“I wasn’t nappin’, just restin’ my eyes.”
“Right.” In all the years she’d known Pops, he’d never actually “napped” although he’d “rested his eyes” for long stretches of time and snored while doing so.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as a sudden swell of appreciation and gratitude that he was in her life flooded her.
“My lawyers advised me not to answer that question,” he deadpanned.
She sighed, knowing that she was never going to get a straight answer from him. But at least she knew he was feeling up to giving her a hard time. She noticed he was still pale and had dark circles under his eyes.
“You know what they say about worryin’?” Pops questioned as he struggled to sit up.
Tiana held his arm to steady him as she pressed the button on his bed, which caused it to lift higher. “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
Once it was tilted up to a ninety-degree angle and she’d adjusted his pillows, he leaned back and lifted his eyes to her. “It gives ya somethin’ to do, but it gets ya nowhere.”
She ignored him and pulled up a chair next to the bed. “Listen, I need to tal?—”
“Mr. Matthews!” Patsy beamed as she walked into the room, white paper ramekin in hand. “How are you doing?”
“Fair to partly cloudy.”
The smile that spread across Patsy’s face was the reason he was still running with that same schtick for all these years.
She handed him his medication, and he swallowed it without water. Patsy shook her head. “You shouldn’t do that. You could choke.”
“Well, now, if a tiny pill takes me out, then it’s my time to go.” He winked at her.
Tiana hated when Pops joked like that. She didn’t think there was anything remotely humorous about his mortality.
When Patsy left the room, she took a breath. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I wanted to come by and talk to you yesterday.” She glanced down at her hands, folded in her lap.
She’d had over twenty-four hours to consider how she was going to drop the Brock Bartlett bomb, yet for the life of her she couldn’t come up with the right words to tell him. Her main concern was putting a strain on his heart or cause his blood pressure to rise. Her best chance was to project confidence, ease, and peace so that he could see whatever Brock was doing wasn’t affecting her.
Tiana took a deep breath.
“What? What’s wrong?” Pops’ alarm bells were raised instantly at her hesitation.
“Nothing.” Tiana shook her head. “I just—I wanted to see you to give you a heads up about a situation. I got a message from Deborah?—”
“Debbie B.?” Pops used the nickname he’d called Brock’s mom when she’d been married to Brock.
“Yes,” Tiana confirmed and braced herself as Pops' face performed its own version of the slow sunrise, the lines around his eyes deepening, his mouth shaping into a grimace of anticipation.
"She reached out," Tiana continued, choosing each word like glass beads she was afraid would shatter in her hands. "She wanted me to know that they are… here. In Hope Falls. For the holidays."
She didn’t need to give Pops any more context. He knew what ‘the holidays’ meant for the Bartlett family. Every holiday she’d spent with the Bartlett family, she’d dragged Pops along with her, whether he wanted to be there or not.
The silence that followed was volcanic. Pops' sunrise smile pressed into a bloodless flat line, the gray in his temples seeming to bristle. His weather-worn, calloused hands curled around the blanket with the steely intent of a retired bear. It would have been comical if not for the spike of dread snaking down Tiana's back.
"Is that right?" Pops murmured, each syllable clipped, as though he were biting off the head of a nail. "Well, isn't that just the best news I've heard since they canceled Matlock."
Tiana took a moment, trying to find an opening, a handhold, a safe way to proceed. "And he is with someone. A woman, her name is Gianna," she said, twisting her fingers together in her lap. "They are going to be announcing their engagement. I wanted you to hear it from me before it started making the rounds.”
"Started?" Pops snorted, a sound that rattled somewhere in his sinuses. "You know this town. News like that moves faster than a sweet tooth at a bake sale." He glared at the blank TV for a moment, as if Brock's grinning face might appear there, mugging for the cameras like he always did in his glory days.
"Have you seen him?" Pops shot her a look, the kind that could both melt steel and freeze water.
The horror in Tiana's expression must've been answer enough, because Pops muttered, "Good. Best if it stays that way. If that man has the stones to step into Golden Years, I'll have words. And don't think I can't." He patted the side rail of his bed with emphasis. "I still remember how to make a man regret his choices."
