Page 54 of Bad Intentions

“And you are talking because of this guy who’s back in town?”

I don’t miss her flinching. There’s not much she can hide from me now that I have a folder full of paperwork about her past.

“I want to talk about my dad,” I say, cutting straight to the chase.

Grandma stays silent for some time, runs her palm across the table, wiping invisible crumbs. Then she raises her eyes. “Your mother wasn’t sure who your father was.”

“I know that.”

I’m not stupid. For years, I gobbled up that story about my dad being in the service and killed overseas. No family. No records. Lies, but when you are little, that’s all you know. When I grew older, I started hearing the rumors about what happened to my mom. Many called my mom names that were tough to accept. It’s not like I didn’t consider the possibility that my dad was a random dude she’d hooked up with.

“Are there other actual candidates for fatherhood?”

“She never talked about it. I stopped asking,” Grandma says.

“But this man who’s back in town, it might be him?”

“Yes.”

At least we are done with beautiful fairy tales that he was an amazing man, a soldier or a pilot who had died before I was born. That’s it. The psycho criminal might be my biological father. I should cry or at least get upset, but the fact is somehow so bizarre that I don’t know how to respond. I do, however, want to know for sure, genes and all.

Except, that guy—well, let’s just say I didn’t want to consider the possibility of having anything to do with James Derek Sickler, biologically or not.

“Maybe I should’ve had this conversation with you way back,” Grandma says softly. “But I knew what that man was capable of. What he did back then. What sort of person he was. And I’d rather you didn’t know who your father was than know it was that man.”

Grandma doesn’t look at me. I don’t know everything she went through, but going to jail, losing her daughter, being accused of horrible things couldn’t have been easy.

She finally raises her eyes at me and smiles meekly, her lips moving, like she’s trying to keep them from trembling. “I am sorry, sweetheart,” she whispers. “I wish I had more answers for you. But some questions are better left unanswered. The truth is not always eye-opening. Occasionally, it closes all the doors and traps you in a dark, windowless room, from which you have no way to escape. I think that’s what happened to your mother.”

My chest burns. That’s another topic we’ve never discussed in detail. “You think it was an accidental overdose? Or…”

No one wants to say the word “suicide.” We think of it as the person’s conscious choice, except it leaves many people behind with a sense of guilt. For what happened. For not preventing it. For not seeing it coming. Not doing enough. The list goes on and on. Suicide is a one-person decision that leaves dozens feeling responsible.

“You don’t think Mom did it on purpose, do you?” I ask.

“That’s one of the questions I’m afraid to answer, Josie,” Grandma says. “It being an accident makes it”—she brings her fingertips together and touches her lips, taking a moment—“makes it an accident,” she says softly. “But if she was in a bad place and didn’t want to fight it…” Grandma takes another moment, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so vulnerable. “The worst feeling in the world,” she finally says, “is when your kids are hurting, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And I didn’t. I failed to recognize it.”

My heart thuds loudly, then halts, squeezing so tightly in my chest that it’s hard to breathe.

“You didn’t fail, Grams.” I rise from the chair, walk up to her, and hug her.

We don’t do this often, hugs, or deep conversations. But this moment calls for it. Suddenly, I have an overwhelming feeling of wanting to drape myself around her to protect her. I’ve never felt like this before. Maybe that’s what it means to be a grown-up—knowing that you have the strength to take care of someone who’s supported you since the day you were born. For the first time, I need to be a parent. Or a version of it.

“You are the best, Grams,” I whisper, my voice cracking. My heart breaks at the thought that the woman who’s always been larger than life in my eyes suddenly feels so fragile. “You have always been the best. With me. With her, I’m sure. You…”

Her hand touches mine, strokes it gently, and my chest shake with a sob. Grandma’s always been my rock, and I never thought that one day, she’d need me to be one for her.

Tears well up in my eyes. “I love you,” I whisper. “I don’t want to lose you.”

All the devastating thoughts of her being gone soon come crashing down on me, and I’m crumbling again, unable to stop the tears and the sobbing.

“Oh, honey.” Her hand on my arm tightens. “Come here.”

She draws the empty chair closer, nodding for me to sit down, and I do, embarrassed that I’m crying like a baby.

“Losing things and people in life is inevitable,” she says, making me sniffle and roll my eyes. I don’t need yet another lecture on the fact that everyone is mortal. She’s given me those before. But I only have so much time to hear her talk. So I listen, taking in her voice, trying to engrave it in my memory.

“You are just starting to live,” Grandma tells me.