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“Damned straight I did,” his grandfather answered. “I didn’t move my ass out of my chair for hours. And I drank piña coladas the whole time.”

“I don’t know how you ever got up, then,” Oliver mentioned.

“You should take a vacation,” Gramps told him. “Both of you should go somewhere. Together.”

“I caught your meaning,” his grandson said. “Are we going to your house or back to mine?”

I had not enjoyed Gramps’s remark about vacationing and gave him a look. He mocked me, doing it right back and then he ordered, “You ride with me and talk about your crazy mother.” As soon as I got behind the wheel of the hearse, he turned to me and slapped his thighs. “What the hell went on when I left?”

I had already texted him with the generalities, so now I gave him more of the specifics, including about Maël-Michael. “I did quite a bit of research on him,” I said. “He has a lengthy criminal record which ended his gymnastics career.”

“She brought that man into her daughter’s home? Holy Moses.”

“I’m sure that we had a lot of dangerous people around when I was a kid, because it wasn’t like my mom did background checks. Or asked them any questions,” I added, considering. “And it wasn’t like she had much of a choice about where to go when she showed up at my door. She doesn’t have any more money.”

“Well, she should have done what the rest of us have to do, and gotten off her ass and worked for some! At the least, she could have dropped the tumbling criminal before she imposed on you. That’s just stupid.”

I knew that, because I had thought the same thing. She shouldn’t have involved me with him—I never would have done that to her, but I also believed that I wouldn’t have been with a guy like that in the first place. And she should have tried to get a job, even without my prompting.

I had been thinking about work myself, actually, because my own business wasn’t exactly booming. If I didn’t expand it and start making enough to live, then I was going to move onto something else. It could have been something in an office, for example, around other people. Maybe that wouldn’t have been so terrible. Some of them were annoying, but not all.

“Speaking of work, Oliver said that you were going to take more vacations from the shop. That sounds like a good thing,” I mentioned.

“You want me out of your hair?”

“No! But why not enjoy yourself?” I asked him.

“That was what I just said to you, when you gave me the stink eye.”

“No,” I repeated. “What you said was that I should take a romantic trip with your grandson and somehow entice him into—”

“What is the matter with the two of you?” he sighed. “Life’s short! That’s what Oliver always tells me.”

“Funny you would say that,” I told him, and changed the subject again. “You’re correct that life is short and that’s why you need to make up with your son. We’re going to have you guys over on New Year’s Eve so it will happen.”

He had a lot to say about that idea, both to me and to Oliver when we arrived home and started dinner. He complained but there was nothing specific, just generalized angst about being made to do something that he wasn’t interested in.

“Really?” Oliver asked him. “You really don’t miss your son? That’s bullshit.”

Gramps looked embarrassed.

“You don’t think it would be better for us all to be together on holidays? On any day? What if I had a family of my own? What would happen then?” Oliver continued. “If you two can’t get along, and if you can’t be nice to my mom, then somebody would always be excluded.”

“A family of your own?” I heard myself ask, but they were still arguing.

“He’s the one who’s mad at me! I don’t have anything to apologize for,” Gramps insisted.

“Are you sure about that? I don’t think you were blameless. In fact, I’m sure that you weren’t.”

It was quiet for a moment in the kitchen, with just the sound of the burner and the water bubbling in the pot. “I had a big mouth,” Gramps said finally. “I had a lot of opinions.”

“You?” Oliver asked, but sarcasm could have gotten us off track. I put my hand on his and shook my head. “Sorry. Go ahead,” he told his grandfather.

“I said things that I shouldn’t have, about your mom—nothing too terrible,” he quickly added. “But I should have kept it to myself. I shouldn’t have questioned how they were parenting you and Frances, because I know how I reacted when my own mother tried to tell me that we were doing things wrong. I heard a lot of ‘Oliver Eugene, don’t talk to me like that!’ on those days. I didn’t listen to my mother about how to raise my son and I didn’t learn any lessons about zipping my lips. But I wouldn’t behave like that that anymore. With age, I’ve matured and gotten better. Like good cheese.”

I could tell that Oliver was about to say something else so I squeezed his hand, and he stayed silent.

“I can also recognize that I’m not right about everything. Most things, but not all,” Gramps concluded.