Page 18 of Between Hope & Tragedy

"Oh; and um, Scott? Is he there?" I asked nervously.

Rose put a hand on Bill's arm before she turned and looked at me with an emotion I couldn't quite read. She realized I couldn't understand what her face was trying to tell me, so she nodded before turning back around in her seat again. I decided it was better not to ask any more questions about him, so Bill andI bantered a bit about what there was to do in Phoenix, our favorite sports teams, and how long I had been in the education profession.

Thirty painful minutes later he was pulling into the driveway of a split-level home with a tire swing hanging from a tree in the front. I was starting to believe that was a family trait and wondered if Zaydee would have insisted on one, had we had the chance to keep him.

Probably,I thought with a smile.

Bill and Rose quietly got out of their respective sides of the car with me following. I walked up the splintered wooden steps close behind them and waited while Bill unlocked the front door and stepped back to let Rose in. I waited until he went in, then followed, closing the door behind me. My hands were starting to sweat and my legs were a bit shaky; I was honest to God terrified of meeting my son. What if I wasn't what he expected? What if he hated me for being absent for the first fourteen years of his life? What if he wanted Zaydee instead of me?

Maybe I should have waited until she was willing to come,I thought nervously as they led me into a den.

"I thought you'd like to look around in here, first," Bill said, sliding his hands into his pockets. "This is where we keep most of the family pictures and he's in almost all of them."

I cleared my throat and nervously started looking at the pictures. They seemed to be in chronological order, from when he was a small baby up until what age he would be now; around fourteen. I understood the haunted look on Rose's face when I first met them in the airport lobby. Looking at Scott really was like looking at a younger version of myself. The only traces ofZaydee I could see, was the progressive sadness in his eyes the older he grew.

The sudden thud of a glass being set on the wooden desk behind me got my attention. I turned slightly and saw that Bill had set down two square glasses and was currently filling them halfway with Scotch Whiskey.

"He was a great kid," he said, coming over and handing me one of the glasses. He took a drink of his as he looked at the pictures mounted on the wall. "He may have looked like you, but he was just like Zaydee. He loved Frances most of all and that tire swing out in the front yard," he said with a sigh.

"Was? Isn't he still?" I asked, in confusion.

Bill chuckled softly. "Scott was a manic depressive like Zaydee. It's hereditary, you know? Getting him to take his medication was always a hellacious fight. Garrett, I think it would be best if you took a seat."

I gave him a sidelong glance. Something about the way he said that told me that the rest of this visit wasn't going to be what I was expecting. I went over to the small leather two-seater couch and sat down. I leaned forward and held my glass of liquor tightly in my hands waiting for him to speak. Bill lingered in front of the pictures for a moment longer before he went and sat down in the recliner almost directly across from me.

"Did Zaydee take it hard when Frances died?" Bill asked curiously.

"I couldn't tell you, honestly. She moved to Florida a long time ago and I didn't really see her until she came back for theservices. I'm sure it hurt her, but she played the part of the rock for her family," I replied thoughtfully.

"Scott begged us to take him to see Frances when we found out he was terminal. It took me a little while to scrape the money together, but we got him out there. I thought it would have been good for him, you know? To be able to see the man that he loved the most one more time before he died," Bill said, shaking his head.

"Bill. I'm starting to get a little worried here," I said, rubbing my forehead. "Where exactly is my son?"

He got to his feet and retrieved the bottle, topped off his glass, then came over and topped off mine. He sat down again with a heavy sigh and looked at me before he nodded.

"Rose! Can you bring Scott in please?" he called out.

I drank down the rest of the glass in one gulp and got to my feet. I faced the door waiting for Rose to walk in with Scott, but I wasn't expecting her to walk in with him like this. I wavered on my feet slightly and landed on my ass in the chair. The glass fell from my hand and bounced on the carpeted floor as Rose came over and handed what looked like a small, decorative vase to me.

"I'm so sorry," she said quietly as she handed it to me. "He couldn't take it when he finally realized that Frances was going to die. When we got back, he went into his bedroom and hung himself."

Zaydee

It was late Monday morning and I was sitting on the freshly restored green grass at Saint Raphael’s Cemetery. Grandpa didn’t have a headstone yet, but I managed to find him again after some driving around.

I figured by this point Garrett was most likely sitting around with Scott, so I wanted to be near someone I loved too.

I had my legs crossed underneath me and the envelopes that Grandma had given me were sitting on my lap. I still hadn’t opened them, and even though she told me to wait until I got back home to read them, I wanted to read them with my grandfather nearby. Something told me that I might need his strength and this was the closest I could get to feeling it anymore.

“How’s it going, Grandpa?” I asked softly.

The first envelope held a short note from Grandma.

Dearest Zaydee,

What you are going to discover in these letters may be difficult for you, but I know that you are strong enough to cope with it. Please know that I'm here for you if you need me.

Love,

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