The old barn hadn’t held animals for as long as he could remember. Supposedly, his grandmother had gone through a homesteading phase when her kids were little and there had been cows and chickens, but she’d decided four Kowalski kids were enough of a herd to wrangle and that was the end of it. As was the way of animal-free barns, it had been turned into storage, and with multiple generations of the family using it, it was a mess.
“Who sent you?” Leo called from halfway up the ladder.
Once his grandfather was safely at the top, Danny let go of the ladder and took the time to add some safety straps holding it to the structure’s support beams, which should have been done in the first place. “Mom happened to mention you wanted to clear out the loft, and I figured I’d give you a hand because I’ve been sitting at my desk for days and need to move around.”
Leo snorted, not buying it for a second. “Mikey said he was going to give me a hand, but rumor has it he tweaked his back doing something truly heroic.”
Danny chuckled but kept his mouth shut as he climbed the ladder into the loft. By the end of the day, everybody in the family would know his dad had reached the age where bending wrong to tie a shoe could tweak his back, but nobody would let on they knew. It was just how they rolled.
They worked for several hours, digging through boxes to see what was junk and what wasn’t. It wasn’t easy because Leo was of a generation that didn’t throw away perfectly good stuff, even if you didn’t have a use for it in the moment. There was a chance you might someday, and you’d have to spend money to replace something you had already thrown away.
“What is this from?” Danny asked, holding up a rubber belt that was still in the packaging.
Leo took it, holding it at arm’s length so he could read it. “Fan belt for a 1978 Ford Granada. Joey’s first car, and damn, that thing was ugly. Like a brown box on wheels.”
He knew his grandfather was referring to Danny’s uncle, not his brother, and laughed. “Uncle Joe hasn’t owned that car for decades. I think we can throw it away.”
“It’s brand new. Somebody out there might be looking for one of these. Put in the maybe pile. Maybe Mikey can put it on the internet for sale and I’ll let him keep some of the money.”
Danny sighed and did as he was told because arguing with the old man would go absolutely nowhere. He toted boxes up and down the ladder, making piles in the driveway—a going to the dump pile, a going back into the barn but in a more organized way pile, and the maybe pile. Unfortunately, the maybe pile was a lot bigger than the dump pile, and he and his brothers might have to plan a secret mission to burgle the junk and dispose of it when nobody was looking.
He wasn’t surprised when one of the older men from up the street wandered over to see what was going on. Once Leo started talking, the two of them poking through the piles, Danny knew it would be a while, so he escaped inside to greet his grandmother.
Mary Kowalski was a force of nature—truly their beloved Grandmother of Doom—and she smiled when she saw him come through the door. She was in the process of pulling spices out of her rack and checking the expiration dates, but she gave that up to pour them each a glass of lemonade. She set them on the table and took a seat while he rummaged through the various cookie jars and canisters for treats.
On his way to his chair, he leaned down to her kiss her cheek. “I would have come in earlier, but Pop was already putting the ladder up.”
“You’re a good boy. You all are.” She chuckled. “I take all the credit for that, of course.”
“As you should.” He bit into a thick oatmeal raisin cookie.
“Tell me about your young woman.”
He almost choked on the cookie and had to take a long drink of the lemonade to get it down. “A little warning, Gram. And I don’t have a woman in my life.”
“That’s not the scuttlebutt going around the family,” she said, arching her eyebrow. “Your parents met her, from what I’ve heard.”
He would have muttered about nosy family under his breath, but Gram had super hearing when it came to even the quietest mumblings. “That’s old news.”
She leaned forward. “Tell me everything, honey.”
Maybe it was because her eyes were soft with compassion and not sharp with hunger for gossip, or maybe it was because he just needed to talk about Kenzie to somebody, but he told his grandmother the whole story.
When he was finished talking, she leaned back in her chair, nodding. “You’re in love with her.”
“Yes,” Danny answered, even though it hadn’t been a question.
“And you think the time you’ve spent together is enough time to fall in love, but not tostayin love?”
The hardest thing about having a conversation with his grandmother was having to manage his frustrations so they didn’t seep into his voice. If she didn’t like his tone, she’d take after him with her wooden spoon. It had been a while, but he knew from watching his Uncle Kevin get thumped at Christmas that they were never grown enough to be safe.
“Okay, let’s say I move up there and we get married,” he said, wanting her to understand. “You don’t think over the years that me coming to all the family things alone while she’s working won’t wear on the relationship? What if we have kids? Do we just live our lives without their mom because she’s working?”
She frowned. “Are you giving up on a life together because of her job?”
The frustration rose again, and he took a long drink to buy himself a few seconds. “It’s not just a job, though. It’s herbusinessand also her dad’s livelihood. It’s messier than just a job. The restaurant is an unmovable block.”
Gram took a long sip of her lemonade and then shook her head sadly. “I guess you’re right, then. It couldn’t work out, so it’s best you broke it off now and you won’t put each other through that.”
