“Do you miss it?”
“Yeah.” Every day.
“It was noble and selfless of you to give it up to take care of your grandfather,” she says with respect and admiration.
But Jordyn’s mistaken. I told her I moved from Colorado to be near Pops, but she must have assumed that’s when I left the army too. The real reason would shred that glowing look on her face to pieces. I don’t deserve her praise, but I like it too much to correct her.
“Are these your parents?” she asks, picking up another photo.
“Yep. That’s them.” My mother looks miserable, and my father looks vacant. Jordyn notices and gives me a small, sad smile.
“My parents have been married for thirty-five years,” she says. “They make it look easy, but I know it’s not. I’m sorry you grew up with parents that made it look so hard.”
Pops picks that moment to appear in the archway that leads to the kitchen. “What does a clock do when it’s hungry?”
“What, Pops?” I ask, grateful for the reprieve from memory lane.
“It goes back four seconds.”
Jordyn shares his laughter. “Is that your way of telling us you’re hungry, Colonel?”
“Pretty and smart.”
* * *
After we had demolished most of the dinner, helping ourselves to a lot of everything, we settled in the family room—stuffed. Pops reclines in his chair, and Jordyn and I sit on the couch next to each other, near enough for our hands to brush, near enough for her scent to reach me.
Jordyn doesn’t change her perfume like some women do. The fragrance is so soft and subtle against her boldness that it tripped me up at first. But now I understand. There are many facets to Jordyn, and all of them draw me dangerously closer to her.
Pops is relaxed and just as enamored by Jordyn. That’s the good part. The bad part is that he starts telling stories—childhood stories. I give him a glare that should turn him to stone, but no, the old man just keeps going. The first few are pretty tame, me breaking my arm after falling off a chair trying to reach the cookie jar and the time I cut my tongue because I thought my mother’s pink razor was a lollipop, dumb kid stuff. But then he goes for the one that still makes him laugh the hardest, even twenty-eight years later.
“It was frigid out, but Junior wanted to play in the snow, so my Aline bundled him up and let him go in the backyard. He wasn’t out there long…maybe ten, fifteen minutes when he came back in, walking funny with tears in his eyes. He tried to explain, but you see, he was still a wee thing, barely six, and he’d just lost his two front teeth, so he was sometimes difficult to understand.
“‘My peevis hurfs.’ ‘Your what?’ We asked, confused. ‘My peevis. It’s hurfing.’Well, we had no idea what he was talking about until Junior lifted up his jacket and pointed to the open zipper of his snow pants. ‘My peevis.’”
The old man is now killing himself with laughter, his crooked thumb wiping beneath his eyes. “Junior was referring to his penis.”
“Oh no,” Jordyn says, “what happened?”
“It seems he had seen some of the older boys in the neighborhood writing their names in the snow.”
“My brother used to do that with his friends,” she says, getting the male rite of passage.
“Well, you understand then that Junior wanted to try. But it was subzero out, and the cold isn’t kind to exposed skin. Poor kiddo, he was in pain, but when I looked outside, he had managed a wonky J.”
“Oh my God, frostbite on that area must have been awful, but how adorable that Jasper wanted to be like one of the big boys.”
“Yeah, just adorable,” I say, enduring their laughter, more stories, and Pops bringing out the old photo albums.
If Jordyn is bored, it doesn’t show. Still, by ten o’clock, I’m anxious for some private time with her. “Up for a walk?” I ask, standing.
“That would be nice. Colonel, would you like to join us?”
Hell no.I shake my head at Pops.
“That’s okay, darling. I’m going to watch my show before bed. You go on, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Night, Pops,” I say, knowing he’s able to get himself from the recliner to the wheelchair and to bed on his own.
