AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You and your cars,” I smiled as my grandpa stepped into the room.
“You ready?” Trace asked him.
“I’ve been ready since yesterday,” he shuffled to the door and outside.
“I take it that’s my cue to leave,” Trace chuckled. He kissed me quickly before hurrying after my grandpa.
I found my grandma in the kitchen and helped her finish washing the dishes.
When that was done, she turned to me with a smile. “Would you like to help me make more stars? I need some more for the store.”
“I’d love to,” I replied giddily.
She squeezed my arm lightly as she passed me on her way out of the room.
There was a small loveseat with a coffee table in front of it in her attic workspace and that’s where we ended up sitting. She had to show me how to make the stars again and after a few tries mine looked almost as good as hers.
“This is relaxing,” I said after we’d been silent a few minutes.
“It is. Your grandpa doesn’t quite understand why I love it so much,” she shrugged, dropping a completed star into a jar.
She grabbed a pen, writing a message on the piece of paper before turning it into a star. I read what she wrote over her shoulder, ‘”Leap and the net will appear—Zen Saying.’”
“You can write something too,” she smiled at me. “Whatever you want. It can be a quote from someone else or something you come up with. Anything, really.”
I thought for a moment and took the pen.
Regret nothing. I scrawled on the piece of paper. I laid the pen aside and made my star.
“Why did Der—” I stopped and corrected myself, “Why did my dad want to be a doctor?”
“Oh,” Margaret’s eyes filled with warmth, “he loved helping people. He was the kind of person that wanted to save everyone.”
“I—uh—” I bit my lip, afraid I might be stepping over a boundary. “I would like to get flowers and visit his gravesite.”
Her eyes filled with tears and she patted my hand. “That would be wonderful. I know,” she took a deep breath, “that Derek is in heaven smiling down on you. He’d be so proud to have a daughter like you.”
“You think?”
“I know so,” she looked away, finishing the star she was making. “I don’t like going there…to the grave. But I’ll give you directions and you can go there on your own or with Trace.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Hang on,” she stood, going to the same bookcase where she’d gotten the jar full of origami stars. She heaved a heavy looking book off the shelf and dropped it on the coffee table. “It’s a photo album,” she explained.
“Oh,” my eyes widened. I reached out and stroked my fingers along the black leather cover.
Margaret sat back down and opened it up.
“That’s Derek as a baby,” she pointed to a picture of a cute baby with dark hair and chubby cheeks. “Wasn’t he precious?”
“Adorable,” I agreed.
“There we all are,” she pointed to another picture. In it, she was holding a baby Derek with a hand on Dex’s shoulder to keep him from running away, and Doug had his arm around her shoulder. They stood in front of this house, smiling proudly. “That was the day we moved into this house,” she smiled wistfully.
“You all look so happy,” I commented, studying the picture.
“We were. I’m not saying we didn’t have our moments and boys will be boys, but we were always so happy. We still are…but even this many years later we still feel Derek’s absence like it was yesterday.” She gazed at the photo sadly and turned the page. “Oh look, here’s Derek in his first grade spelling bee. He won,” she chuckled.
