by Gen Griffin
“Oh my god...” Gracie was staring at Trish now. “He shoved you overboard?”
“I can't prove it,” Trish said.
“You must have been scared.”
“I was scared.” Trish steeled herself with another sip of her margarita and then kept talking. “I had a suspicion that living with Grandpa Grover wouldn't be pleasant but I was only supposed to be staying until my mother succeeded at getting him placed in a nursing home. She said it wouldn't take long. I thought coming here would give me a few months away from everything so that I could file for divorce and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”
“I guess it worked then?” Gracie asked. “I mean, you filed your divorce and all, right?”
“I kind of thought it would go a lot smoother than this,” Trish admitted. “Curtis hasn't exactly been a very attentive husband. I didn't think he would put up this kind of a fight over losing me. I thought it would be more 'out of sight, out of mind' for him.”
“Evidently not,” Gracie said.
“He didn't even show up for our last three date nights when were married,” Trish said. “I can't figure out why he would stand me up for weeks at a time if he truly loved me?”
“I have no idea.” Gracie took a very healthy swig of her mixed drink. “It doesn't make a lot of sense.”
“No. It doesn't.” Trish sighed. “But in the meantime, we've discovered that nursing homes aren't interested in accepting partially senile old men with extensive criminal records. Apparently, they have the right to deny potential residents based on past history.”
“You're going to be here for a while,” Gracie translated.
“Looks like it. Though his doctors say he's eaten up with cancer and won't last another six months.” Trish had made it waist deep in the water. It was frigid against her hips.
“Grover's doctors have been saying he'd die any day now since I was in Pre-K. He has been getting weekly casserole and grocery deliveries from the church for the last 15 years because he claims he's on his death bed.” Gracie stretched out in her tube.
“Yeah, my mother pretty much said the same thing when I confronted her about it a week after I got here.” Trish sighed and bent at the knees. She flinched as icy water washed over her torso and hit her neck. “I really miss being able to eat my dinner without worrying about how much food is being flung out the window when I’m not looking.”
“It would be really nice to be able to park in Granny Pearl's driveway without worrying about how much food is going to be flung out the window,” Gracie said. “I remember one day I left the t-tops off my camaro. Grover managed to toss an entire plate of eggplant Parmesan into the driver's seat.”
“Oh that's disgusting.”
“Especially after sitting in the sun all afternoon.” Gracie made a gagging gesture. “Cal nearly strangled Grover on the spot.”
“He would have saved us all a lot of trouble if he had,” Trish mused. “My mother made living with Grover sound like it was going to be one of those cheesy lovey-dovey movies they show on Hallmark and Lifetime. She played it up like he was a nice but misunderstood old man and that getting to know him personally would be this amazing emotional experience for me.”
Gracie snorted. “I'll bet it's been emotional. I'll bet you didn't know how truly mad you could get until you met Grover.”
“I thought I was a nice person until I spent two weeks picking up old underwear off the floor of that house and pulling baloney out of the air-conditioning vents.”
“That is disgusting.”
“It is. It was also intentional. He's been alone in that house for more than 20 years. Its old and kind of dusty, but it’s nowhere near as nasty as it would be if he'd been as much of a slob before I got here as he is now that he has me to clean up after him.”
“You think he's trashing the house on purpose just to make more work for you?” Gracie asked with a shake of her head.
“I'm sure he's trashing the house on purpose,” Trish confirmed. “The doctor told Mom that there is absolutely noting wrong with Grover mentally. Personally, I have my doubts.”
“That makes two of us,” Gracie said with a small laugh. “Grover shoots at people who ring the doorbell. He does not meet my definition of mentally sound.”
“Mine either,” Trish said.
“But on the bright side, at least he’s speaking to you. More than I can say for my mother.” Gracie stuck her tongue out in a silly face that did nothing to hide the obvious hurt in her eyes. “I'm a disappointment in everything I do.”
“Based on what Addison's told me about your mother, I kind of got the impression that nothing you could do would ever be good enough.”
“Probably not,” Gracie acknowledged. “Miss Loretta says Mom is disappointed in me and Addison because she’s unhappy with herself. She says Mom's unhappiness should not be taken as a sign that there is something deficient about me. Or Addison, for that matter. Mom keeps telling Addy that he's a loser, a disappointment and a failure.”
“Your mother says Addy is a loser?” Trish was shocked.
“You obviously haven't had the pleasure of meeting my mother.” Gracie finished her drink and tossed the cup towards shore. “Mom is bashing Addison to anyone who will listen to her because he told me it was okay if I wanted to drop out of college and came home.”
“I take it your mother wanted you to stay in school,” Trish said.
“My mother wanted me to grow up, become a doctor and find the cure for cancer. She's furious at me for dropping out. She's furious at Addison for letting me drop out. She's furious at Cal for proposing to me and she's even more furious because I said yes to Cal. She claims I'm ruining my life.”
“Ouch. That sucks.” Trish didn't really know what to say. Her own mother was always quietly encouraging of whatever she wanted to do.
“I quit school for good at the beginning of November. It's almost July and my parents are still fighting about whether or not I can have my car back.”
“Your car?” Trish asked.
“I have, I guess had, a classic Camaro. Mom took it away when I left State University. Now I have Cal's old truck, if that tells you anything. Mom also cut off my credit card, chopped up my bank card and quit paying my insurance. She says she's not coming to the wedding.”
“Oh wow,” Trish said. “I don’t think my mother particularly liked Curtis but she would never have skipped my wedding.”
“Mom says she'll never speak to me again if I don't get my degree.” Gracie rolled her eyes. “She never got over Addison getting himself thrown back out of the Navy within 4 months of going in. When I didn't last 4 months in college, Mom kind of lost her marbles. She doesn't understand that I was completely miserable at school. She thinks I'm making the biggest mistake of my life, when in reality I'm trying to fix my own mistakes.” Gracie took a deep breath and looked down at the clear water of the spring. “I love Cal more than anything. I can't imagine my life without him. He's my best friend. My soulmate. Whatever word you want to use, he's the one. The entire time I was at school, I spent every minute of every day missing him.”
“Sounds like coming back and marrying him was the right choice,” Trish said gently.
“It is. I just wish Mom would come to terms with the fact that this is my life, not hers. I don’t want to get married without my parents in the audience but it looks like I’m going to have to. Addison is going to be giving me away because my Mom forbid my Dad from doing it.” Gracie was chewing on her lower lip unhappily.
“That’s rough. I can’t imagine how I’d feel if my mother were treating me the way yours is treating you,” Trish said. She meant it.
“What is your mom like?” Gracie asked unexpectedly. “You haven’t talked about your family much, other than Grover.”
“Oh,” Trish had to think about the question for a minute before she could decide how she wanted to answer. “My mom is really sweet. Really passive. Really spacey. She’s pretty much a hippie
, believe it or not. She owns a new age shop with her husband, Perry. He’s not my dad but they’ve been married since I was 12. Perry is the grounded one in our house. He’s the one who has to deal with unhappy customers in the store because my mom just cries any time anyone fusses at her.”
“So I guess you’ve never been disowned?” Gracie asked with a teasing smile.
“No. Heck, Nellie has never even been disowned and Nellie is hell on designer heels.” Trish couldn’t help scowling. “Nellie is my step-sister. She’s 4 years younger than me and she was always the one who’d come home with purple and green streaks in her hair or a new tattoo. Nellie and David could probably have a who-has-more-tattoos competition. I’m not even sure which one would win.”
“I guess that means your parents hopefully won’t keel over dead from shock when they meet David,” Gracie said with a laugh. “Cal told him not to let Addy use his body as a practice canvas but he wouldn’t listen.”
Trish frowned as reality smacked her in the face. “Oh crap.”
“What?” Gracie asked.
“I just realized that I haven’t even talked to my Mom in a week.”
“Okay?” Gracie looked at her curiously.
“Have any good suggestions for how to gently tell my mother about David?” Trish asked. “Despite Nell’s love of body ink, Mom has never been a fan of rough looking guys. She prefers gentle, almost feminine men.”
“Is your mother coming to Possum Creek anytime soon?” Gracie asked.
“Not if she can avoid it,” Trish said.
“I’d wait a little while before I brought up David. Let her get used to the idea of you being single before you spring David on her,” Gracie suggested.
“Yeah. Maybe you should give her a couple years to get used to the idea you might wind up an old maid with a hundred cats, wait until she's really good and scared that she'll never have grandkids and then spring David on her.” Cal appeared at the base of the trail that wound back up to where they had left the truck earlier. He was wearing swim shorts, a light blue t-shirt and carrying a case of beer. He had a slightly evil grin on his broad face.
Trish and Gracie both burst out laughing.
“Cal!” Gracie tried to hop out of her inner-tube, slipped and fell under the water. She popped back up a second later, laughing hard.
Cal set the beer down on the edge of the houseboat's porch and waded into the water to her. She flung her arms around his neck and gave him a brief kiss. “I thought you were going to be stuck working on the lease all day.”
“Dad wasn't feeling well,” Cal explained. He turned his attention back to Trish. “Seriously, I'll eat Momma's best Sunday hat if your folks don't take one look at David and offer to let you ditch Grover and move back home immediately.”
“The hat with the flowers on it?” Gracie asked him.
“Yup.”
Trish laughed.
“Between the tattoos and the fact that he owns a Harley, I can’t imagine anyone’s mother being thrilled on sight. She may warm up to him once she figures out that the bad boy act is just that, an act, but until then?” Gracie shrugged her shoulders.
“I think I’m going to hold off on introducing David to my parents for a while,” Trish said thoughtfully. “I have a really strong suspicion that my mother is going to think he’s scary.”
“Maybe you could start off by sending her pictures of the two of y’all together?” Gracie suggested. She snagged a towel off the chaise lounge and began pantomiming a slow, sexy reveal of her body. “Cover the tattoos in the first pics and then just kind of gradually show more and more of them. Ease her into the idea slowly.”
“Absolutely. Wonderful idea, Gracie. Cover the tattoos with clothing.” Cal smirked at his fiance with a rather devilish look in his eyes. “But how do you expect poor Trish here to get him into a turtleneck sweater in the middle of summer?”
Trish started to giggle and found that once she started, she couldn’t stop.
Chapter 32
David was debating whether or not he should knock on Trish's front door a second time when Grover yanked it open.
“Oh. It's you,” the old man said.
“I need to talk to Trish.”
“She ain't here,” Grover replied.
David frowned. “She really not here or did she just tell you to tell me that?”
“She mad at you?” Grover countered.
“I don't know,” David admitted reluctantly. “Maybe.”
“You piss her off?”
“Maybe.”
“You shouldn't piss the girl off. She's a good girl.” Grover pulled the door all the way open and then leaned heavily on the door frame.
“I'm aware of that,” David snapped. “Why do you think I asked her to marry me?”
“You going to marry my little girl?”
“If she'll let me,” David replied. He was exhausted and not really in the mood for chatting with Grover. Especially not when he didn't know where he stood with Trish.
“You're a hell of a big improvement over that fat idiot who she was married to,” Grover said. “You know he ain't gone, don't you?”
“He'd better be gone,” David grumbled.
“He ain't. He told me this morning that he'd kill her before he'd let her be with another man. I think he was talking about Addison but I don't think he's going to like your sorry ass no better.” Grover crossed his arms over his sunken old chest. “I know crazy when I look it in the eyes, son. That feller is 100% pure bonafide crazy. You're going to have to kill him.”
David shifted his weight and leaned against the door frame. “You want me to kill Trish's ex?”
“I don't want you to kill nobody. I'm telling you that you're going to have to kill my granddaughter's ex if you want to keep her safe.” Grover looked David up and down for a long minute. “You got it in you?”
“I'll protect Trish,” David said flatly. “Assuming you'll even tell me where she is?”
“I don't know where she went,” Grover said. “She took off with Pearl's little granddaughter. They was driving that loud son-of-a-bitch. The blue Chevy that's got its exhaust chopped off.”
“Gracie,” David filled in the blank. “You know where they went?”
“They was wearing swimsuits when they got in the truck. Backed over Pearl's trash can on the way out.” Grover pointed to the end of the driveway. The trashcan was a smashed heap of black plastic laying in the grass next to the chain link fence. “She does that about once a week. Kills the trash can.”
“Gracie can't back a truck to save her life,” David said. “But I know where they went if they were wearing swimsuits.”
“Figured you would,” Grover said calmly. “Trish wants to be loved, David. That's about all she wants, as far as I can tell. The girl just wants someone to love her.”
“I asked her to marry me,” David said.
“You done said that already. Why do you think I'm out here talking to you when I could be inside watching my shows?” Grover countered. “Speaking of marriage, I got you something to give to her.”
“You do?” David asked skeptically.
Grover gestured for David to follow him inside the house. After a brief hesitation, he did.
Grover ambled over to a small table tucked deep in the corner of the living room beside the piano. He opened the top drawer of the table and began digging through the contents. After a minute, he extracted a small object and held it out to David.
“It's real,” Grover said as he dropped the tiny ring into David's hand. “It ain't gaudy like that one Trish has been wearing around, but it was her grandmother's. My Nancy wore it for 32 years. Trish is a romantic. She'll like knowing it was passed down.”
“It's pink,” David commented as he held the ring up in the dim light.
Grover smiled crookedly at David. “It is.”
“A pink diamond.”
Grover just smiled.
“Where did you get a pink diamond?” David pressed
the issue.
Grover laughed. “Just give the girl the ring, son.”
“Swear to me it's real.”
“Your Daddy went to prison for 6 years for that heist, David. I don't think they'd have thrown him in the lockup that long if the diamonds had been fake.”
“You have got to be shitting me.” David stared down at the diamond ring in his hand with a combination of fascination and horror. “I always knew the two of y'all had been partners in a lot of shit but-.”
“Give the girl the ring, David. It's y'alls legacy.”
“Fuck that.” David handed the ring back to Grover. “I'm not my father. I'm not giving Trish a stolen ring.”
“It ain't really stolen anymore. Not at this point. There's a statute of limitations, you know.” Grover looked offended. He held the ring back out to David. “Ain't no shame in saving a few dollars.”
“You and I don't have the same opinion on shame,” David said. He shook his head at Grover. “I'm not going to ask Trish to start her life with me with a stolen ring on her finger. That may be your legacy and it may be my father's legacy, but its' not mine.”
Grover snorted at him. “Your really are Joshua Walker's boy.”
“Damn fucking right,” David snapped. He turned on his heel and began to walk away from Grover.
“You ain't got to worry none about that body they found under your house, David. You ain't going to be arrested for killing her,” Grover called after him. “You wasn't potty trained yet when she died.”
David froze at the door. He turned slowly to face Grover. “You know who she is?”
Grover smiled bitterly at David. “I know where all your Daddy's secrets are buried, boy.”
“Tell me.”
Grover shook his head 'no'. “I ain't telling you nothing. You ain't enough like your Daddy to keep a secret.”
David smashed his fist into the wall in anger.
Grover laughed. “Go find your girlfriend, David. Make her love you. Don't waste your time worrying about the rest of it. You're going to be alright.”