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On timid feet, I move toward the bench and sit beside her.I don’t say anything.I doubt there’s a single word in any language I can say that will make any of this hurt less.So instead, I grab her hand, a lame attempt at offering her comfort.
But when she squeezes, I know it was exactly what she needs, especially as she drops my hand, only to wrap her arm around me and pull me against her.
“I’m sorry,” my grandmother manages to say, her normally firm voice wavering.
She doesn’t embellish further.
But I don’t need her to.Those two words are all I’ve needed to hear from her.
I meet her tear-filled eyes.“Me, too.”
She sucks in her bottom lip, shifting her gaze forward to a fresh set of memorial wreaths on display on either side of the pond.
“It’s like losing them all over again.”She shakes her head, obviously still struggling with the truth.
I am, too.
“It was one thing to learn they’d died in a tragic skiing accident that I couldn’t do anything to prevent.It’s another to learn they died in such…” She trails off.“Those poor babies.”Her voice catches before her expression hardens.“I wish that bastard were still alive so I could kill him myself.”
“Who?Silas?”
“No.Well, yes.There are quite a few things I’d love to do to that sniveling worm.”
A laugh escapes my throat at her rather astute assessment of Silas Archer.
“I’m talking about Theodore.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that she doesn’t refer to him as King Theodore, or my grandfather.In her eyes, he most likely lost that privilege.
He has in mine.
“When I learned everything he did, I thought the same thing,” I tell her.“But I’d like to think the karma gods paid him a visit and he’s burning in hell right now.”
“Where he’s forced to spend eternity eating canned tuna fish and listening to bagpipes, the two things he probably hated the most.”
I burst out laughing.“And wearing sneakers that are perpetually covered in mud,” I add, remembering all the times he scolded me for having muddy shoes when I was a small child.
“And there are no razors to be had, so he’s forced to grow a big, bushy beard.”
I throw my head back, my laughter increasing, my grandmother joining in.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh before.It’s oddly reassuring.
“I truly am sorry, Esme,” my grandmother says once her laughter dies down, remorse covering the lines of her face.“I thought…” She pauses, pinching her lips together.“I don’t even know what I thought.I guess I wasn’t raisedtothink.Just to do what I was told.I never considered questioning anything.But I’m glad you did.Glad your mother raised you to think for yourself.To make your own decisions.To stand up for yourself and what’s right, even in the face of danger.”She grabs my hand, her eyes filled with admiration and respect.“I’m incredibly proud of you.”
“Thanks…Grandma.”
For years, that term of affection felt foreign on my lips.I always referred to her as the Queen Mother or my grandmother.Never Grandma.But now, it feels right.
“And what of Captain Lawson?”
“What about Captain Lawson?”I ask warily.
She shrugs.“Don’t you think it’s time you made your own decision about him, too?”
On a long sigh, I look forward, worrying my bottom lip.“Truthfully, I’m not sure where we stand.”I glance her way.“Things are…complicated.”
“They’re only complicated if you make them that way.He loves you.”
