Page 19 of Annika's Aurora

On the way out of the room, the picture of him in his dress uniform caught his attention. “How did Mama Jo get that?”

“What?” she asked, poking her head back through the threshold.

“That picture of me in the middle.”

“Oh. Your grandmother. Mom spotted it one night when we were making dinner for her. She asked if she could take it to make a copy.” She turned and started walking down the hall again. He followed in disbelief.

“You made dinner for my grandmother?”

“Yeah. All the time.”

Suddenly stopping as he entered the room, he asked, “What?”

“What what?” She reached into the fridge for the eggs.

“You spent time with my grandma?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Because you never did before.”

“She was never alone before. She always had you around to take care of things. Mom figured you were family, so that made Grandma Jean family. And family takes care of one another.”

His heart squeezed painfully again. Not only did he have guilt for abandoning the Northrups, but now he felt shame for not looking after his grandmother more often. She never told him the Northrups were helping her out.Christ, he really was a fucking ass.

“But she hated you.”

Annika laughed as she placed a pat of butter in the saucepan. It sizzled as it melted. “She’d mellowed a lot after the funeral.” She stopped fussing with the food for a moment. “Did she ever tell you she came?” He shook his head. “She came to the funeral and afterward she gave me the biggest hug. God Logan, she’d squeezed me so tight. From that moment on, she became my grandmother as much as she was yours.”

“She never said a word to me.”

“I guess she figured you needed time to grieve and bringing up the family you were trying to distance yourself from would have been too painful for you.” She went back to cooking, cracking eggs into the melted butter.

Logan joined her in the kitchen and grabbed the coffee carafe. He took a few minutes while he made the coffee to let this new information sink in.

“She really did care about me,” he mused.

“She loved you. She just didn’t always know the best way of showing you.” She placed a few slices of bread into the toaster and pressed the lever down. “I was with her when she died.”

He was in the process of taking the mugs down and that revelation startled him so much that he knocked one of the mugs against the edge of the shelf. “What?”

Annika dumped the eggs onto two plates and put bacon in the pan to cook. “Those last few weeks, we knew it was only a matter of time. One of us was with Grandma Jean at all times. We took shifts. It just happened to have been my time. I sat with her and held her hand. She spoke of you,” she finished quietly.

“What … what did she say?” He was so stunned he could hardly think of the words.

Flipping the bacon, she replied. “Well, she regretted how strict she’d always been with you. I told her that you knew she was just trying to protect you, that she didn’t want you to turn out like your mother. She started talking about the day you left and that she’d never seen you like that before. How did she put it?” she mused as she put the bacon on the plates with the eggs. “So lost. Haunted was the word I think she used. She told me she never understood why you cut yourself off from all of us.”

She picked up the plates and put them on the table. As she went back for the toast, he saw her wipe yet another tear away. “Just before … just before she passed, she patted my hand, telling me to be patient. That you would come home and would need me and made me promise that I would stay strong for you. And she asked me to forgive you. I told her there was nothing to forgive. She smiled and closed her eyes. Then she was gone,” Annika finished as she sniffed back more tears.

His shock so profound, he was unable to do or say anything as he watched Annika put the toast on a plate and grab the butter and jelly. She gestured for him to join her as she sat. He forced his legs to obey and went to sit at the table with her. He picked up his fork but still couldn’t get his brain to function.

Finally finding his voice, he spoke … bumbling through his words. “I … But … none of you were at the funeral.”

“Oh, umm, we figured you had a reason for cutting us off. We didn’t want to create a scene as you buried Grandma Jean. We had a private moment, just the three of us, at her grave after everyone had left.”

Still too stunned to think of anything to say, he stared at her with his fork hovering over his plate. “I saw you that day,” she continued, surprising him even more. “My parents and I were sitting in the car waiting for everyone to leave. You were standing next to her all alone. So handsome in your uniform. But you looked … I wanted to run to you. Wrap my arms around you.” She sniffed again, looking like she was desperately trying to control her emotions. “My hand was on the door handle. I’d nearly had it open when Dad reminded me that I needed to let you go. It nearly killed me to stay in my seat. I couldn’t stop crying.”

She stopped and took a deep breath. “When you’d finally left, we got out of the car. It was then I noticed the tears on Mom’s face. I never asked her if they were for me or for you.”

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