“If I don’t keep you clean, nobody else will.”
“Can’t a man save a snack for later?” He looked at me again. “Now, what do you say? Can I depend on a few more visits from you come summertime? I can already tell one week in January isn’t going to be enough to fill my Lucy bucket.”
I laughed. “I’ll put you in my calendar, Grandpa. But if a good-looking Chris Hemsworth type comes my way before then, I may have to take a rain check.”
Grandma clapped her hands. “Oh, that is one fine piece of man right there. You just bring him on by to the house when you come visit.”
“Chris who?” Grandpa began coughing again. I met Grandma’s concerned gaze over the table.
“Chris Hemsworth. He played Thor in that movie you slept through.”
“Did I like the movie?”
“You didn’t watch it, you slept through it.”
“What?”
“You didn’t watch it, you slept through!” Grandma’s voice grew slower and louder while I hid a smile.
“Right after the part where Thor brought out his hammer.”
“Oh, the magic hammer.” He made a face. “I don’t like magic in movies. Too much of it these days. What’s so wrong with something real? Like the old days?”
“Like the fists fights from those John Wayne movies you love?” I asked, remembering all those nights visiting this very house with cousins, being forced to watch hours of the old classics and making fun of every one of them.
A rueful smile broke across his face. “Exactly.”
The table was lulled to silence when Grandpa turned on the TV to get the weather report.
While my grandparents' faces were arrested by the news anchor, surely delivering more bad news, I watched them both with love nearly bursting from my heart. I couldn’t explain it—the pull that brought me here. A trip to the Bahamas with some teacher friends sounded nice, but for some reason, relaxing on a beach didn’t feel right to me. But a call to my grandparents to check in had brought on such a deep sense of longing I couldn’t fight. I didn’t want to fight. I readied my classroom in an afternoon before dropping everything else, cramming my duffle bag full of work clothes and jumping in my car, driving the 300 miles for a visit.
I hadn’t stayed overnight at my grandparents’ home by myself in years, much less a whole week. Now, after just one day back on the ranch, I already realized how much I had been missing. Which seemed crazy. I had a home.Myhome. I had a career I enjoyed. My weeknights were spent grading papers. I had friends to go out with on the weekends. I had a full and enjoyable life. So it surprised me how, in a matter of hours after my arrival, I had begun to take notice of several small empty cracks in the center of my chest. Individually, the crevices were so small they were hardly noticeable, but feeling them together as a whole sent pangs of uncomfortable awareness throughout my body.
Something was missing in my life, and back at home I didn’t have time to let myself feel it. I didn’t even understandwhatwas missing. Then I pulled up to a weathered farmhouse twenty miles from the nearest town to two people with an arm around each other standing on the porch, grinning at me. It hit me like a wave. I was missing love. The kind of love where you could use your own saliva to clean a human adult male like a cat. The kind of love that moves in a comfortable rhythm. Shuffling together, nudging and brushing in the kitchen, putting away dishes, washing up at the sink, patting bums. The kind of love that had seen a houseful of children, a handful of sorrow, and buckets of laughter. The kind of love that radiates safety and brings with it a sense of belonging that takes years to build in a comfortable house. I liked my life in Billings, but I knew now that it was only a placeholder for me until I get where I’m going.
Wherever that is.
Grandpa’s coughing fit ended with my grandma fussing over him until he broke, his voice scratchy and cantankerous.
“Susan, I’ll go to bed just as soon as you stop trying to plug me full of these damned drugs. It’s just a cough.”
“It’s settling in your lungs. Remember last year, you had pneumonia about this same time. You need to be careful. I’ll call Doctor Joe and schedule you an appointment, just to be safe.”
Grandpa threw up a pair of exasperated arms. “Call the doctor? Didn’t you listen to the news? The roads will be closed any minute.”
“Well, I can still call him and see what he says. Maybe you can cough into the phone.”
“Pish.” Grandpa looked at me for moral support.
I smiled. “You better listen to Grandma. She’s your pie supplier, after all.”
A rare contrite grin he always saved just for me etched itself onto Grandpa’s face. “You’re not wrong.”
“Lou, are you going to be up for a while?” Grandma asked, as she and Grandpa stood from the table and shuffled toward the stairs.
Nodding, I stood and grabbed our empty pie plates and took them to the sink. “Yes, I’ll probably read for a bit.” Although it was pitch dark outside, it was only 8 pm and after years of grading papers late into the evening, I was a certified night owl.
“And Grandpa, just plan on me feeding the cows tomorrow morning.”
