The Truth About Us

Her grandfather did this to them. The consequences of his choices had finally caught up with him. She’d like to say she was powerless to stop it, but she knew otherwise. Because she made a choice, too. The right one. She only wished that knowledge made the fallout easier.

CHAPTER THIRTY

Three weeks. The amount of time it took to change a life.

One month. The amount of time it took to strip a Nazi war criminal of his citizenship and set the ball rolling on extradition.

Abby waited inside the dingy confines of a room inside the federal prison where she waited to see her grandfather for the first time since his arrest, courtesy of Mr. Levine. In the three-hour drive there, she had a lot of time to think. It seemed time for contemplation was in abundance lately. Hours upon hours, with her thoughts spinning ‘round-and-‘round.

She stood, staring at the metal bars as she waited. Her grandfather was officially no longer a U.S. citizen. She wondered how it felt for him even as the war inside her continued to rage, torn between not caring and being unable to help herself.

A part of her still had trouble comprehending it all. There were moments where she’d wake in the morning or get lost in a movie and all of it vanished from her mind as though it never happened in the first place. Then, she’d blink and all the events of the last month and a half would start trickling back, seeming like it happened ages ago rather than only a few weeks. And then it would hit her—the reality of it all. GG was gone and so was her grandfather. Not only was he gone, but life looked very different than it had prior to her grandmother’s death.

After her grandfather’s arrest, a media storm ensued. Several news stations camped outside their home, hoping to interview the family of the infamous “Butcher of Auschwitz”. Her mother was let go from the law firm she practiced at, and her father’s firm had suggested he take a break until the “storm died down”.

Needing a soft place to fall, for the first time Abby could remember, they took an extended vacation. The school was kind enough to allow Abby to finish her coursework remotely, either that or they didn’t want the media attention to trickle on to school grounds. Her mother started taking her to a church on Sunday. Maybe it was the comfort of a community she sought, ones who weren’t supposed to judge them. Or maybe she needed something to believe in, something to give her faith since all hers had been torn to shreds. Whatever the reason, it soothed Abby.

Despite the havoc in their lives, in many ways, shedding their family secret brought them even closer together while expanding their social circle. Among the headlines, Abby’s favorite had been the article giving Mr. Oliver credit for questioning Lawson’s death and spurring an investigation which led to her grandfather’s arrest. Though thinly veiled, the lie worked.

The telltale sound of footsteps approached, bringing her back to the present. Her pulse twitched at the clanging of something metal as she willed herself to remain calm.

The guard came into view first. He opened the door to the room while two officers held onto her grandfather’s arms, guiding him inside, then motioning for him to take a seat in the empty chair across from her.

Chains tethered his legs while cuffs adorned his wrists. They made no move to remove them.

“You have ten minutes,” the guard said. Turning to Abby, he added, “We’ll be just outside.” He motioned to a large glass window overlooking the room, and Abby nodded.

She focused on her grandfather and swallowed. A cut on the corner of his lip drew her eye, and she wondered how he got it. Did someone hurt him? Did he cause trouble?

Her stomach clenched as his hollow eyes blinked over at her in their assessment. Sitting across from him, she in shorts and a ratty t-shirt, and he in his prison-ordered uniform spoke of some twilight universe she had been unprepared for. Apparently, there was no set time for healing and acceptance. No timeframe for the human brain to ascertain reality because as she sat there, taking him in, Abby had trouble wrapping her head around what she saw, despite her knowledge of all that he had done.

All the things she had wanted to say escaped her.

“I had hoped your mother would come.” His voice rasped in the silence.

“She’s not ready.”

“But you were?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” She wanted to say she wasn’t sure if she’d ever be ready, but she was there, wasn’t she?

“I’m surprised you came at all.” His voice echoed off the walls. “But I’m glad you did.” He smiled, but for reasons she couldn’t explain, the gesture ignited something inside her.

“I came for me, Grandpa. Not you. Me.” Abby looked away, swallowing over the lump in her throat. “Mom sat, staring at nothing for two weeks. She barely moved, not even to eat and sleep. Did you know she was fired? Because of all of this? Finally, she’s doing better.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Abby raised her hand. “Don’t. Just don’t try to act like you care because if you did, none of this would be happening. You can’t sit there and act like the loving grandfather now.”

“But I do love you.”

Abby shook her head. “It was all a lie. Our lives, everything. It was all built on a pocket of air. None of it was ever real, and this entire time all of us were just waiting for the bubble to burst, the pocket to collapse. Only, we didn’t know it, which was the worst part.”

Her grandfather turned his gaze away from her, staring at the far wall, his mind in a distant place. “What do you want me to say?” he asked, his tone dead.

“Nothing.”

She swallowed. After a beat, she asked, “Would you have killed me? If you had known I was going to turn you in, would you have stopped me?”