Page 9 of When You're Gone

Ben looks dejected and I can tell he’s not impressed that Marcy knows something about Nana that she never shared with us. I know he feels this way because I feel it, too. I’ve no right to, I know. Especially as Marcy said Nana was talking about it in her sleep. I guess it just hurts a little. My grandmother knows me inside out, and I thought I knew her too. But I didn’t even know that she liked to draw when she was younger. What else don’t I know about her? I’m hyperaware that time is running out. There aren’t enough days left to hear all of Nana’s old stories again, to hear the ones I never had the patience to listen to before. I should have paid more attention. I shouldn’t have been so obsessed with travelling or work. I can’t get that time back now, but I wish I could.

I stare at the paper. Every page is the same size, each one sitting comfortably behind the other like the pages of a book.

‘A book. Oh my God, a book,’ I say, suddenly jumping up.

Ben stares at me as if I’ve lost my mind and I laugh with excitement. Everything finally makes sense. Nana is the greatest bookworm I know, so it doesn’t surprise me that she hid a story in here. This is so much better than finding paintings. This is Nana. My Nana.

I take off my cardigan and flatten it out on the floor next to the mound of paper. Ben watches me but we don’t speak. I lift the front page and just as I expected the very next page is awash with blue ink. Handwritten. The next page is the same. And the next. Every time I lift a page from the top of the stack, I place it face downwards on my cardigan. There are no numbers on any page, so I decide this is the best way to keep them organised for now. Ben smiles and nods his approval of my method.

‘Is this Nana’s writing?’ Ben asks as we work our way through the pile of paper between us.

‘Looks like it,’ I say.

Ben’s smile flatlines, and he puts the page in his hand back on top of the pile, messing up the order. I quickly swap it to rest face downwards on my cardigan. Ben doesn’t seem to notice. He’s busy sliding his bum back across the timber floor, but he doesn’t stand.

‘Holly, I don’t know if we should be doing this. Going through Nana’s stuff as if she’s… as if she’s… Well, it’s not right. Not while she’s still… you know, with us.’

‘That just it, Ben. Nanaisstill with us. I don’t know for how long. But she’s still here. So get your head out of your arse and help me figure out what this means.’

‘It’s a diary or something,’ Ben says. ‘There. We figured it out. Now can we please go back downstairs?’

‘It’s not a diary, Ben,’ I say, reading over the current upturned page.

My eyes nearly burst out of my head as I notice a pattern jumping out at me.Sketch. The word is mentioned every so often, at least once a page and sometimes more.

‘What the hell, Holly. Why are you smiling like that?’ Ben says.

My smile grows, much to Ben’s frustration.

‘That’s it,’ Ben snaps. ‘I’m out of here.’

I reach up and grab the sleeve of Ben’s jumper, pulling him back down as he attempts to stand and storm off.

‘This isn’t a diary, you wally,’ I say elated. ‘It’s a book. Nana’s book. Nana was a writer. I knew it. I bloody knew it. Can you believe it?’

Ben twitches. ‘A book? No way.’

‘Yeah. I know. Awesome, right?’ I say. ‘And, I think it might be an autobiography.’

I drag my finger across the letters S-K-E-T-C-H jotted in various paragraphs. ‘Marcy said, Nana’s been mumbling about art, right?’

‘Um. Okay. Yeah’ Ben says, clearly intrigued.

‘Well, I don’t think she means art,’ I explain. ‘Well, not art as in painting and drawing and stuff like that. Nana wasn’t telling Marcy about paintings; she was telling Marcy about a person. A man. A man named Sketch. A boyfriend, I think.’

‘Our grandfather,’ Ben’s eyes sparkle with curiosity.

‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ I say.

‘But it could be, couldn’t it?’ Ben says.

‘Yeah,’ I nod. ‘I s’pose.’

‘Do you ever wonder why Nana doesn’t talk about him?’ Ben says.

‘Sketch?’ I ask.

‘Grandad. Sketch. Just that part of her past,’ Ben says. ‘I think it makes her sad or something.’

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