“I do that thing where I talk to him sometimes, wherever I am.”
Esme makes a small noise of agreement.
No matter how inside out the world was, how messed up, how miserable, how upside down, Grandpa always knew what to say and what to do. Even if it was saying nothing, he still made it all better.
“I know his body is in the graveyard, but I think if any energy ever had a chance of moving on, it’s his. He never could sit still. He packed so much living into his eighty-eight years.”
“I still wish he could have had eighty-eight more. The world would have been a better place.”
I open my eyes and come face to face with Esme’s soft smile. It probably mirrors my own. We’re talking about sad things, but they’re always going to be our best memories. Grandpa was so vibrant. He was so alive. He dazzled me. There’s no other way to put it.
“He was ready, though,” I say. “He was never scared of anything that I ever knew of, living or dying.”
“I think he would have been proud of the way he went. Gardening.”
“Definitely. If he could have picked, it would have been like that. When they found him, he had a smile on his face and he was staring up at the sun, even though he couldn’t see it any longer.”
Esme sucks in a breath. “I never knew that. No one ever told me.”
“He loved you.” I quickly wipe the corners of my burning eyes. “He’d probably tip that old trucker’s hat of his and tell me that he’s glad we’re riding together now.” I draw in a shuddering breath. “Fuck. I’ve cried enough these past few days.”
Esme nods. She doesn’t look ashamed though. She’s not trying to run and immediately curl into herself and hide. I know how hard it is for her to leave herself open like this, but she stares right at me and lets me see everything.
“It feels kind of nice to be all drained out and renewed after,” she admits. “Reg didn’t have any shame around emotions. It’s just another thing that I admired about him. He was raised in what people think of as this hard era, and maybe a lot of it was, but it only ever burnished his heart golden. He wasn’t like most men, old or young. He did what he felt like doing. If that was laughing, he laughed. If that was crying, he’d cry. If you wanted to do that in front of him, he made you feel safe enough to let go in whatever form that took.”
Esme’s palm edges along the table. It gets closer and closer to my plate. I finally—like a total idiot, realize that she’s reaching forme. I fumble, getting my hand up. It smacks the bottom of the table and then my knuckles clang down hard against the tabletop before I get our fingers threaded together. Her palm is hot and a little damp, her fingers smooth and soft as they curl around mine.
An absolute perfect fit.
I turn my face to the ceiling, like Grandpa is up there in the sky past it, looking down on us. “We both miss you. I hope, if it’s possible, you’re in all the flowers now. All the plants and trees that you loved. That you’re still looking down on all the stray animals and all the troubled people. Thank you for all the gardening lessons. Thanks for teaching me about mechanics and about life. Thank you for beingfun. Thank you for being you and for helping me to realize that it was okay to just be me too, even if most people didn’t appreciate it.”
“I appreciated it. I always have.”
My thoughts slam into each other, and my heart shifts into overdrive. It beats so hard and fast that my lungs don’t know how to gather any oxygen around it. My eyes blur and the world turns into a whole bunch of refracted prisms again.
“I know,” I say thickly, while I watch the sunlight and dappled shadows chase each other over her forehead, her hair, and the bridge of her nose. “I haven’t done any since he passed and the house was sold,” I admit. “I sort of wish he would have left it to me, but he wanted the money to go to all the charities he supported. I don’t regret that for a second. Part of me wishes that I would have had the money, or that I could have qualified for a mortgage to buy the house, but part of me knows he never wanted me to stay trapped and constrained in one place. He didn’t want me to be weighed down by ghosts. He would have told me that a house is a house, and you can plant flowers and make a garden anywhere in the world. He would have said that memories are what lasts forever. He was right. He was right about everything.”
Esme’s lips purse. Her other hand clears the empty space on the table and wraps around mine. She holds tight to me with both of her hands twisted around my fingers, half like I’m her anchor, and half like she’s anchoring me. “He used to say, above all, take care of each other. He meant everything from people to the environment.”
We stay that way for a long time, holding hands beside two barely touched plates.
It’s Esme who breaks the stillness. “We should maybe get to doing the security? I know that it’s probably abig job. I’d really like to help you, if you need some, even if it’s just offering encouragement when you seem happy about doing something. I wouldn’t know the first thing about what it’s supposed to look like, but I know that you’re a genius, and I’d trust your cues.”
I stand when she lets me go slowly, peeling her fingers away one at a time like she doesn’t really want me to. I take our plates to the fridge, then motion for her to follow me.
***
We spend the next half an hour pulling tech out of her car and finding tools around the cabin. As a club, we want to build a few outbuildings out here, maybe even a shop one day, but we haven’t made it that far yet. The ladder and tools are in the mudroom at the back of the cabin. All the old cameras are already wired in. I can reuse most of everything and the hard part is already done. After that, I’ll have to get on the roof and mount the new satellite dish for improved internet connection.
The cameras are mounted all around the cabin and there are a few on the power pole in the middle of the yard. I didn’t turn any off when we got here, which means that Maverick, or Dravin, or both of them, probably saw me bawling like a baby this morning.
Whatever. I don’t have any shame about what happened. How can I when Esme is standing right here with me? She’s stock still beside the ladder and looks serious about holding it even though I only have to go up a few steps because the cabin is all one level and the roofline is just above my head.
I have a camera in my hand. The bag of tools sits by the foot of the ladder.
Esme is so much more alluring. I know I said slow and I’ve cautioned myself a thousand times about that since breakfast alone, but part of me wants to tug her into a tight hug. A hug that turns into me running my fingers through her hair, her body melding against mine, and me flipping off all the cameras, or shorting them out completely, before I scoop her up and abscond with her into the cabin.
Whoa. Okay, great. I’m now fully, raging hard. So hard that there’s going to need to be an adjustment soon, before my dick gets damaged punching the back of my fly. There’s no way that my body wants slow.
