Page 95 of Family Bonds- Kelsey & Van

She never really saw the reason to have to do it though she’d been on it before. It was fun and all but she wasn’t in that much of a hurry.

“Maybe one of these days a charter tour would be nice. Bet you’ve been on them.”

“No,” she said. “I actually haven’t. I’ve been in the helicopter with my parents just flying to Boston. Though I think one of those tours would be nice. Maybe we can do it sometime. Until then, this is pretty enough for me.”

“It is,” he said.

He was quiet again. As if he needed to clear his head.

He’d brought up about the dreams and she wondered if he needed to talk about it more.

“Do you want to tell me what else your mother is saying to you?”

He turned his head to look at her.

“She isn’t saying much more than I said. I think she’s trying to get me to push myself. Or it’s my subconscious. I mean I know it’s that. I keep hearing this guy’s voice but no face. A deep voice. My gut is telling me it’s my grandfather.”

“Have you seen pictures of your grandfather?” she asked.

“There are some at the house. Older ones. But as I said, it’s just a voice.”

“What’s he saying?”

“The same things as my mother or thereabouts. To give it a chance. Don’t make judgments. Open my heart and my mind.”

“We know you opened your heart,” she said, running her hand on his arm. “I’d like to think you were opening your mind. Maybe just a bit on the slow end.”

He grunted. “It’s driving you nuts I haven’t opened anything else up, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is,” she said. “I’m not sure how you can not want to know.” She paused for a second. “Unless there is no going back and you’re afraid of what you’ll find. That maybe your grandfather wasn’t the bad guy after all?”

He let out a sigh. “I don’t know what I think or believe. It’s like this Pandora’s box of information. Everything changes once I know it.”

“Everything has already changed, Van. You know that. Would you even want to go back?”

“This is one of those trick questions. If I say yes, then that means I don’t know you. I never got to meet you. Touch you.”

“Love me,” she said cheerfully.

“That too,” he said.

“It’s not a trick question. I think there was nothing holding you back home and that is why it was so easy for you to come here. You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t want to know the truth. The question is why it’s taking you so long to find it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Do you want me to be with you when you open the next one? Will that help?”

“You told me you won’t open anymore,” he argued.

“I won’t. I asked if you wanted me to be with you.”

“Would you if I asked?”

“I’d love to be there,” she said. “Let’s go open one now.”

He shut one eye and squinted at her. “No patience.”

“Listen, Van. If I had your patience I’d have grandkids before you finished opening them.”

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