by Warren, Rie
I nodded, scooping the forgotten letter tiles into the little velveteen bag.
“Hmmph.”
“Yep.” I folded up the Scrabble board and put everything away. “But what about you? Shouldn’t you at least try to find your lady?”
“Oh, I know where she is all right, the woman I lost. Wouldn’t mind payin’ her a visit, if you could run me out.” He drained his glass and gained his feet, almost spryly, but that could’ve been the bourbon walking.
“Think we should call first?”
A smile ghosted across his lips. “I don’t reckon that’ll be necessary.”
Chapter Twelve
WE JUDDERED INSIDE GRAMPA’S old jalopy Ford truck the next morning. Even the heat on full didn’t make a dent in the frosty air inside the cab, and his shocks? They were shot to shit.
“I’m gonna have to get under this heap of metal when we get home.”
He looked pleased, warming his hands at the vent putting out lukewarm air. “Bring ’er inta the garage so I can pass the tools.”
Following his directions, we bounced a few miles down the road in Mt. Pleasant. He asked me to take a left into Old Christ Church. The little Civil War chapel by the busy roadside was pretty as a picture, captured in a historical freeze-frame. The leaded glass windows and the small square bell tower looked over a grove of magnolias and live oaks.
“She works for the church?” I asked, gritting the unused gears into park.
“Not exactly.” Grampa opened his door, set his cane on the iced over gravel, and hefted himself from the truck cab. “Take my arm lest I slip and break another goddamn hip.” He hooked out his elbow.
I hung on like a limpet, following his lead and propping him up.
Sticking to the path, he rounded the chapel and nodded at me toward the black iron gate to the cemetery.
“Who’s morbid now?” I pushed and the well-oiled hinges opened.
Despite the cold, the air was still, and under the evergreen trees, clear sunlight streaked and sparkled. Winter flowers budded on the ground, shrubs that brushed our knees.
It was a small plot, and Grampa found his lady’s resting place with ease among the other well-maintained gravestones.
“Here she is. Not long gone and never far from my heart.” Grampa’s face wobbled.
He took something from his pocket and placed it on the marker.
My throat had gone dry but not my eyes. I backhanded across my face, wishing I had one of his old hankies.
The ring he gently stroked, sitting on top of the granite stone, must’ve cost a fortune at the time. Even now the tiny diamond sparked with life.
“I meant to get to you first, Myra. Seems I have the honor of getting to you at last. And I am blessed to be.” He lowered his head in honor.
I did, too, the words engraved on the stone running through my head.
Myra Lowell Loveland
October 10, 1933—September 5, 2014
Beloved Wife of Earle Daniel Loveland
Honored Mother of Theodore Loveland
Treasured Mimi of Daniel and Nicholas Loveland
~All is not lost. Only found~
Jesus Christ.
I knitted it all together—the connections. Loveland. Steele. Longtime Old Mt. Pleasant names and families. And now the Ryders.
Catarina Steele—Brodie and Boomer’s sister—was married to Nick Love, Nicholas Loveland. Myra’s grandson.
And my grampa had been, still was, in love with Myra, gone though she was.
“Give me a moment, son?”
“’Course.” I patted him on the shoulder.
I wandered through the graveyard, leaving Grampa to his final goodbyes. His voice rose and fell, but I didn’t try to capture the words flitting to me on the breeze.
He’d found his woman again. I’d lost mine. I cupped the barely opened blossom of a pink rhododendron, thinking about Sadie’s lips.
On the way home, Grampa knocked the head of his cane against the truck window. “Pull into Poor Richard’s.”
“What?” The ramshackle roadside bar was roadhog heaven and not nearly as nice as Retribution.
“I’m hungry.”
Maybe he wanted a case of botulism to take care of his final days, but fuck it. I’d decided.
Whatever he wants.
We ate fried shrimp dipped in cocktail sauce. He even stayed upright to beat me at a game of pool. I didn’t go easy on him either. I knew he’d see it if I botched the game just so he won.
At home, he stopped me from following him into his bedroom.
“I may be an old-timer, son, but I ain’t a doddering old fool. Don’t be puttin’ me to bed tonight.”
I started to interrupt him, but he glared hard enough I thought better of it.
“I don’t want no meds tonight either. I want to feel everything the good Lord gave me.”
His liver-spotted hands clasped my face, and he kissed both my cheeks. “Remember the love of a good woman is better than dipping your prong into any old sauce, but decent bourbon? Best sauce to be found.”
With that purely southern speech, Grampa shut the door in my face. I held my breath and waited outside. He shuffled to his bed—the limping rhythm of his feet audible.
I only exhaled when the mattress creaked and he called out, “Can hear you breathin’ from here, Kinkaid. I ain’t gonna die on your watch.”
“G’night, Grampa.”
“Ain’t you got anything better to do than lurk outside my bedroom? Shoot. And shoo while you’re at it.”
I held the frame of his door between my hands, lowering my forehead to the wood. “I love you, Grampa,” I whispered.
“I know. I ain’t blind or deaf. Git to bed with you.”
I wiped my nose on my sleeve. Damn him. Catching me out.
In bed that night, memories surrounded me. Sadie and Grampa. Illuminated moments of love all woven together with this life. The had-beens and should-bes and what-ifs coalescing into a big yarn of why-not? I fell asleep mid-yawn, mid-dream.
My bed was lonely when I woke up in the morning. It had felt perfect the one night Sadie had stayed with me. The house was cold, too.
Dawn’s pearly light trickled in through the curtains as I moved through my room, pulling on sweats. The house was silent, the usual smell of percolating coffee missing. In the hall an icy draft ran from under Grampa’s door. I pushed it open to a frigid gust of air and the sight of my grampa laying on his bed, unmoving as only the dead could be.
He’d left a window ajar—so his soul could escape.
My knees buckled. A howling need for my grandfather ripped through me.
He’d have laughed at me, I was sure. He probably was now, from up on high. The past two days, I should’ve realized. He’d told me everything. He’d prepared me as best he could. He’d given me his love and his guidance. He’d made it clear he was going even though I’d turned a blind eye.
I crossed to the bed and kneeled beside it. I didn’t try to wake him. The spirit was gone, the body all that remained. I could feel it in my bones, and the bones of this old house. It was empty, apart from me.
I held in the tears, blinking, blinking, blinking. “Grampa Dean.” I caressed the sunken hollow of his cheek that used to bloom ruddy and full of life. “I would’ve liked one more minute with you.” A month. A year. A decade.
His eyes stared sightlessly at nothing, but a smile played on his lips. He’d had the forethought to take the picture of me when I was a baby held in my mother’s arms and rest it on his chest. He’d crossed his hands gently over it, holding us to him even in death.
He’d known. He’d welcomed it. It wasn’t goodbye he’d been saying to Miss Myra, but hello.
I wasn’t ready, but he had been. He made sure he didn’t die on my watch, like he’d said.
My legs stiff and my eyes too dry, I covered him up, tucking the old warm quilt under his chin.
In the kitchen, I started the coffee. Turning reluctantly to the table, I
saw he hadn’t set it for breakfast like usual. He’d laid out his last rites.
Three carefully placed thick envelopes formed the place settings. The first was his will. I opened it, scanned it, set it aside.
The second was a lumpy, fat, heavy manila envelope with my name written painstakingly in his shaky handwriting across it. I fanned the contents across the table.
Twenty-five thousand dollars covered the kitchen table in cold hard cash because the old man hadn’t trusted banks after the last recession.
“You old coot!”
Laugh or cry or open the final envelope, the thinnest one?
I tucked a finger inside and opened up the letter:
Dear Kinkaid,
So now you know. Don’t be sorry for me, not one bit.
I would’ve liked to tell you what happened after death . . . but that’s neither here nor there.
It’s taken me two goldarned days to write this letter. I knew it was coming. It was my time and the only thing I regret is not seeing your children. But I will, I swear on it, no matter where I end up. Though I do hope I get angel wings, or at the very least, devil horns. I reckon I’ll look right spiffy no matter what.
Didn’t want to waste a single red penny of this on my bills, son. I wanted to be able to leave you something, you see? I appreciate all you did for me. And I know how you managed it. You always did like to take off your clothes. Now’s maybe the time to try something else because I ain’t going to be holding you back no more.
I have loved you like you were my own son even though you had to take care of me here for some years past. You’ve always made me proud so don’t you be ashamed of nothing. You were a man before you were even a boy. You take care of your people, and that’s something right there.
I wanted you to meet Myra. Maybe I’ll be with her now. Maybe with your grandmother who I loved as I could. It doesn’t matter. I’m wherever God chooses I should be, and I’m fine.
If you wonder at all, the answer is yes. I will be right beside you for as long as you need me. Heaven or Hell won’t come between me and my love for you.
Now you don’t mind me. I had an extra drink tonight and my hand is shaky.
You take care of Sadie, or I’ll be right back to haunt you. She’s the one. Always has been.
And remember to do your laundry from time to time.
You are my son and my light and my life.
Until we meet again (but don’t be thinking I won’t kick your ass back if you come too soon).
Forevermore,
Grampa Dean
The pages crumpled to my chest, I called Sadie.
Her phone rang and rang.
She wouldn’t answer, not to me. Why should she?
“Kaid?”
I broke down at the sound of her voice, barely able to whisper out, “I need you, Sadie. I need you.”
Chapter Thirteen
I WASN’T SURE HOW long I sat in the kitchen. I’d pushed the envelopes aside, especially the one with the cash. The money didn’t matter anyway, never really had. Insomuch as I could keep the roof over our heads, pay the bills, and make sure Grampa was taken care of . . .
Now there was just me.
I swallowed heavily, an intense stab of emptiness hitting me in the chest.
The front door opened, but I didn’t move. Sadie found me at the table where I sat holding it all in.
My throat bobbed a few times. “He’s dead, Sadie.”
Her face fell as she rushed to my side. “Oh, Kaid. C’mere, baby.” She slid to her knees beside me, opening her arms.
“He knew. He knew and he didn’t tell me.” Sobs broke out of me, loud harsh sounds.
She tucked my head against her neck, and her tears joined mine. “Shh. Shh. I bet he said goodbye in his own way. Doesn’t mean it’s not supposed to hurt.”
We rocked together on that cold kitchen floor. I wasn’t sure who was comforting whom. Didn’t care. All I knew was Sadie held me as strongly as I held her. And I wasn’t letting go this time.
Eventually I eased back and took her onto my lap, curling her against me as her quieter cries slowed and her tears wet my shirt. I smoothed the damp hair off her cheeks and kissed her forehead.
“We’ll have to call an ambulance so they can take him.” Her voice broke. “Have you said goodbye to him?”
I nodded, wiping my eyes on the cuffs of my sweatshirt.
“Do you mind if I do?”
Helping her off the floor, I laced my fingers through hers. We went in together to Grampa Dean one last time. The void in my chest deepened, seeing him so still in his bed.
She stood beside the bed before sitting next to him. I scooted close to her, holding her against my side. She’d been part of this family for so long, almost a granddaughter to the old man. A single tear ran down her cheek, and I caught it on the pad of my thumb, lifting it from her skin.
“He’s smiling.”
“He oughtta be.” I laughed ruefully. “Made me take him to Poor Richards last night for beer and fried shrimp.”
“Now I bet that was a sight!” She dug her elbow into my rib.
“He beat me at pool.”
“Outfoxed you, did he?”
“Probably cheated.” I bent my head to breathe in the scent of her hair. It crackled against my nose, alive with heated electricity. “Thank you for coming.”
“Oh, Kaid.” She turned to me and clasped my face. “I’m always here for you.” She kissed me softly on the lips then frowned. “Feels weird doing that here.” She motioned toward Grampa.
“Oh don’t worry. He’s probably doing backflips up in Heaven right now.”
Having her beside me relieved some of the pain of his passing. Sharing the memories of him felt absolutely right with her.
“He wrote me a letter. I’ll—” My voice dipped low. “I’ll show it to you later. He was at peace.”
She turned to him then, laying her hand on his face. “Oh, Grampa Dean. You could’ve at least given me a last dance. Or maybe let me beat you at Scrabble one time.”
I chuckled wetly.
She leaned over, kissing his cheek. “Imma miss you, dear man. But I’ll be keepin’ an eye on Kaid for ya. If anything goes amiss, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
I pulled her to me for a brief kiss. “You know your drawl always comes out more when you talk to him?”
She looked surprised. “It does?”
“Yeah.” I brushed a tendril of the sandy blonde hair from her face. “It’s pretty.”
Her eyelashes flickered down, and she glanced at Grampa. “Should we close his eyes?”
“I don’t know. Should we?” I hadn’t thought of that.
“I think he’d look better. Does he have a funeral parlor chosen?”
I nodded silently, leaving those details for later. “You hear that, Grampa Dean? She doesn’t approve of the way you look.”
Sadie slapped at me with a slight laugh. “I said no such thing. Don’t be listenin’ to him, Grampa Dean. You look just as handsome as ever.” She whispered to me, “His eyes are as green as yours again.”
I cupped her cheek briefly, and she kissed my palm. Moving to the other side of the bed, I softly shut his eyelids, whispering into his ear, “I love you, Grampa.”
Once more in the kitchen, I poured a couple mugs of coffee and considered breakfast. The thought of food made my stomach churn.
“Do you want me to call the ambulance? I think . . . I think someone has to pronounce him dead before we can . . . ” Sadie appeared beside me as I stared blankly out the window. She placed a hand on my arm and leaned against me. “I’m sorry. Do you want to wait awhile, babe?”
I inhaled deeply, straightening my shoulders. “No. I’ll do it.” I kissed the top of her head. “Only, do you think you could stay beside me?”
“You don’t have to ask,” she whispered.
On the phone, my fingers trembled when I tried to dial. My lips pinched tight, my eyes screwed shut.
; Sadie hugged me. “Kinkaid Ryder, this is not a time you have to be strong. Give me the damn phone.”
I handed it over, struggling to not break down as I listened to her describe the situation to the 911 operator then arranging the details for having his body removed from our house.
I drank my steaming mug of coffee and returned to the lone window in the kitchen. She sat at the table, sipping her coffee, sniffling now and then. I glanced behind me just as a shard of sunlight suddenly illuminated her halo-like hair.
Watching her through the lowered screen of my eyelashes, I felt my heart stop and start again. The tip of her slim nose tinged pink. She’d pulled her hair into a sloppy bun at the back of her head. Shiny tendrils escaped, cradling her face. Soggy crumpled tissues piled beside her elbow, and she scratched away on the sheet of paper in front of her.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh!” She blinked up at me, turquoise eyes moist and red-rimmed. “Making a list of things we need to do.”
“We?”
“Well, I’m certainly not letting you do this alone, am I?”
My cup clattered to the counter. “You’re not?”
“Kinkaid.” She stood from the table, and held out her hand. “Let’s go get you cleaned up. You don’t have to worry, baby. I’m here.”
In the small hallway bathroom, Sadie undressed me. My shirt up over my arms, my sweats down my legs. And God help me, her hands felt so good on my body. The cold bathroom heated quickly between our two bodies and the hot water she turned on in the shower. With her hands on my back, she pushed me under the pinging spray.
I stood, raising my face to the water, listening as she discarded her clothes. She stepped in behind me. Soap bubbled from the two hands she joined over my chest. Her fingers massaged into my muscles, slicking down to my stomach.
I gasped when her fingers pressed into the V of my pelvis. Hands braced on the tiles, I dropped my head down. She continued washing me from behind, lathering my shoulders, my arms, my ass—I sucked in a deep groan—my thighs.
Her arms circled me. Her breasts squashed against me. Her little blonde bush wet against my ass.
Curious hands soaped the front of my thighs, the insides of my legs, my hanging balls. “You know I’d want to be here for you.” She licked drops of water from my neck.