I didn’t bother checking my voicemails, I called my mom back right away. It rang twice before she answered. “Connor,” she breathed, as if relieved to finally hear from me. She sounded as if she’d been crying.
“Mom. What’s going on?”
“It’s Gramps. He…he passed away.”
“What?” I asked, stopping in my tracks. Lara walked into me, not anticipating my sudden stop. She had my coat and clutch in her hands.
“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. But he’s been sick for a while now…”
“Yeah, but…I thought he had more time. Hesaidhe had more time.” My vision blurred as the tears welled, spilling down my cheeks. I talked to Gramps last week, and he’d told me he would see me over March break.
“Nobody ever really knows how much time they have,” Mom choked out, and I could hear her sniffling—she was crying too. Gramps was her father, and she’d been super close to him. She was right, but it didn’t make the news any easier to hear.
“I want to come home,” I sobbed into the phone, turning into my friend’s embrace. Lara hugged me close, holding me to her. I wasn’t sure if she’d overheard the news, but she could put two and two together and had.
“I know, sweetie, we figured you would. Your father is on his way to pick you up,” Mom reassured me. “He should be there any minute now. Are you at the dormitory?”
“No, I was out with the girls. I’m at the karaoke bar on Gottingen Street.” Pulling away from Lara, I wiped the tears beneath my eyes with the back of my hand and drew in a shaky breath.
“Okay, I love you, sweetie. I’ll tell your dad to pick you up there.”
“Okay. Love you too, Mom.” Tears still poured down my face, the grief still fresh. I’d known this horrible day was coming—the day I’d no longer have Gramps a phone call away. He was almost ninety-three years old and had been battling slow-moving cancer for a few years now. It still hurt though. We’d all been close to him; he’d been such a huge part of our lives. To know he was gone forever stung.
There’d be no more Sunday lobster lunches when I was home, no more phone calls to see how studying was going. There would be no more wise advice from one of the kindest souls I’d ever known.
Somehow, this loss hit harder than even Nan. Perhaps because I didn’t know what to expect from grief, and I was a lot younger back then. I had sixteen more years to love Gramps, to know him.
“What happened?” My friend’s face was lined with worry.
“It’s my gramps, he…he’s dead.”
“I’m so sorry, Connor.” Lara hugged me again, tighter this time. “I’ll go tell the girls we’re leaving.”
“No, it’s okay. You stay. My dad’s coming here to pick me up, I don’t want to ruin your night. Tell the girls I’m sorry for bailing…”
“They’ll understand.” She put my coat over my shoulders. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go back to the dorm with you?” I nodded, slipping my arms into the jacket and zipping it up. She gave me my clutch and another hug.
“My dad should be here any minute now.”
“I’ll wait with you until he picks you up,” Lara decided.
We waited out front on the sidewalk in near silence, with me clenching my phone in my hand, tears still trailing down my cheeks, and Lara rubbing slow circles on my back to calm me down.
The overwhelming need to hear Dare’s voice, to have his strong arms wrap around me, took hold. He’d know exactly what to say and how to ease the grief impaling my heart.
He would call the moment he could…but right now, The Forgotten Floundersweren’t even halfway through their set. At least his call would come once I was home and no longer in the car with my father.
At the thought of Dad, my hands went to my nose, and I hastily tucked the horseshoe septum piercing up inside. I’d gotten it during my first year of university as a small act of rebellion. A rebellious decision my father didn’t even know about, because I was able to flip the 8mm metal horseshoe up and conceal it completely by the time I went home for the holidays—which I still did every time I saw my parents.
It was ironic how worried I was about hiding such a small piece of me from my father, a piece I liked, but here we were. My dadhatedCalum’s piercings, and they’d been a subject of his rantings for many years. He thought tattoos and piercings were highly unprofessional, a millennial trend that would go out of style quickly. He’d tolerated my ear piercings, even the helix, but facial piercings were a hard no for him.
Lara thought it was strange I kept such a trivial thing from my parents, but she didn’t know my father, or what I was like back home. Here, I could be myself. I didn’t have to worry about walking on eggshells.
Outside the constraints of home, I was an entirely different person. I was happy to be studying something that fueled my passion. It didn’t really feel like I was just biding my time until graduation. I was enjoying the learning experience while soaking up the independence and freedom, something I’d never gotten while at home.
Growing up, I’d been a complete goody two-shoes. I was afraid to break curfew or get caught doing anything remotely bad. I studied, I played the piano, sang in choir, and I respected authority.
I hung out with a select few people in middle school, who were just asgoodas I was. Up until the final year of high school, my closest friend had been Michelle, and her parents were devout Catholics. She was just as hesitant as I was about causing mischief. I didn’t do much rebelling in high school, and I never caused any issues because Calum pissed my dad off enough.
