I shook my head, sure I'd misheard. “What?”
Grandpa smiled softly. “She was a practical woman, my Anna. And somehow, I’d gotten so caught up in sentimentality, I’d forgotten that. She wouldn’t want me kneeling down and worshipping those rose bushes for the rest of my days. She’d have laughed herself silly to see me. I didn’t have to love what she loved in order to love her, and I didn’t have to keep living the life we’d lived together once she was gone.” He hesitated. “That’s partly why, after I broke my leg, I asked your mom to send you to me. I thought maybe you were stuck in a rut after losing your husband, same as I was after losing yourgrandmother.”
“You asked Mom to send me?” I narrowed my eyes. “But Ithought…”
“That I didn’t care about you? I don’t know where you get your fool ideas, Ev. It’s true that your grandma was more the kind, caring one of the two of us, but I’ve loved you since the day you wereborn.”
“But you’ve never approved of me,” I said, too shocked to keep my mouth shut. “It was always Ev being too high-strung, or Ev being too artistic. You didn’t approve of me beinggay.”
“Artists have a terrible lot in life,” he sighed. “No stability. No money. No pension, even when someone's as talented as you are. And I don’t give a shit who you love, Everett, but being gay’s a hard row to hoe, too. Gotta fight at every turn.” Grandpa shook his head. “Maybe I shoulda wished theworldwere different, not you. But if I ever tried to change you, it wasn’t because I didn’t love you. It was because I loved you toomuch.”
“How have you seen myart?”
“Told you I have the internet,” he said reasonably. “Your mom sends mepictures.”
I gaped at him. “You didn’t come to my wedding,” Iprotested.
He hesitated, looking down at his hands as they settled on Daphne’s head. “I don’t know what you’d’ve wanted me there for anyway. Not like I knew any of your city friends or anything. Not like you’d ever brought Adrian to visitme.”
“Because I thought you wouldn’t want meto.”
“Well, then you thought wrong, son. I’d’ve been proud to be introduced to the man youloved.”
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes as tears threatened. I hadn’t cried as much in my entire nearly-thirty-years of life as I had in the past twomonths.
Grandpa cleared his throat and carried on as if we hadn’t just had amoment.
“Anyway, after that business with the rose bushes, I decided to put the house on the market and move here to town. And you know what? You grandmother moved with me.” His lip quirked, like he was remembering. “I make coffee in that tiny kitchen back there and think of her. And I hear her voice when I’m adding numbers downstairs. Sometimes I hear her in my ear when I’m talking to you, telling me to be patient and that people don’t always know what’s going on in my head when I say things.” Hesmiled.
“Clearly,” I muttered. I’d been so wrong. As wrong as Silas ever was, and I wanted to tell himso.
“But the point is, Everett, I loved her. And she’s inside me. I can’t ever forget her or stop loving her. It’s carved deep in my bones, and they’ll find it when I die: Henry Lattimer loves Anna Lattimer. Forever and ever. No matter where I go, or what I do, or who else Ilove.”
I sniffled and blew out a breath. “That’s really beautiful,” I said. “Thank you for telling methat.”
He scoffed. “Don’t be a dummy. I don’t say things just to hear myself talk, Ev. You think about what Isaid.”
I frowned and nodded. “I will.” But honestly, I was still stuck back on him loving me, approving ofme.
Grandpa grunted and grabbed his cane from the side table. “Time to get up, Highness,” he told the cat. “We’ve got breakfast plans.” Daphne yawned prettily and stretched like sheunderstood.
“Adrian used to call her that,” I said. “Highness.” I smiled. “He was the one who rescued her, youknow.”
“I didn’t know that,” Grandpa said. He looked at me and nodded. “You should tell me more about him.Sometime.”
I nodded and I meant it. The tight knot of Adrian inside me was loosening, I could feel it, but it felt strangely like by letting go of the stranglehold on my memories, I was giving them new life. Maybe I didn’t have to be the only one who remembered himanymore.
Grandpa pushed himself to his feet with the cane, then regarded it for a moment, like he wasn’t sure whether he should take it with him ornot.
“I think canes are badass,” I remarked, like I hadn’t noticed his dilemma. “A good weapon, in apinch.”
He grunted again, but leaned on the cane as he crossed the room to thestairs.
“My hair tidy?” he asked, pausing at thetop.
“Yeah, great.Why?”
“You never know who you might see when you’re out and about, Everett. Always want to look yourbest.”
