Page 30 of Ginjuh

“And I want you to know that I’m not telling you none of this to make you think one way or the other about me. All right? And I don’t mean this to make you feel one way or another about your dad. Or your mom. They’re good to you, even if they ain’t perfect.” He gave me a firm look. “But you’re all grown now. And, well, the cat’s out of the bag, I suppose.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Charlotte and I got married pretty young, Zach.” He said. “Not much older than you are now. But we was blessed. I had a good job, Charlotte taught at the school. We had a house, a car…we were doin’ good for a young couple. A lot better than a lot of the idiots runnin’ around now. Now, you can talk all you want about economics and how things have changed—but we worked. Like dogs. We did all we could to build a life for ourselves that we saw as our dream. Ya’ hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But, no matter how much you try, not all dreams can be achieved through hard work, diligence, and perseverance.” He sighed. “When we got married, the thing your grandma wanted more than anything was to be a mom. She wanted babies so bad. I wasn’t particularly keen on starting a family right away, but I loved that woman more than any man has ever loved a woman before or since—I guarantee you that. I woulda given anything and done anything to make her happy and keep her that way. You ain’t known love until you’d do anything—anything—to make another person happy. You hear me, son?”

I nodded.

“Well, you know how babies are made, so I won’t go into details. But years of tryin’ went by and no baby was comin’. You know what I mean by tryin’, Zach? We tried. A lot. Had fun tryin’, too.”

I chuckled nervously.

“Tryin’ wasn’t the problem. We enjoyed the tryin’. Wasn’t nothing wrong with the tryin’ itself. But, after years of tryin’ and nothing comin’ from it but a damn good time wasn’t makin’ Charlotte a momma. One thing led to another, doctors was visited, and, well, it became clear that I wasn’t goin’ to be able to give her the one thing she wanted above all else. Charlotte wasn’t goin’ to be a momma and that was that.”

I frowned at Grandpa.

“I told her I’d divorce her.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want her to have to live without a child for the rest of her life. She was a good woman. Took care of me and put up with me even when I didn’t deserve it. I never ran around on her or abused her or drank much or nothing, but I was never perfect. She deserved to have the family she had dreamt of since she herself was a child. Adoption wasn’t so big back then, or at least, if it was, people didn’t talk about it so much. I figured if I divorced Charlotte, she could find herself a man who could give her a child, and she’d be happy. But, well, as I said, Charlotte was a good woman. She wouldn’t hear of such a thing. Of course, she mighta been more concerned about how people felt about divorced women back then, though I doubt she gave a shit what the neighbors might whisper behind her back or what other men might think about marrying a divorcee. She told me that we just wasn’t meant to be parents, that that was God’s plan, and that was the end of it. That was our lot in life.”

I just listened.

“But, years goin’ by without being a momma when that’s what you really want musta got to her. Charlotte went off and found someone that could give her the child she wanted.”

“Grandma had…”

“Don’t know the fella’s name. She never told me. Wouldn’ta wanted to know anyway ‘cause I probably woulda done him harm.” Grandpa sighed. “Though, now that I look back, old as I am, I’d like to thank that man for what he done for her, whether he knew what he was doin’ or not. But, that baby, your dad, wasn’t my son. He isn’t my son. Well, not by blood. And I was really angry about that for a very long time. I was angry when Charlotte told me she was pregnant and what she’d gone and done. I was angry through her pregnancy. I was angry ‘til your daddy was damn near a teenager. Finally, I came back to myself—well, Charlotte threatened to leave me if I didn’t—and I started to realize that I had been lookin’ at a blessin’ like a curse. God gives you a gift—you don’t ask how he delivered it, do ya’? I was a father.”

I smiled up at my Grandpa.

“Look, I can’t say that I always did right by your daddy when he was young. But I did my damnedest to make it better. By the time he was your age, things was fine. We were father and son and that’s all there was too it. Things was good. Charlotte was happy, I was more than happy, and your daddy was happy. But…as things go…your dad found out—trip to the doctor, blood drawn, two and two put together—he realized it wasn’t possible for me to be his father. That was around the time Charlotte took sick with the cancer. I talked him out of confronting her about it. We all knew she was gonna die, so why make her last months on God’s green Earth poor, ya’ hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We pretended everything was fine.” Grandpa sighed. “But soon as she was in the ground, your dad thought back over his growing up…the way I had acted indifferent and cold to him the first bit of his life…and well, he decided that all the work later on didn’t matter. I wasn’t his father and that was that. He couldn’t be mad at Charlotte for lying to him his whole life ‘cause she was gone, but he could be mad at me. I had to take the anger he had for both of us. And, I got to say, I’m okay with that. I don’t blame him one bit. Your father’s never been nothin’ but a good son to me...even if he ain’t called me ‘dad’ in nearly fifteen years. If you wasn’t around and already calling me ‘gummpa’ then, he probably woulda stopped talkin’ to me altogether. Of course, since he couldn’t cut me out of his life altogether, he just started calling me ‘Mr. Pelton’. Let’s me know where I stand, ya’ see?”

“Yes, sir. I see.”

“If nothin’ else, I want you to know that your grandma was a good woman who did what she had to do to get herself a child. And if she hadn’t, your daddy wouldn’t be here and neither would you. And your daddy ain’t done nothin’ wrong, either. He has every right to feel he got cheated. He don’t know his real daddy and he never will. Charlotte never told me who he was, like I said—not that your dad would believe me, not that he should after we lied to him all his life—and there’s no way to find him. He’s probably dead, anyway. He’s probably at least my age if not older, so I doubt he’s still up walking around. Probably in a home if he ain’t dead. So…your dad can be bitter and I won’t hold it against him. I’d probably be the same.”

Grandpa grew silent, looking down, as though searching for an answer that would never be found for a question long overdue.

“Is that all?” I asked softly.

“Well,” he sighed, “I guess that’s the most of it. I’m sure I’ve left out details, but none of ‘em important.”

“Okay.”

“But, no, I’m not your dad’s dad, so that means…I’m…I’m not your real Grandpa, Zach. Never have been. At least not by blood. And I’m sure that since I’ve treated you like you are since the day you came out of your momma, and then your dad finding out I wasn’t his real dad and how I treated him for the first years of his life, well, that probably made him resent me even more. You never got treated like you wasn’t’ mine like he did. I wasn’t a good dad for quite a while, son. I tried to make up for it. God knows I did. But your daddy deserved better than what he got. That’s all I got to say about that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So…don’t go givin’ your dad a hard time as far as his relationship with me goes, all right, son?” Grandpa shook his head. “He don’t deserve that. He didn’t deserve a lot that life handed him. The fact that none of it can be taken back don’t matter. He has a right to feel the way he does and to handle it however he wants. All right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Grandpa nodded at me.