Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

“Yeah, Rye. Hey.”

The man looked at him intently—studied him, really. His face softened and for a horrifying moment, it looked like he might cry. When he spoke again, his voice was husky.

“You look a lot like your granddaddy.”

Such a banal phrase, but it struck Rye like a wrecking ball. He didn’t look like either of his parents. They both had lighter hair; his mother had softer bone structure than Rye and his father had blunter features. He’d never been told he looked like anyone in his family and he’d never met any of them. His mom muttered about a sister she didn’t get along with occasionally, but that was the only information Rye’d ever gotten.

“I...do?”

He nodded. “May I?”

Rye scooted in so he could sit down.

“You knew my grandfather? That lawyer guy said he didn’t think he was close to anyone in town.”

“I knew him all right. We had breakfast together the first Tuesday of the month for twenty-six years. Early, before most folks were even up. Here.”

He placed a gnarled finger on the table.

“At Peach’s?” Rye asked.

“At this booth. When Melba called me and said you’d picked Granger’s booth I about galloped over. Had to see for myself. And here you are. And I’ll be goddamned if those aren’t Granger’s eyes stuck right in your head.”

Ghoulish phrasing aside, Rye was strangely touched to have something in common with this man he’d never met. The man who was giving him the chance to start over—a chance he’d never thought he would have.

Rye’s mind was everywhere at once. Had they been friends? Lovers? Well, if they were lovers, Rye hoped they saw each other more than once a month! But maybe they saw each other all the time and it was just that they had breakfast here once a month—

Rye darted a look at Charlie, who raised his eyebrows and nodded at him. Rye interpreted that as Say something; don’t just sit there speculating about your grandfather’s decades-long love affair with an aging cowboy Batman!

“Um. I’m very sorry,” Rye said. “That he died. For you, I mean. I didn’t know him.”

Rye glared at himself, but then he heard creaky laughter from the man next to him.

“Sorry, what’s your name?” Rye asked. “I feel weird calling everyone mister.”

“Clive.”

“Thanks. Anyway, I just meant—”

“I know what you meant, son. Your granddaddy didn’t have the manners god gave a rock either. I liked that about him. Meant I was usually pretty sure what I was getting was the truth.”

Rye shot Charlie a look: See, I’m not rude, I’m honest.

“So you were...friends?”

“That’s right. I was his only friend around these parts. But that was the way he liked it. People found him odd. Off-putting. Probably because he didn’t care for company much. Didn’t ask after folks’ families the way you ought to.” He shrugged. “I never cared about that. But he was a good talker. Had big ideas and big wonder. I liked that. Over the years, we became friends. Eventually, I heard he had a son he was estranged from living out in Seattle with a family of his own.”

Rye was trying to dredge up any bit of information his parents might’ve said about his grandfather and couldn’t remember a single one. Had his father really never mentioned his own father? But, no, Rye didn’t think he had. It struck him, suddenly, how little his parents had ever talked, period. At least about anything that mattered.

“When that lawyer called me and told me he’d left me a house I hung up on him. Thought I was being punked. I didn’t know anything about him. Still don’t, I guess.”

Clive nodded. “He died in October. It took the lawyer a while to track you down.”

That didn’t surprise Rye. Given how often he’d moved and his pay-as-you-go phone, he was surprised the lawyer’d found him at all.

“He was a very principled man. A kind man. I respected him.” Clive’s voice went raspy with feeling and he cleared his throat. “How’re you making out over there? I didn’t know the place was falling down around him until after he’d died. Woulda done something if I’d known. Course, Granger woulda never asked for my help.”

“It’s a job all right,” Charlie said.

“But I don’t understand,” Rye said. “That lawyer made him sound like a recluse. Like he had nobody. But if he had you, why’d he leave the house to me? He never even met me. Why didn’t he leave it to you?”

Clive considered him soberly.

“He knew about you,” Clive said. “When you were young, he reached out to your daddy, tried to mend the rift. It worked for a little while. He had three pictures of you. One when you were first born, one when you were a year old, and one when you were a few years older. Your daddy sent them. But they never brought you out here to visit. Never invited Granger to Seattle.”