Page 113 of Brick

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

Brick

He didn’t understand at first why his grandmother had wanted her ashes scattered at Piedmont Park. Not until he picked up her urn at Magnolia Green, and an elderly woman with a walker stopped him in the residents’ hall. He didn’t know her name, but he recognized her from the music room where he often found his grandmother.

“You’re Sylvie’s boy, right?”

He nodded. “Yes ma’am. I’m Br—Jonathan, her grandson.”

The woman gestured for him to follow her toward the day room. “She talked about you, you know? All the time. Told everybody about your construction job and bragged on the flowers you brought her…and the treats.”

When they arrived in the common area, he held out his arm to help her settle in a chair. He took the seat next to her and waited for her to continue.

“Sylvie was my best friend. She had a lot of regrets. She talked about them too, dictated the letter to me for you.” That solved one mystery. “One thing she was really worried about was whether you’d understand why she wanted you to take her to Piedmont Park.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Maybe I should, but I don’t.”

The woman nodded knowingly. “You were only a boy. It was before your father died, one day he wasn’t too far gone with the drugs. Sylvie said the three of you went out to the lake and had a picnic. She said your mama had bought you this little pocket racer the week before, and you ran all around with it.”

He wracked his brain for some trace of the memory as the lady continued. “It wasn’t really an extraordinary day by most people’s standards. Sylvie cherished the memory because it was the closest she says y’all ever came to something normal. Your mom couldn’t go with you because she was working, but she packed the picnic with whatever she could find. Cheese sandwiches. Dill pickles. And a big bowl of Jell-O.”

“With three spoons,” he whispered. The memory still wasn’t entirely clear, but he had flashes now of the day at the parl. “I think there was a kite.”

“That’s right. Someone who had been there before you left it on the ground because it was torn. You spent hours with it, though, determined to make it fly. The afternoon she died, she was still thinking about that day, wishing she could’ve given you more like it.”

“It helps to know she wanted to. I wish she would’ve told me.”

“In the end, I think she wished she had too.”

***

Olivia came with him to set Grandma’s ashes free at the park. After he told her the story from the nursing home, she insisted on packing them a picnic with grilled cheese sandwiches, dill pickles, and Jell-O. She even packed three spoons.

One for Grandma, she’d said.

He didn’t remember any more of that day, but the snippets he recalled at Magnolia Green gave him some comfort.

It was Liv’s idea to bring a kite with them. Together, they flew it beside the water, after they released Grandma’s ashes into the wind.

“Maybe we’ll bring our children here one day,” she mused.

For a moment, he allowed himself to fantasize about building a family with her. A beautiful, blond pixie of a little girl. A son with his dark hair and her sparkling eyes.

He would teach them how to play ball. He’d go to their school plays. He would make them feel safe.

They’d never have to fly someone else’s discarded kite. Or cling to shards of broken memories to know someone loved them.

“I’d rather bring them to the Majestic,” he whispered. “All the best memories are built there.”

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