The Truth About Us

His blue eyes turned to ice. “I would never.”

“It’s not that farfetched. It seems you shut everyone else up. It would’ve been easy.” Abby shrugged. “A small car accident. Loosening my brakes is all it would’ve taken.”

“You can hate me. You can say what you want. Call me a monster, but you’re family. I did it for all of you. I couldn’t bear for you to find out. For you to look at me the way you’re looking at me now. Like you don’t know me. Like I hadn’t just devoted most of my life to loving all of you, to taking care of you—"

“But some things can’t be erased, Grandpa. I shouldn’t have to explain that to you. It’s like talking to a child.”

“Maybe not. But I just thought...” His voice cracked. “I thought, what’s two more deaths when tens of thousands already rest on my shoulders?”

Abby’s mind reeled. She stared at him with wide eyes. Maybe if she looked hard enough, the person in front of her might change because she couldn’t reconcile this man and the one she grew up with were one and the same.

“Do you even hear yourself? What’s one more death? It’s a life. Let me tell you. Lawson had a daughter. She’s lonely. She spends her days rescuing cats because it’s the only way she can cope. McBride, I don’t know much about him, but he had a wife somewhere. And, yeah, maybe he wasn’t the best husband, but he was still a person who deserved the chance to either fess up to his mistakes or reconcile. They had lives, people who loved them.”

No longer able to look at him, she shifted her gaze to a crack in the cement floor.

“What do you want from me?” he asked.

&

nbsp; “I don’t want anything,” she said. “I needed to see you one last time. To...I don’t know why.”

Closure was such a tricky concept. Such a trivial word for such an insurmountable task, unable to adequately describe her situation. She had exchanged the only words she needed to with him prior to his arrest. Regardless, things felt unfinished. Like there was something left unsaid.

“I don’t blame you,” he said.

The words sunk to her stomach like a rock, and she knew. This is why she came. Because even though she had done the right thing, she somehow needed his absolution. Because the little girl inside her still loved him. No matter how much time passed or how many days she spent contemplating the heinous things he did in his lifetime, she couldn’t erase eighteen years of loving the grandfather who had been there for her.

Something lifted from her shoulders as she recognized her grandfather’s words for what they were. A peace offering. Despite the monster inside, he was human. He loved. And he wanted to offer Abby something she hadn’t even known she needed.

Abby’s gaze slid to her grandfather, and her eyes filled. She nodded, unable to say anything else, unsure if there was even anything left. She was empty. Drained.

She stood and reached out to him, grasping his fingers one last time, then let go. “Bye, Grandpa.”

“Go to the house.” His voice echoed off the walls, and she turned, curious and afraid of what he might say. “In my hiding place, in the floor in the den. You know the one?”

Abby nodded. As a kid, her grandfather hid things there: the pipe he hadn’t wanted her to know he smoked, an antique pocket watch, valuable collectors’ coins, cash, and even some of GG’s more expensive jewelry. What she hadn’t known until years later was that her grandfather had discovered she knew where it was and took to storing little gifts for Abby there, knowing she would check on her visits. A bag of candy, a stuffed toy, special crayons, or coloring books.

“I took some things from your grandmother’s safety deposit box. Some I destroyed, but some I kept. I hid them there. There’s a letter from her. I didn’t open it.” His voice shook, as he struggled to finish. “Take it and read it. It’s yours.”

Abby’s heart lurched. With a nod, she turned and left him behind.

THE QUIET OF HER GRANDPARENTS’ house unnerved her. She hadn’t been back inside since GG’s funeral, and as she glided over the polished hardwood floors, memories surrounded her. She took in the high beams, the cathedral ceiling, crown molding, and the expansive staircase. When she passed the built-in shelves in the den, she lifted the framed photographs to view them closer, all snapshots of varying phases of their lives. Abby and her grandfather fishing. Pictures of their yearly vacations to the beach. One of her mother and father posing by their new home, her mother’s stomach swelling with life. Myriads of photographs of varying stages of Abby’s life—splashing in the bathtub as a baby, eating her first ice cream, graduating Kindergarten, entering high school. In all of them, they smiled, the picture of happiness, and Abby knew they’d never be the same again.

Why did things have to change when everything had been so perfect?

Had it been perfect though? A voice inside her head told her it had not. For years, Abby withdrew from friendships when they got sticky. She avoided confrontation, disagreements, or new relationships because they meant putting herself out there, something she had never been comfortable doing. Instead, she relied solely on her family. And look how that turned out.

Abby shifted the loveseat, finding the rectangle of wooden floor that had been parsed together and knelt down. She wiggled her index finger under the single notch on the corner and lifted.

With a pop, the piece of wood came off, and Abby reached inside. Shoulder-deep, she searched inside like a wishful child, for some long-lost gift her grandfather had left her. When she pulled out her grandfather’s coin boxes, then his pipe, she went back for more. Something crumpled in her hand, so she grabbed it and revealed a brown paper sack. Dumping the contents out, she stared at a manila envelope, along with a small key and several documents.

Staring up at her were photocopies of the documents in Lawson’s file. The key, she assumed, was to GG’s safety deposit box. Reaching for the manila envelope, Abby opened it, wondering if this was the clue GG had spoken of in her letters. The one she had been too afraid to look at.

Ripping it open, Abby discovered a letter along with a photograph.

Steeling herself for what she might see, she turned the picture over. The faded black and white image of a man stared back at her. Though his skin was smooth and his skin youthful, there was no mistaking the sharp line of his jaw, the aristocratic nose, or the penetrating eyes. The German soldier who smiled proudly for the camera was a younger version of her grandfather.

“Irma Mentz,” she whispered.