Page 89 of Embracing Trust

“Yeah.”

“What’d you screw up?”

My shoulders drop. “What? How do you know I screwed up?”

She lets out a hearty chuckle. “I’m a wise old lady of eighty-something. I’ve known you boys since the day you were born. You look like something’s troubling you.”

I start from the beginning and tell Grandma everything that’s been happening with Aubree, how I’ve kept it from Julia and, the shitshow that just went down at my parents’ house.

She shakes her head. “You’re in a mess.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” I take a drink of iced tea.

Grandma smiles, her bright blue eyes twinkle as she seems to search for a long-lost memory. “When you get to be my age, you have a lifetime of experiences—some good, some bad.” She takes a drink of her tea. “You can’t live your life with regrets. You have to decide what that life is going to look like—whatyouwant it to look like. Not your parents, not your friends or relatives. You. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I understand.”

Silence falls between us for a moment.

“From what I see, you’re not going to be able to move forward until you can get rid of the bad stuff.”

I shrug. “Something like that.”

“You know, you really can’t love another person or live a fulfilled and happy life when you’re carrying around a burden.”

“I feel like I have a shit ton of them.”

Oh crap. Grandma doesn’t like us to curse.

She lets out a hearty laugh. “A shit ton, eh?” She takes a bite of bread, chews, and swallows. “I wish you would’ve come to me sooner. I hate seeing you so unhappy. You can’t go to war and come home thinking your life is going to be what it was.”

The lump in my throat feels like a golf ball.

Grandma is still as she studies me. “You look so tired.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. “I am,” I croak.

“I think you’ve been through enough and it’s time to start stepping forward instead of backward, don’t you? You need to find peace—peace in your life, peace from your past, andespeciallypeace from your time in the Army.”

“I’m trying.”

“One day you’re twenty and the next minute you wake up and you’re fifty and you wonder what the hell happened to your life. Do life for you or you’ll grow to be bitter if you’re living it by someone else’s agenda. And you’ll need to do the right thing by the baby and its mother.” She holds up an index finger. “That doesn’t necessarily mean marrying her. You said that’s what your parents want, but it’s almost never a good idea to get married for the sake of a child.

“I just started seeing a therapist.”

Grandma sets her glass on the tray, rises, and joins me on the couch. “Good for you.” She pats my leg.

“It’s helping.” I set my glass on a coaster on the end table.

“You’ll get this figured out. I have no doubts. You need to find the old Ryan—the one who is full of that Irish spirit that I love so much.”

“I’m not sure he’s in there, Gram.” I touch my hand to my chest.

Grandma wraps her arms around me and squeezes. “He’s there.”

My phone rings and when I look at the screen, it’s the attorney. “Grandma, I need to take this.”

“Of course.”

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