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“I’d prefer to have a holiday alone than spend it with these peons.”
He snapped.
Owen grabbed his mother’s arm and stormed out, dragging her behind him.
“Wretched, thankless boy,” she growled at him as he continued to pull.
Just like that, the two of them were out the front door and we were left in silence.
“Well I’ll be,” Dad whistled, shaking his head. “I don’t envy you a mother-in-law like that!”
Mom huffed behind me and Patrick barked out a laugh.
“Sucks to be you, sis!” he cackled.
“Pat!” Maria elbowed him in the ribs, and that made me smile.
He put his arms around her and squeezed her to him, pressing a kiss to the side of her head.
Their love was adorable and I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling it ache with happiness for them.
“Do you think he’s coming back?” Dad asked, lifting his eyebrows in question.
“I sure hope not!” Gran Gran butted in.
“He’ll be back,” I assured Dad, then turned to my grandmother. “And dang it, Gran, why would you say something like that to him? What you said wasn’t nice at all, and he did nothin’ wrong!”
Gran looked at me like I’d lost my head.
“You think he did nothin’ wrong? That boy defiled you! You made a promise of chastity to—”
“I made a promise,” I agreed. “But Gran, whether I keep any promises or not is my business, not yours. Besides, I’m going to marry that man, so what difference does it make to you?”
“If Pastor Abraham heard you talking like this, he’d—”
“He’d what?” I challenged. “He’d chastise me, then he’d help me plan the wedding. You’ve done plenty of chastising. Is that all you plan on doing today?”
For the second time in one day, I saw my Gran Gran speechless.
“And after the awful time he’s had with his own mother, I had hoped that you could be more Christlike and love instead of judge.”
Two pristine tears dropped down her wrinkled cheeks and that broke my heart.
“Bless you, my baby girl,” Gran said after a moment.
She stepped closer to me and put her gnarled hands on my cheeks.
“You’re right, and I’m not acting very Christlike. I’m just worried about you, sweet pea. I know you’re growin’ up, but even grown ups make mistakes sometimes.”
My heart warmed and melted.
“I know. But you need to let me make them. Mistake or not, I want my Gran Gran by my side. In just a couple weeks, we’ll be moving in together. Once the semester is over, there's no reason why we can't make things permanent.”
“You want to make things permanent, you’ve got to marry the boy, Mia.”
“Damn right,” Dad added, pointing his finger at me. “That boy better put a ring on your finger, or I’ll—”
There was a knock on the door that had Dad stopping mid-sentence. Patrick went to open it, and there was a downtrodden Owen with shame written across his face.
