“I don’t know what I want.” She did know. She wanted Asher. And she wanted her book deal and her social media following and to be able to keep making videos for a living. She wanted both.
But both was impossible.
“You’ll figure it out,” Julia said. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”
If she was so smart, how had she let herself get into a mess like this?
Chapter 27
Asher’sstomachwastooheavy to want to eat while he waited for Michael to arrive. He sipped his soda and watched the door of the tiny Diamond Cove cafe, while his fingers tapped the table in a nervous rhythm.
The door opened, and a man wearing loose jeans and a polo shirt walked in. He looked around the cafe and paused when his gaze landed on Asher. This must be him. Asher sat up straighter as Michael approached the table and sat across from him.
He was younger than Asher expected him to be—maybe in his fifties. His hair was mostly brown, with some generous gray sprinkled through it. A cell phone poked out of the top of the front pocket of his polo shirt.
“Asher. Nice to meet you.”
Asher inclined his head, trying to get his footing. “Michael.”
“Call me Mike.” He waved down the waitress and put in his own drink order, along with a grilled cheese sandwich and a side of fries. “Want anything to eat? It’s on me.”
Asher shook his head, wanting to get this over with. He didn’t know if he wanted Mike to have answers for him or not. What if the answer to why his grandpa had gathered all those secrets was worse than the mystery of it?
“Sorry I didn’t introduce myself at the funeral. I loved Mason like a dad, but I didn’t want to accidentally open a can of worms. But it’s open now, I suppose,” Mike said.
Open and uncontained. “How did you meet my grandpa?”
“I was in the military with him. Mason was much older than me and took me under his wing when I was an unlovable tool,” he said fondly. “Then when I retired, I went into private sector investigating, and we stayed in touch. He always told the best stories.”
Asher recalled his grandpa’s military stories. They weren’t just interesting stories, his grandpa had that storytelling skill of timing—he knew exactly how to pace his stories to keep them all wanting more. And he could drop a punch line with the sleekness of a missile.
The waitress delivered Mike’s drink and refilled Asher’s soda. He hadn’t even realized he’d already drunk the first one down. Mike shared a few of his favorite Mason Brooks stories, and Asher was relieved he’d heard them all before.
Maybe Grandpa wasn’t as much of a stranger to him as he thought. Mike tucked into his food when it arrived, and Asher took the break in conversation to ask the question burning in the back of his throat for weeks.
“Why did he have all that information about people in The Palms?”
Mike finished chewing his mouthful of food and took a long drink from his straw, looking carefully at Asher the entire time. “What do you know about your great-grandfather?”
Asher blinked, not expecting that. “Nothing. I don’t even know his name.” Asher remembered his dad going to the funeral when Asher was maybe five years old, but he and his mom had stayed home. Grandpa never talked about his dad, and Asher had never asked.
“Mason didn’t talk about his childhood much, but sometimes, when he had a little too much to drink, he’d tell us about his father. On the surface, his father appeared to be a good man. He went to church on Sunday. He would chat with the neighbors. He worked to support his family. His shirts were pressed nicely. His wife always had a smile. That kind of guy, you know?”
Asher pictured aLeave it to Beaverfather based on the description, but those words “on the surface” made him pause. “What was he really like?”
“Mean. He knew how to keep the bruises hidden on his wife and son. He would withhold food from his wife to control her. He once smashed a model plane Mason had built over an entire month of evenings, just to destroy something that had brought your grandpa happiness. He was only seven at the time. It’s one of his earliest memories.”
Asher was glad he hadn’t ordered any food now that a block of ice had formed in his stomach, spreading a chill to his veins. Sometimes actions like his great-grandfather’s could be generational, but Grandpa had always been loving. They hadn’t been a touchy family, but he had other ways of showing his affection.
After everyone died and it was just the two of them, not a day went by when his grandpa hadn’t told him he loved him. Life was too short to keep things unsaid.
Mike continued. “Because his father was so good at keeping the secret of who he really was, no one knew what Mason and his mom went through at home. Once Mason was old enough to join the military, he left home, but he was never allowed to see his mom again.”
Asher wished he could reach out and take a hold of Eliana’s hand, feel the warmth and comfort of her pressed against the coldness cementing him to this bench.
“He was paranoid after that. Didn’t trust anyone for a long time—and not until he saw them in situations that revealed their true self. I was a mess when I met him—and everyone knew it. My dad was done with my garbage, so he shipped me off to boot camp. Mason straightened me up and gave me a reason to believe in myself.
“After your grandma died, he started to believe most people were living a double life, like his dad had. I think it was his grief—I did a lot of research on it. People grieve in all different ways, and his brought up a lot of unprocessed childhood trauma. He called me up, oh about ten years ago, and asked me to investigate some people. At first he told me he was looking for something, but about a year into pushing him for details, he confessed that he was looking for liars. People he could call out and expose as hypocrites, the way he wished someone would have done to his father.”
