“Doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate a good-looking man. I’m not dead yet.”
“Please don’t even joke about that. I’m going to have nightmares as it is of you clutching your chest.” The thought made her shudder.
That sobered her up. “Believe me, it wasn’t a walk in the park for me either. But it does cause one to reflect on one’s life when they think the end is closer than they would like.”
“Like what?”
“Regrets.”
“About what?” Grandma was a prideful woman, Destiny couldn’t see her regretting much in life after all she’d achieved.
“It’s a longer list than I care to admit, but your mother is number one. I did spoil her rotten. God love her, but sometimes I just want to smack her upside the head.” Destiny scratched her upper lip to hide her grin. She’d pay good money to see that. “Which is why I’m telling you now, don’t be like me. Don’t get old and look back and wish you’d done otherwise.”
Destiny just stared at her grandma, not knowing what to say.
“Go fix things between you and Mike.”
She planned on it. Wait, how had she known? “How did you know we were having troubles?”
“I recognize a broken heart.”
“You?” Destiny asked, skeptical. Mrs. CEO, completely in control, had had a broken heart? Destiny found that hard to believe.
“I wasn’t always the hard-hearted woman you know. I, too, know what it is to love and be hurt.”
“I have a hard time seeing you get your heart broken.”
“Why?”
“Well, because you’re you,” she sputtered, not knowing how to put it into words. Her grandma had always been a formidable force. It was hard to picture her upset over a break-up. She never took crap from anyone.
“I may not have been the one with said broken heart, but I left a string of broken hearts before I settled on your grandfather. I recognize the signs.” Grandma sat up taller in her bed and tried to look hoity-toity. Destiny couldn’t hold back the laughter now, which earned her a swat on the arm.
“I was quite a catch I’ll have you know.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Destiny managed to say with a straight face.
Grandma hmphed. “Fine, there might have been one time possibly, though only slightly, my heart was bruised. But I’ll never admit he broke it,” she said with a pointed finger.
“I wouldn’t expect you to. So what happened?” This was news to her.
“I had been dating a man for a few years. We met in college and immediately hit it off. A few years into opening my company, I saw less and less of him because I was so busy all the time with work. I was walking home one night when I saw him sitting in a diner with my best friend. They looked cozy together.” How sad. Poor Grandma, to find out he was cheating on her with her best friend. That was the lowest of lows. He should have just broken up with her instead of sneaking behind her back. “I was livid. He was my man even if I didn’t see him often anymore.”
“So what happened?” Destiny was on the edge of her seat now. “Did you walk away or confront him?” Destiny had met Grandma’s friend Janice. She was nice and owned her own beauty store, but had been through at least three marriages that she knew of.
“I marched right in there. I was not going to be made into a laughingstock,” Grandma replied her posture stiffening. No, Destiny supposed Grandma wouldn’t stand for a man going behind her back and think she’d slink off like a whipped dog. “He didn’t even have the notion to look upset at me catching him as I berated him. The whole diner staring at me like I was a two-headed monster about devour them all. I didn’t care. I was hurt and humiliated. But not broken-hearted,” she felt the need to repeat. “He waited for me to finish and told me if that’s how I felt, I had two choices. Marry him and allow him to make an honest woman of me or leave and take my attitude somewhere else.”
“What? He didn’t try to make up an excuse or tell you what he was doing with your friend?”
“No just gave me the two choices while looking me square in the eyes. Janice didn’t say a word either. Just waited for me to make my choice.”
“What did you do?”
“I married him,” Grandma said, as if the answer should have been obvious.
That story was about her and Grandpa? She’d never heard this version before. Grandpa always made it sound so romantic. How he swept Grandma off her feet. Not getting caught with her best friend and throwing down ultimatums. “Grandma, no offense but how does this story relate to my situation with Mike?”
Grandma’s shoulders drooped. “This is when I wish your grandpa were around. He was so much better at this than me.” Destiny wouldn’t argue with that. Relationship advice wasn’t Grandma’s strong-suit. “What I was trying to say horribly was that I recognize that same sad look in your eyes when I asked where Mike was. I got that same look when I was asked where your grandfather was when we dated, and I worked more than I was home. It was easy to make excuses, to deflect. The same as you did saying he was working.”
