Page 6 of Moving Forward

We’re both finicky about cars. Grams doesn’t trust anyone’s car but her own, while I don’t trust any driver but myself. My mom—her daughter-in-law—passed away in a car accident when I was younger. For a long time, the only person either of us felt safe driving with was my grandpa.

She lingers outside for a minute before she opens the door and gets in. She crinkles her nose and rolls down the window as I start to back out of my spot. “If you had a girl . . .”

I groan. “Ah, jeez Grams, right now? It’s six in the morning.”

“Well,” she says, turning to look at me. She doesn’t bother to put on her seatbelt. My truck isn’t safe enough for her to ride in, but apparently safe enough for her to ignore basic safety precautions. “If you had one, I wouldn’t be botherin’ you. And besides, how often do I even get the chance to talk about it? You never come visit me.”

“I always come by the diner,” I point out. “Twice a day, actually, once in the morning to eat my breakfast and once at night to help you clean up.”

“Oh, really? You’re there in the mornings when I’m not there and at night you’re such a bore.”

“What do you want me to do instead?”

She lets out a heavy sigh that sounds more like a hiss through her dentures. “I’d like it if you’d talk more than you grunt. How are you? Grunt. Are you seeing anyone? Growl. The weather’s nice today, isn’t it? Huff. You’re like an angry old man.”

I let out a chuckle. “I’m sorry, Grams.”

“You’d better be. The only time of year I can ever get you to string a full sentence together is on peach day.”

“That’s because we aren’t in Orchard Valley on peach day,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes and sits back in her seat, perplexed. “I wish you’d get over that. If you did, I bet this whole town would too. People could’ve gotten over what you did, but you gave them a reason not to—to fear you—because of your goddamned awful attitude.”

Shit. Grams never swears. I sink down in my seat, not willing to take the argument further. She glances out the window and I squeeze my wound through the bandage, relishing the way the flesh throbs and stings as it separates. I’m here. One day a year. I’m here.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Grams’s wince, her shoulders falling in defeat. I wonder when she’ll figure out I’m no good for her either.

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By the time we get to the farmer’s market, the tension has long worn off. The ice thawed about twenty minutes later when I pulled over and bought her a coffee and some muffins. After I handed the coffee to her, she raised a wary eyebrow. “It ain’t got arsenic in it, right?”

She took a sip anyway and shot into what can only be described as a soap opera. For the rest of the ride, she updated me on all the town gossip, as if I cared. Amber Jones apparently cheated on her husband with Clyde Barron. Jenkins Rouge has taken to shooting anything wild that steps onto his property—including his neighbor’s cat—and now he’s starting to claim that the teens who sneak out onto his property to make out are wild and therefore fair game too (she says he’s all bluster but the sheriff got involved just in case). Rhonda Grooms attempted to dye her hair blond a while back, but she’s the butt of everyone’s joke now because it came out orange. The town is planning to renovate the church with the funds from the last few years of Christmas walks.

And lastly, Erin Miller is having a baby near the end of July or in early August; Grams kept her eyes glued to me as she told me that one.

I pull the keys out of the ignition as we park in front of the farmers’ market. Wish she’d return to any of her other subjects. “And?”

“I’m just sayin’. She’s the one that got away.”

“Yeah, we both know she’s not. Even if she was, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

“Not yet,” she reminds me. “Who knows if she’ll stay with her husband?”

“I’m sure she will, Grams. Conner’s a good guy.”

“And so are you.” Guess when you’re her age, you’re allowed to be a bold-faced liar. “Even if you don’t think so, I know you are. And someone will see that too, someday. I just thought you’d want to know about Erin.”

“Thanks, Grams, but I already did. I’m a recluse, not blind.”

“Sometimes I wonder, Cain. Sometimes I wonder.”

Leaving it at that, we head toward the stands. We have perfectly good peaches back home, but Grams has always preferred coming here because it’s a tradition going back to when she and Grandpa first opened Ruth’s. Back then, this was the closest place she could get them. She’s lucky I’m an easy mark for her and her sentimentality.

As we make our way to the peaches, she links her arm through mine and says the same thing she says almost every year, “You know, the first time your grandpa and I came here, all they had was peaches. And your grandpa marched up to the old man manning the stand and said ‘Sir, I drove two hours and there ain’t nothin’ here except peaches!’ That old man looked your grandfather straight in the eye and said, ‘You’ll get what you get, and this is all we got. Now go buy it.’ And your grandpa was such a stubborn man. I imagine that’s where you get it”—she pauses as I give her a pointed stare—“and he bought every peach they had. Cost us a lot of money just to prove a point. But we used every one of those peaches, and I swear, the look he got when people ate what we made was what you’d imagine on a gambler who just won the lottery. That look irritated me and made me love him even more.”

“It did, did it?” I ask, just like I do every time.

We stop in front of the peach bins. An elderly woman smiles at Grams and says hello as she hands me a crate for the peaches. Grams makes sure to ask the lady how her kids are doing before returning to our conversation. “Yes, it did. And I really hope you find someone like that. Someone you love so much they own your soul, and when you think you don’t have any more love left to give them, you realize you do. You always find another way to fall in love with them.”

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