Page 24 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

I loved my grandmother.

I loved even more that she knew me so well, and she tried so stinkin’ hard not to say curse words.

I also loved listening to her voice. It was always so soft and smooth, not harsh and abrasive like some women’s voices could be.

“Oh, look!” Grandma said softly.

Always softly when she was around me, knowing that I couldn’t do the harsh, startling sounds.

I turned to find her pointing at the window behind me, and it was…snowing?

What the heck?

“Was it supposed to snow?” I asked, dumbfounded.

I mean, sure, it was cold.

But not cold enough to…

“Oh,” she breathed as she went to the door.

I followed her, my smile growing by the second, because Grandpa was outside the door, waving like a lunatic.

I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could read his lips.

Come outside!

“I think he wants you to come outside, Grams,” I teased.

She popped the latch on the sliding glass door, which she struggled with.

I caught it up for her and pushed it all the way open, not wanting to think about how she was so tired and exhausted that she could barely open a door that she never used to have a problem with before.

The door slid open, and the first thing I heard was music.

“I think he’s playing your song,” I teased.

From what Grandma had told me, she and Grandpa had walked down the aisle to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

But Grandpa wasn’t only playing the music. He was singing it himself as he stood by a surprisingly quiet machine that was spitting out snow toward the deck that Grandma was now standing on.

“Since I can’t take you to the snow, I figured I’d bring it to you,” Grandpa said once the closing lyrics were sung.

I looked over at Grandma to see that she was crying. Thick tears were coursing down her cheeks, and she had her hand over her mouth as she held in her sobs.

I made eye contact with Hoax across the yard, and we both disappeared, leaving them alone.

“I want that one day,” I said to Hoax as we watched Grandma and Grandpa dance in the fake snow.

Hoax crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I don’t think it’s ever going to be possible to have what they have.”

No, maybe not.

But that didn’t stop me from wanting it.

Chapter

Thirteen

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