Here goes nothing.
“Hey, Granddad.” He peered up and narrowed his bleary green eyes at me. “It’s me, Kiyah.”
“Am I supposed to know you?” he asked with a little edge in his tone. I sighed.
He’s going to make me do it.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this, old man,” I chuckled, pulling the turkey call out of my wallet. I slipped it into my mouth and mimicked a gobble and soft purrs. His eyes brightened like the light switch had been flipped in a dark room.
“Turk,” he cooed, reaching for my hand with his gnarled, arthritic fingers. I warmed from his touch and sat beside him. I earned the nickname Turk because I was the best turkey hunter of all his grandchildren. Hunting was our thing—so much so that there was a photo of him and me on the wall near his gun case from when we went on a moose-hunting expedition in Alaska for my 13th birthday.
“Hey, Granddad. How’s it been?”
“Where are we?”
“You live here.”
“No, I don’t,” he argued.
“Yes, you do. You and Grandma have been living here for two years. I brought you something,” I said, lifting my baseball cap off my head and slipping out Granddad’s treat.
“What’s that you got there?”
“Brownies that’ll help with the arthritis pain.”
I tore the cling wrap off and broke him off a piece. He ate it without prompting and hummed appreciatively.
“You and that knucklehead grandson of mine finally tied the knot, eh?”
My eyes bulged, and my mouth gaped. “Wh-what are you talking about, Granddad?” He nodded at my hand, and I cursed when I realized I was still wearing my wedding band. “You don’t have to snatch it off now for my sake. I warned Jon about you two, but he said he had it under control.” He snorted. “I’ve seen five-alarm fires under better control.”
And like a dam had broken, I spent the next five minutes trying to fit in the complexities and the ins and outs of my marriage to Grant while feeding him the rest of the pot brownie.
“Damn,” he chuckled.
“That bad, huh?”
“Your father is not going to take this well.”
Yeah, no shit.
“Do you make each other happy?” he asked inquisitively with a raised bushy brow. My shoulders sagged.
“We did… we did.”
“I’m sorry, Turk,” he whispered, patting my hand apologetically. “It’ll all work out in the end if it’s meant to be.”
“Maybe. Guess what?”
“What?” he asked slowly, the weed taking effect.
“Daisy and Nori are getting married this weekend.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“I agree.”
“Who is paying for this unholy matrimony?”
