Page 94 of The Problem with Falling
“In need of company?” I called out as I walked over to her.
She glanced over her shoulder and then back at me. “Always if the company is you.”
I smiled and sat down on the dock beside her. I placed my hands on my lap and released a heavy sigh. “Yesterday was—”
“A circus.” Grandma laughed, shaking her head. “Luckily enough, Harry loved clowns.”
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t the send-off PaPa deserved.”
“It was the send-off he would’ve wanted, though. It was real. Life is complicated and hard and real. I don’t want you to think for a second PaPa would’ve thought everything would’ve been perfect. He knew how complex life could be. He would’ve understood.”
I grimaced. “I’m still processing most of yesterday.”
“We all are. And we might be doing that for a while, which is okay. We’re all still grieving, too. We’ll come out on the other side.” She leaned against my arm. “Peter stopped by this morning to apologize.”
“He made a bit of a scene last night.”
“Yeah, well, who hasn’t made a scene once in their lives? You know, when my mother died, my sister threw a whole peach pie at me because she thought I was trying to show off by making Mama’s favorite pie. Hit me square in the face.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Betty pied you?”
“Pied the heck out of me. So I did the only thing I could think to do. I picked up the coconut crème pie and smeared it on her face. We ended up in a wrestling match in front of everyone.”
“Bullshit,” I murmured, stunned.
“I know. Watch your language, but I know. I remember being ashamed for being a part of that big scene. Afterward, I was crying in the bathroom, wiping pie out of my nose, and Harry appeared. He began cleaning the pie out of my hair, and I sobbed, telling him how embarrassed and ashamed I’d been. Mind you, my mother passed away when I was young, and Harry and I had only been on a handful of dates at that point. I wasalmost certain he’d think I was a madwoman and end things with me. But do you know what he said?”
“What’s that?”
She turned to me, and her eyes were packed with tears. “What’s life without a little mess?”
That was PaPa for you—the greatest man to ever live.
“Then he took me home and made me a peach pie. We ate it all at two in the morning.” She placed a hand against my knee and patted it. “So I know you and Peter both feel heavy guilt about last night. But grief has a way of stirring up a lot of emotions that have not been dealt with. You two have been butting heads for years now. It’s no surprise it all came out finally.”
“I should’ve never crossed that line with Thalia,” I said.
“Yes, well…messes happen. Now all we can do is clean them up.” She patted my leg. “Like the mess I’ve made with your mother.”
My stomach knotted up at the mention of her. “It’s going to take me a minute to wrap my mind around all of that.”
“I know. And I’m sorry she showed up. I’m even more sorry that we didn’t tell you. We thought we were doing the right thing by keeping it from you, but clearly, that was wrong.”
“I wish you had told me.”
“I do, too. I wish even more so that I had enough strength to say I didn’t want Christina around after she left, but…she’s my baby. Even with all the heartbreak, she’ll always be my little girl. That’s the curse of parenthood, I think. Caring all the time, no matter what.”
“That trait must’ve skipped over my mother.”
“I doubt it. She probably just keeps all that trauma to herself.” She shifted her body on the dock. “She left town this morning. Said she wouldn’t be back around. I told her that was probably for the best for a while.”
“You don’t have to stop seeing her because of me.”
Grandma placed a hand on my forearm. “I love you, Theo.”
I almost smiled. “Love you, too.”
She turned and looked out at the water. “We’re gonna be all right, aren’t we? It might take some time, but we’ll get there.”
