I ran over and kneeled next to him. “Hey,” I asked, barely able to speak. “How are you?”
His eyes began to water and he reached up to feel my face. I grabbed his hands and placed them on my cheeks. “My little girl,” he said. “It’s been so long. I can’t believe you’re really here.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t come before. And I’m sorry I didn’t call,” I told him. “Grandma wouldn’t pick up, and after a while I quit trying.”
“I know, honey, it’s fine,” he said. “How are you, though?”
“Good.”
“Well, have a seat beside me and tell me all you’ve been doing these past few months.”
With a smile on his face, my cousin headed back toward the kitchen and said, “I’m going to go grab a bite. Do you want something?”
I nodded. I was dying of hunger. Then I dragged a chair next to my grandfather and sat down, holding his hand. Iván returned a few seconds later with coffee, orange juice, and toast. He sat with us a while, but soon got back to his yard work.
That was when my grandfather started in with the questions, and I tried to answer as honestly as possible. Of course, I left a lot out. I didn’t want to worry him. It didn’t make sense, not at his age. I asked him if he’d heard from my mother.
“Not really. The only person she really talks to is your uncle Yoan. She calls once or twice a month on Sundays, when she knows she’ll catch him at home, and then we exchange a few words. But that’s it.” He joined his hands over the blanket covering his legs. “She’ll never forgive me, and I understand.”
“Don’t say that, Grandpa.”
“I understand you, too,” he said, reaching over to turn down the radio. “I didn’t protect her. That’s the honest truth. I knew what was happening in my home wasn’t right, but I didn’t do anything. I took it for granted that caring for the kids was a mother’s job. That’s how it was back then, and since I was a man, I didn’t think anything else about it. Maybe it was just comfortable that way. I don’t know. I worked all day, and the children were Olga’s responsibility. All I wanted when I came home was to have dinner in peace, watch the TV with my wife, and tell myself the kids were happy and didn’t lack for anything. And Andrey and Yoan were happy.
“Daria wasn’t, though. I could see that every time I looked at her. We’d sit at the table and she wouldn’t even eat the same thing as anyone else. I saw that, and I let it happen. The same way I let her go off to dance every weekend morning when she was just ten, while her brothers slept in and lived normal boys’ lives. Daria never got tobe free and she slowly stopped glowing, like a candle burning out. The same as you did.”
I didn’t know what to say. That was the first time my grandfather had ever spoken so openly, with so much pain and regret in his voice. It was also the first time I’d seen him as a real person. I’d always adored him. He’d been the man who hugged me, who gave me advice, who was always there for me. But he was also a man who had closed his eyes and ignored too many things, bad things that had frustrated and wounded me. Things that came back to me now clearer than ever.
I’d always blamed the woman who hurt me and forgotten that bystanders share the guilt. Especially if their passivity allows the situation to continue and becomes a habit, something that helps normalize cruelty.
But there was no point in blaming him now. And I was tired of carrying that weight around. The time had come to let it go, not add to it. I needed to forgive. For my sake. I reached out and touched his hand. “Have you told Mom all this?”
“No. She wouldn’t listen to me.”
“Do it. For both of you, but especially for her.”
He nodded and smiled bitterly, and I heard the door open. My aunt and uncle and their other kids came in with my grandmother behind them. Everyone froze when they saw me. We were tense as we greeted each other, but the mood calmed when I announced that I was only visiting and wouldn’t be there long.
That was depressing, but I didn’t let it get to me. I couldn’t let that kind of thing matter anymore.
Being family isn’t a guarantee of unconditional love. Blood is just a fluid that runs through your veins. Plasma and hemoglobin. Something that keeps you alive. Thinking it binds you to someone is an illusion. It had been hard for me to admit that, but seeing Lucas’srelationship with his family had helped me see the chains that kept me bound to mine.
And it wasn’t worth it, giving so much in exchange for nothing. Suffering with the thought that I deserved something in return. Making sacrifices for the sake of the impossible. Giving in to blackmail. Begging for something that a person either feels or they don’t—and when they do feel it, you don’t have to ask for it, it’s just there. And they offer it to you because it’s a part of them, and it just comes out naturally.
They told me I could stay for lunch—you could tell they felt they had to—and I accepted, just to be able to spend a little more time with my grandfather and Iván. He was a good guy. We exchanged numbers and he told me I should call whenever I wanted, to check up on Grandpa or even just to talk.
My grandmother hardly opened her mouth the whole time and pretended, as much as she could, that she didn’t realize I was there. I didn’t mind. It wasn’t my problem—I knew that now. I thought of Catalina, of Angela, of Marco and the kids. Of Monica, Jules, and Roy. Of Giulio. Bad as things had ended, I felt like part of a family when I was with them. They had nothing to do with the people who surrounded me now.
And I didn’t have anything to do with them either.
When lunch was over, Iván offered to take me to the station.
I said goodbye to my grandfather and the rest of the family, who were sitting on the porch drinking coffee. My cousin went upstairs to change clothes, and I walked to the door to wait.
Then I smelled it. Intense. Heavy. My grandmother’s perfume. She sprayed on so much of it, it surrounded her like a cloud and never dissipated. The air around me froze. The whole house seemed to. And I shrank like a deflating balloon. I couldn’t help it, but I tried to remain firm and tell myself she no longer had any power over me.
“Why did you come here?” she asked. “Because it clearly wasn’t to ask my forgiveness.”
I turned to face her. I don’t know why, but she seemed smaller. More fragile. Older. As if the four months since we’d last seen each other had passed more quickly for her than for me.
