Chapter 1
“You don’t have to hold onto me,” Grandpa says, pushing my arm away. “I’ve walked this path a million times this summer,” he goes on, grumbling to himself as he takes an uneasy step forward.
I stay close to him, watching his feet amble over the grass, ready to catch him should he fall.
And then he stumbles. I grab his arm. “Grandpa! Go slower!”
He curses under his breath, then looks up at the bright autumn sky. He stops walking, and just stands here for a second. I’m still holding onto his arm, but he doesn’t shove me off.
“Clarissa,” he says after a moment. I think he’s going to mention the greenhouse, but he goes the opposite way. “You get yourself to the eye doctor once a year, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. “I know.”
“Every year. Don’t skip it because you feel fine. You make sure you go.”
“I will.”
Grandpa is only sixty-five, but he has glaucoma. Apparently, he knew he had the beginning stages of it years ago, but he never went to the doctor until it got too bad. Glaucoma is an eye disease that slowly makes you go blind, but if the doctors catch it early enough, they can give you treatments to prolong your vision for several more years. Grandpa got the treatments too late.
He was still able to get around most of this summer, but his eyesight has been declining more and more. It’s worse in the sunlight, so even though we’re just walking from the daycare parking lot to the greenhouse at the back of the playground, he needs me to help stop him from falling.
“What’s she look like?” Grandpa says after I’ve maneuvered him a few steps closer to our masterpiece.Sheis what he calls the greenhouse.
“She’s glorious,” I say, tipping my head up to look at the beautiful ten foot by ten foot structure. “We did a great job.”
“Youdid a great job.” He pats me on the back. “Those kids are gonna be so happy.”
I grin. This whole summer project started because I got my heart broken, although I’d like to say it’s become more than that over the last few weeks.
After my jackass ex-boyfriend Shawn decided he didn’t like dating a girl who was as tall as me—literally, that’s what he said—I was understandably crushed. I wish he would have lied and said he didn’t like my personality or something. But no, he told the truth, which hurt more than anything.
Shawn was my first real boyfriend. As in, heaskedme to be his girlfriend, and we went on dates and made out and I let him grab my boobs even though he wasn’t very good at it. I liked him though. I liked him a lot. We were exactly the same height, and he hated it. At five foot ten inches, I’m always the tallest girl anywhere I go. It’s something that’s always bothered me, but when Shawn asked me to be his girlfriend I thought it would all be okay.
Of course, I was stupid to think that.
After crying for twenty-four hours straight, I’d gone searching for something to take my mind off being heartbroken. I landed on a box of old black and white photographs from my grandparent’s younger years. My grandma was a beautiful woman with a heart shaped face and a smile that made you want to smile back. I only know these things from photographs. She died when I was three, so I have no memories of her at all.
Shortly after, Grandpa moved in with me and Mom so he wouldn’t have to live alone. Since my own dad died when I was also a baby, Grandpa is the closest thing to a father that I’ve ever had.
I was going through the old photos when I saw a stack of them that pictured Grandma showing kids around a greenhouse. It’s was small and rickety even back then, but the kids looked unbelievably happy to be in there among the fresh flowers and exotic plants.
I’d asked Grandpa about the photos and he told me that greenhouse was Grandma’s favorite thing. She spent her entire life working at the daycare that she owned next to the high school. After she’d retired, she’d sold the place to someone else, but it’s still a daycare.
I realized that greenhouse was still there at the back of the playground, covered in overgrown weeds and slowly rotting to the ground. I decided I wanted to rebuild it in my grandma’s memory.
Anything to get my mind off this heartache.
Mrs. Bradley is the new owner, and since I work there during the summers, she was happy to let me build the greenhouse back again. She said the kids would love it, and she even gave me the money to buy the materials.
Grandpa did all the hard work, like building the frame and cutting the material with his huge bandsaw, but I put it all together with him, doing more and more of the work as his eyesight slowly faded away. This is our masterpiece, and now it’s finally done.
Grandpa puts a hand on the green paneled wall. “She’s a beaut,” he says, but his eyes are squinted so much I know he probably can’t see it at all.
“Thanks for all your help,” I say as I admire the little house. It’s now ready for pots and bags of mulch, and soon we can plant flowers and it’ll be inspiring these kids just like it did when my grandma worked here.
Grandpa throws an arm over my shoulder. “I’ll let you guide me back to the car,” he says, sounding somewhat resigned. “I’m so proud of you, Clarissa. Your grandmother would be too.”
*
