture of Xenia with the plate of cake.
So Zander’s hand darted out, snatching it up, taking it to safety, and doing this by pressing it face-first to his chest.
I dropped my head, stared at my lap, and deep breathed as my eyes filled with tears.
Ham wrapped his hand around the back of my neck.
I kept doing this until I heard Zander say, sounding like his mouth was full, “This is really good!”
I looked up and saw his mouth was full and getting fuller as he was shoving more cake into it.
The picture of Xenia was propped up on the table by the wall, face out and out of harm’s way.
I swallowed, pulled gently away from Ham, and grabbed my fork.
I took a bite and looked to my aunt.
She was concentrating on her cake so it took a minute before she felt my eyes, lifted her head, and caught them.
I swallowed cake and mouthed, Thank you.
Tears brightened her eyes as relief washed through her face.
Then she nodded and looked down at her cake.
Ham gave my thigh a squeeze and then picked up his fork.
Zander looked at me and, still with mouth full, announced, “I get all A’s in science but don’t get excited, I get C’s in English. It used to drive Nona nuts but finally she said as long as I can speak it, it isn’t necessary for me to live and breathe it and scientists are way cool so I’m good.”
I smiled as he went on talking and I experienced something very weird as he did.
The weird part wasn’t falling in love with my nephew. I knew I’d do that.
The weird part was falling in love with my aunt.
That was something I never thought I’d do.
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