Page 13 of Between Hope & Tragedy

"Garrett, would you mind bringing me that box next to you?" Grandma asked him.

I glanced past him curiously as he grabbed a small, square, wooden box and handed it to Grandma. She asked him to wait while she opened it. I watched her pull out a few envelopes that were tied together, and told him to hand them to me. I held my hands out eagerly and began to untie the envelopes when her voice stopped me.

"Not now, Zaydee. When you're ready to go and leave again; that's when you open those," she said, in the sternest tone she could muster.

"Yes, Grandma."

I gave the envelopes to Garrett. If I held them, there would be more than a slight chance that I would wander off to open them and see what was inside.

"That was a brave thing you did yesterday," Grandma said, glancing at Garrett. "Larry may not have thought so, but I know that Frances would be proud of you, and that's all that matters."

"I thought he was going to die!" I exclaimed.

Garrett shrugged and leaned forward in his chair. "Our secret would have come out eventually, but I wanted to honor his wishes of not telling anyone while he was alive."

"You know, I was a young girl too when I met Frances. That man was the greatest and only love of my life. I miss him every day," she said, her voice cracking slightly.

The tea kettle started to whistle loudly as the water boiled. I got to my feet and went into the kitchen. I didn't want her to have to get up more than she had to, and I also didn't want her to see the tears that were starting to stream down my face. I used a dish towel to wipe my face clean, then used it to pick the kettle up off of the burner.

I wasn’t crying because Grandma was;I had lost the empathy part of humanity a long time ago. I was crying because even though she had suffered such a devastating loss, she was trying to find the silver lining in the cloud. Her telling us that she metGrandpa when she was young wasn’t a random fact that was thrown out lightly, and it wasn’t trivia to hold on to for another day. It was her way to try to make us comfortable with whatever decision we made.

Goddamn it, Greta,I thought as I filled three small China cups with hot water, and dropped tea bags into each one.

If anything really was out in the universe, I could only hope that it would hear me begging for this visit to be as short as possible.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon by the time we left Grandma’s. She sat in her chair and told us the story of her and Grandpa while we listened, drinking our tea.

Apparently, she had met him when she was fourteen years old and he was eighteen, but times were different then, as she put it. Also, she said she knew she wanted to marry him from the moment she saw him so no one could really tell her to stay away from him. I snuck glances at Garrett who had been smiling pleasantly as Grandma took us down memory lane, and I could only hope that he didn’t think it was the same with us.

I had a moment of weakness earlier today, and I honestly didn’t intend to repeat the mistake. It was what had gotten me into this clusterfuck of moving all the way to the other side of the United States to begin with.

It was also the reason I was an absentee mother, a recluse, a self-loather, and had such hatred for humanity. But as he drove me back to my hotel, I couldn’t find it in me to crush his high spirits.

“I think we should go to Phoenix,” Garrett said when he pulled into the hotel parking lot.

“For what?” I asked in confusion.

“To meet our son,” he said, giving me a pointed look.

“Oh.”

Oh! How could I forget already that he was in Phoenix?

“No,” I replied thoughtfully, running my hands through my hair. “I’ve fucked up enough lives, I don’t think it would do him any good for me to show up and shit on everything he knows. You should go, though! I think it would do you some good to meet him.”

“Zaydee, you need to stop. You didn’t fuck up anything or ruin anything that wasn’t already meant to be ruined,” he said as patiently as he could.

Truer words were never spoken,I thought with a soft chuckle.

“Let me know how he’s doing, okay?” I said softly, as I leaned over and kissed him on his cheek. I reached into the back seat and retrieved the envelopes that Grandma had given to me in her home and pushed the door open.

I hopped out of his car and practically ran to the front door of the hotel, leaving Garrett calling my name from the driver’s side window. I didn’t turn around and I didn’t stop. It would’ve mademe weak enough to go with him to Phoenix and I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to do that to an innocent kid who probably didn’t know anything about me anyway.

I walked past the front desk and took the stairs up to my room. I didn’t feel like waiting for the elevator today either. I wanted to get to my room and make a very important phone call. Even though I wouldn’t be going to actuallyseeScott, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t call and check on him.

When I got to my room it dawned on me that I didn’t know Uncle Bill and Aunt Rose’s phone number, so I would have to make a phone call I didn’t want to in order to get the information.

Fuck. I’m really not in the mood for the third degree,I thought as I unhappily dialed my parents’ phone number.

---