Page 2 of Jack

“That sounds like you’re telling me one thing but it’s not exactly what you’re meaning. What do you mean, get what they deserve?” Grandma told her that she was much too smart for her own good. “You’ve said that to me before. I still don’t understand it any more than when I was a child.”

“You always were so stable. I do believe that the only reason that your mother is still around is because you switched places with her and became the mother to her. Even at the age of eight, you were able to keep a roof over your heads as well as food in the pantry.” Taylor asked her to get to the point. Please. “All right. I’m a very wealthy woman. I have invested well and I’ve done very well by saving my money for a rainy day. I want you to make sure that a couple of businesses that I have invested in, deadbeat places are going to get what they deserve by suing them. I can’t. I just don’t want the stress. But you’re smart and mean when it comes to standing up for justice.”

“I can do that for you. It would be my pleasure. But I don’t understand that it’s something that you think needs to be—Grandma, I can’t lose you. If you know something, please tell me.” She told her again her age. “And as I have pointed out to you several times, you aren’t that old in your mind and body. Tell me.”

“I’m not going to lie to you, so you’d better be girthing up your loins, child. I have cancer. I know that I’ve had a long life and a good one, too. But I don’t have it in me to fight this disease. I’m refusing chemo. I don’t want to linger around sucking the life out of you while you make me try and hang onto life a little longer. I want to go just the way that I lived my life. With my hair on my head and my body not so shot up full of chemicals, that will more than likely have my roses that you’re going to plant on my grave glow in the dark. I’ll be moving back home from the retirement center. I want the comforts of home around me.”

It hurt Taylor to her very core that she was going to lose her grandma. She’d been her rock since she could remember. Losing her and not being able to talk to her every day, she thought that she might well curl up in a ball and die along with her. Then she put her hand over hers, and she looked at the frail hand that used to stroke her as a child when she needed comfort.

“All right. I can…I don’t want to lose you, but I understand. I don’t have to like it either, but I really do understand.” Grandma stood up, and she did as well. Trying to follow her to the cash register, Grandma paid and was out the door before she could gather her own things up. When she got out of the restaurant, she had to think where she’d parked her car and found her grandma there waiting for her. “Have I done something wrong?”

“Not at all. Please, let’s just go to that park we used to go to when you were younger.” Nodding, she got into the car after unlocking it. Grandma situated herself and buckled in. They were on their way to Glidden Park in just a short few minutes.

They didn’t get out of the car, it was too crowded with children running around at the park. Also, she thought it was just a little too chilly for them to be just sitting around talking. Turning to her grandma after turning the car off, she asked her to explain.

“I knew that you’d accept what I was saying. I also know that it hurt you to do that. I love you,Taylor. I couldn’t have loved you more for that. But it’s been difficult for me too…you understand, don’t you? Why I don’t want to have those nasty treatments.” She told her that she did, but it didn’t hurt her any less. “Good. I’d like to think that you’re going to miss me, even if it’s just a little bit.”

They both laughed, they both knowing that it was going to shatter her to lose her after all this time. As they sat there, admiring the beautiful fall afternoon, Grandma started telling her about her life with her late husband. Grandpa Charles. Another family member that she didn’t remember.

“My Charlie was full of adventure. He was such a good man and a sap as well.” She signed heavily. “There were times in our life that I despaired of us having a roof over our heads. But he always knew what to do when the time was right. Buying and selling things, even things that he’d pick up at garage sales and things like that. I so wish he could have known you. You’re so much like him that it’s scary at times.”

“Thank you.” She nodded, and Taylor waited for her to say more. When she didn’t, Taylor decided to talk to her about Hudson. “Why him? I mean, you have to know a great many other attorneys that would jump at the chance to help you out with your will?”

“That’s precisely it. He wouldn’t jump at the chance. He’d watch the others fumble through what I wanted and wait until they messed things up so much that he’d have to step in and take over. He and his wife have a lovely family now and I do believe you’ve heard of the foundation that he is a part of. Tucker Charities.”

“Yes. They’re helping me get some land to put the distribution center for the companies that I own put in his town. That charity is a big deal, did you know that? Of course, you did.” Smiling, she reached for Grandma’s hand and held it. “I could finance it myself, but I want the people in the town to have jobs. One of the…I don’t remember her name right now but she got in contact with my office begging for an interview. She said that she had a lot of people out of work who would do just about anything to have a steady paycheck. I have a meeting with her tomorrow.”

“Good girl. You take them on.” Grandma yawned. “I’m so full that I need a good long nap. I’m not saying the forever kind. I still have a little more juice in my old body. But I’m meeting with Hudson this evening to get things squared away with my will. Thank you, Taylor. I knew that I could depend on you.”

After dropping off her grandma, Taylor made her way home. She didn’t have a house but a condo that she had hated since the moment that she moved in, more than likely the reason that she didn’t have any furniture in the place, not even a table with chairs. And it had been eleven years since she’d purchased hers and the rest of the condos in the subdivision where she lived.

Lying down herself, she decided that she needed a nap as well. All those carbs were catching up to her. As soon as she put her head on her pillow, she was out, not even bothering to turn off any of the lights in her room.

~*~

Jack had made sure that after having dinner together, Mrs. Murphy and his brother Hudson weren’t disturbed. He’d only just opened up the private area where parties could be held in the restaurant, and he was glad that Hudson had asked to use it. It made him feel like he was liking Jack’s.

When Ivy came into the restaurant, he smiled, taking his nephews in his arms for a hug. Archie said he was too old for hugs, so his sister, Lisa, shoved him out of her way and hugged him too. She asked him why he always hugged her last.

“Because, my dear, you give the best hugs.” She hugged him again. “I take it you’re here for dinner? I have a lot of things on the menu that I hope are kid friendly. You wouldn’t want to try a few of them out for me, would you?”

“I would love to, but…oh, the heck with it. Homework can wait until later. Yes, we’d love to have dinner. But don’t go out of your way for us to have food. The kids will eat just about anything.” He told her that he had brussel sprouts and steak tar-tar for them. “I’ll have you know that they all eat brussel sprouts.”

“No, we don’t. We have to eat them. We don’t like them.” He kissed Lisa on the head beforeseating them. He had been going to have lunch, too, since it was after the lunch crowd and had the waitstaff bring him a burger and fries. It wasn’t on the menu yet; he’d been playing around with different buns, but he thought that he’d had it right.

“I’m batting a thousand with the kids’ menu, I think.” The kids had wandered off to sit in another booth. He knew that they’d not run around and be heathens, as Grannie used to call kids but sit quietly and color. “I got the coloring pages printed up just yesterday. Shawn did a wonderful job on it. Instead of just being something that older kids would like, she made it something that everyone loved. So tell me, what’s wrong? You didn’t just come in here to have lunch. I know you better than that, sister dear.”

“I’m pregnant again. I’m thrilled, don’t get me wrong, but I’m also enjoying getting out in the world too.” He didn’t understand and told her that. “I’ll have to stop working. We’d only just figured out that I was going to be the one working. I enjoyed it so much that Hudson would stay at home and only take things that interested him. Now this.”

“I don’t see why that has to change. I mean, I don’t have children, nor have I ever had a baby, but I don’t understand why you think you’d enjoy your job any less than you do after the baby is born.” She cried a little before he could figure things out. “Oh honey, don’t cry. Hudson will murder me if he thinks that I caused those tears.”

“What about after the baby is born?” He shrugged, still clueless about what she was upset about. “I mean, Hudson won’t be able to nurse the baby. It’ll all be on me to be there for that.”

“I see. I want to tell you something. This might have just come about, but I hear they have this thing called formula. Someone feeds it to the baby when you’re not at home.” She smacked his hand. “Also, I doubt very much that anyone would care as much as Hudson will that you don’t want to be stuck at home nursing a baby all the time. I don’t know how long that takes. Again, I can’t have children, but it’s surely not an all-day event, right?”

“A few hours a day.” He nodded, then asked her if she could, and he assured her that he didn’t know. Couldn’t she just put it in a bottle for the baby or have Hudson bring it in to her. “When did you become so brilliant with matters of a child, Jack? Surely, you’ve not been hiding a child away from us.”

“Nope. I’ve always been brilliant. I just don’t let it out there as much as the others do.” She smacked him again but with laughter. “I don’t know what I said that had you smiling but I’ll do whatever you need to make it so that you do it all the time. I’m sure that my brother will be thrilled too to have to feed the baby on his own. I’ve never seen a man so devoted to being a stay-at-home dad. Yesterday, he told me he was taking the kids to swim class. He looked to me like he’d invented the project.”

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