Page 95 of Fierce

All the excitement, all the inspiration of my new ideas were gone. I sank into a wooden chair in the garden, put my head in my hand, and said, “What now?”

I heard the sigh, the disappointment and the pain, and guilt sliced through me again. Guilt, and shame, too, that I’d hurt my grandfather, that he didn’t think he could ask this of me. That he thought I’d been talking about him, when he was the only one who’d been there. The one person, just like Hope had said. The person I’d been able to count on, always.

“He’s lost that job in the mattress factory,” he said now, his own shame coming through so clearly. “For the drink, or worse, I’m thinking, though he’s not telling. He says he wants to go into a program, that he’s ready to get help. Maybe he just wants a place to stay, who knows, but if he wants to try, he should try. And I’m sorry to ask you. I’d shout him the money for it if I could, but—”

“Yeh. I know.” Not that I believed. You could only have your hopes dashed so many times before you stopped hoping, and I’d stopped hoping a long, long time ago. “No worries. I’ll take care of it. If it’s a program, if he actually does it, send me their bank info and I’ll pay them. Directly. But I won’t pay him.”

“No,” Koro said. “Course. We’ll see if he actually does it. And I’ll let you know.”

“Right,” I said. “And...I’m sorry.”

“I know you are.”

He rang off, and I wouldn’t say it was the best moment I’d had that weekend. But it didn’t turn out to be the worst, either.

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