Page 17 of You, with a View

Finally he says, “It’s no surprise you have so many questions, or that you don’t know much about your grandmother’s life prior to her marriage to your grandfather. Our relationship was not well received by her family, and when she left school, she didn’t leave with many reminders of our time together.”

“So you kept all this for her?”

“For us,” he corrects gently. “When our relationship ended, it wasn’t acrimonious. We wanted to make sure it’d always be a lovely memory.”

“But she made it a secret,” I say, watching as he begins pulling items from the box.

“No.” Again he corrects me. It’s still soft, but there’s steel behind it. “Whatever life she and I wanted, planned, or talked about was never going to be. Kathleen keeping a box of reminders of how she’d defied her parents would’ve prolonged her grief. Her parents and brother knew the whole story once it was over. I imagine it was initially too painful for her to recount further, and by the time you came into the world, well...” He smiles. “Life goes on.”

I look for pain or anger on Paul’s face, but all I see is nostalgia mixed with affection, softened with time.

“Your letter to her mentioned an elopement,” I venture.

“Yes, we did make plans to elope.”

“But it never happened. Because of her parents?”

“It was...” He pauses thoughtfully, his gaze going to the sky. “Not just that issue, but her parents were certainly the biggest hurdle to overcome.”

“Why didn’t her parents like you?”

He laughs. “Where to begin? We had one mess of a dinner with our families where everyone made it clear where they stood on a variety of subjects, including whether Kat and I should be together.”

“What were the other subjects?” Theo asks.

“Well, over appetizers, my mother got going on women taking a more prominent place in the workforce, which Kat’s homemaker mother thought was shocking. She already wasn’t thrilled that her daughter was at college. She wanted her to get her MRS degree.” Paul eyes us. “Do you know that phrase?”

I nod. “They wanted her to find a husband.”

“Right you are. I just wasn’t the one she was supposed to find,” he says with a little smile. “The most insurmountable thing, though, was that my father and I were outspoken about the US military taking action internationally. I even went so far as to say I’d be a conscientious objector if things in Vietnam ramped up. It wasn’t something her career-military father or her brother, who’d gotten a Purple Heart in Korea, wanted to hear.” He shakes his head. “In hindsight I should’ve bitten my tongue when the subject came up. Kat had prepped me not to bring up anything political in nature, but my temper got the best of me. That night was enough to set the path to disaster, though Kat and I didn’t give up afterward.”

“I see.”

And I do. My memories of my great-grandparents are fuzzy. I was young when they died. But I do remember my great-grandfather was an old-school, solemn man who’d shoot puzzled looks at my wild hair and Thomas’s pink T-shirts, even as he let us crawl all over him during Thanksgiving dinner. My tenderhearted, progressively minded dad had a complicated relationship with his grandfather. Gram did, too. But she loved him deeply, and he doted on her, even though it’s clearer to me now that his love could be destructive. One of my most vivid childhood memories was Gram crying at his funeral while I clutched her hand.

My thoughts go to Paul’s letter, his acknowledgment of their permanent separation. With this new context, it breaks my heart even more for both of them. “You said in that letter you would love her your entire life.”

He nods. “I did, and I will.” He places a stack of pictures in front of me, but I don’t pick them up yet. “She was my first great love. I was hers, as well. But your grandfather was her last.”

“Who was your last great love?”

“My wife, Vera. She passed last fall, but we had twenty-three wonderful years together.”

I put my hand over his. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

He pats my hand, his blue eyes watery. “I appreciate that.”

My curiosity over Theo’s other grandma—his biological one—is gnawing at me. But, given that she and Paul divorced, I’m going to assume it’s a story I don’t have a right to ask about.

Theo takes the seat across from us. His hat is back on his head, shading his eyes and any emotion lurking there. But I notice a distinct lack of surprise.

“Do you know all of this?” I ask.

“A lot of it,” he says.

“The marriage stuff, too?”

Theo says again, stoically, “A lot of it, I think.”

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