AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Soon.” As often happens for people slipping in and out of lucid thought, Davis changed the subject. “Nicholas…and you. Try anything…everything…to stay together. It isn’t always easy…it isn’t always fun. Nothing worth doing is. Don’t…give up on him. Don’t give up on marriage. You reallyareperfect… together…even if it sometimes doesn’t feel like it. Never give up, Eva. Never.”
I’d nodded, smiling at him. “Okay…”
“Can I… tell you something?”
“Of course.” I squeezed his hand.
“She’s watching us…smiling.”
A strange shiver ran through me at those words, but it wasn’t of fright. Not at all. “She… is?”
He nodded slowly. “She’s come to me several times now. Tells me she’s waiting. That they’re all waiting…can’t wait to see me again.”
I’d been crying before he finished the sentence, even as I couldn’t help but look around me. There was nothing.
He chuckled, then coughed, the sound weak, bone-weary. “They can’t see her either. But it’s okay. She’s as beautiful as the day I asked her… to marry me.”
“Why… why are you telling me this, Grandpa?” My voice was warbling at that point, my words squeaked out between sniffles.
Then he’d squeezed my hand. The man was facing imminent death…and all he wanted to do was comfortme. “I’m telling you…because I know…you’re a believer. Just like me. But that…you question. I want you to know. It’s okay to question. We all do…if we’re thinking people.”
I was crying openly by then, and I didn’t even try to reply, my grip upon his hand feverish as I kissed the top of it.
“And I know that…Nicholas…doesn’t believe.”
“Oh, Grandpa, please…” I was trying not to sob.
“I have a secret to tell you too. Do you…want to hear it?”
I nodded, again kissing his hand, which was now soaked with my tears.
“Millie wasn’t a believer…either. When I…said goodbye to her. Before…she passed. She was…so afraid…that she’d never see me again. I tried to…reassure. To comfort… her.” He’d chuckled then, tickled with a pure, unalloyed joy that was almost childlike, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “But she was…wrong. She’s…righthere!”
Then he seemed to slip into semi-consciousness again, though a smile continued to curve his lips.
“Rest, Grandpa,” I’d said, pressing another kiss to his head.
“You’re…a good girl…” Then he’d drifted away.
Davis passed away in his sleep that night.
The chirp of a car horn brought me back to the present. I was idling at an intersection, the light already green. I gunned the engine and gave up my fight against falling apart.
Now, just as it was then, my face was a flood of tears.
Chapter 14
Saturday
Nick
Her last words had rung in my head all night.
As I strode down the hotel corridor, the yellow sidelights splashing warm illumination both up and down the walls, I shook my head, murmuring them to myself, even though I was risking looking like a crazy person. Perhaps, in a small way, I was?
I was determined not to stop now, though.
Reaching her door, 117, I rapped my knuckles against it. Then I did it again, harder this time.
