Gran was safe and neutral. I needed both at the moment.
I waited for her at the bottom of the steps and offered my arm, unsurprised when she swatted me away.
“Hold your horses. I don’t want those assholes to think I’m helpless,” Gran huffed, fiddling with the beads on her chunky pearl necklace. When the van turned the corner, she slipped her arm through mine and smiled. “Now you may offer assistance. And may I add, I’m very happy to see you, Christopher Robin. Every last person on that bus was old as hell.”
“Older than you?”
She snorted. “Bite your tongue. You know I like to spread out, so no one sits next to me, but I wasn’t quick enough today. A blue-haired biddy with a knitting bag the size of Cleveland flopped beside me and told me her whole damn life story. It was torture. She apparently was visiting her sister, Margaret, to help her choose her gravestone.”
“That’s…morbid.”
Gran waved dismissively, shuffling ahead of me into the house when I opened the door. “Nah, it’s life. The morbid thing was her knitting. Her poor granddaughter better be a damn good actress, ’cause she’s gettin’ a lulu of a present for her birthday.”
The sound of her cackling followed me into the kitchen.
“Sounds like you made a new friend,” I said, filling the kettle with water.
“I’m skipping tea and going straight for the good stuff.” She grabbed a bottle of scotch before settling into her favorite chair near the window. “Darling, will you hand me a glass, please? And bring the cards. Feel like a game of gin rummy?”
“Um…sure. How’s Grandpa?”
“He was good. Complained about canned fruit salad and warm butter packets…and who can blame him?” She thanked me when I set a glass with two ice cubes in front of her. She unscrewed the top and poured her drink with a steady hand as she launched into a funny story about Grandpa raving over the cookies in the cafeteria. “They’re awful. They taste like cardboard and weigh as much as a damn hockey puck. I think that old coot forgot my famous chocolate chip cookies. I think I’ll make some this afternoon to bring him tomorrow and—honey, the kettle is boiling.”
“Oh. Right.” I hurried to turn it off, then stood in front of the cabinet, staring at the chipped white paint, unseeing.
“Christopher?”
“Yeah?”
She didn’t reply. I heard her chair scrape the tile floor and felt her hand on my shoulder a moment later.
“What’s wrong, my darling?”
I leaned against the counter before meeting her gaze. “I’m experiencing myocardial stress.”
She narrowed her eyes shrewdly. “You have a broken heart?”
I sucked in a deep breath and released it with a raggedy sigh. “Yes,” I croaked.
“Come here.”
Gran opened her arms wide and pulled me close. The familiar smell of her strong perfume and the crackle and hum of her voice soothed something deep in my soul. I probably looked ridiculous, clinging to an eighty-five-year-old woman for support, but she was a rock. And I desperately needed her strength and solidity.
I gave her one last hug and straightened. “Thanks. I’ll be okay.”
“Come sit. Tell me what happened,” she cajoled, moving back to the table.
She pushed her glass aside and covered my hand when I joined her. Her skin was practically translucent against mine…cold, bony, and wrinkled, but it was somehow so beautiful.
“He got the call he’s been waiting for.” I squeezed her fingers impulsively and filled her in, then sighed. “I’m happy for him. I am, but…”
“You wanted the moon.”
“Yeah, I guess I did. And that’s so stupid. I know better than that. I knew I didn’t stand a chance but—”
“Hogwash! You stand a chance when you take a chance. I’m going to tell you a secret, Christopher Robin. The greatest mysteries of life are not found in a textbook. They’re found when you take risks. Yes, that means you might get hurt. It means things won’t always go your way. But you learn something every time, so you never really lose.”
“Maybe.” I sighed.
“I’m an old lady. I know things. When you’re young, you build and you grow. When you’re old, you learn to balance joy and sorrow with choices and outcomes you can’t always control. It’s not science when the heart meets the soul, is it? That’s far more precious.”
Gran twisted a bead of her necklace and continued. “I wore my best pearls and hopped into a van with a bunch of old folks to pay a daily visit to the man I’ve loved for seventy years. We talked about your mom and you for a while, then made fun of the Jell-O molds his mother insisted on hanging all over her kitchen. We laughed and then we were quiet again. When we said good-bye, he told me he loved me. It was that simple, ‘Love ya, June’ he always says. Nothing overly romantic, but it’s mine. Sometimes I wonder what I’ll do when he’s gone or what he’ll do without me if I go first. I scare myself thinking about how lost we’ll both be. But that’s foolish. I have to be grateful. I followed my heart, took a chance, and it led me to exactly the right place.”