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“Arr, matey,” Lucy quips. I offer her a hand up and she takes it. Then she shouts, “Last one there is a rotten egg!”
My heart is a bit lighter as I race after her.
6
Savannah
It’s almost four in the morning when I give up on trying to sleep. I get up and pull on a pair of sweatpants, and one of Mom’s favorite Susie King Taylor High School sweatshirts. I stop to smell it as I pull it on. I finally had to wash it last month, so it doesn’t carry her scent anymore. But I still love wearing it.
It’s like wearing a big hug from Mom. And more days than not, that’s exactly what I need.
When I slip downstairs into our kitchen, I’m not the least bit surprised to find that my grandad is awake. He’s wearing a pair of blue flannel pants, a simple white cotton T-shirt, and a black-and-red plaid robe. His white hair is still damp from the shower. He rubs his lower back, an old ache from years of stooping over the edge of the boat to pull in traps full of crabs and shrimp.
He’s sitting at the small kitchen table with a cup of coffee and several photo albums spread out in front of him. When he hears my footsteps, he stiffens and starts closing the albums. He peers over his shoulder at me.
“What are you doing up, Sweet Pea?”
I head over to the stove and set the kettle on to boil. “I couldn’t sleep. I’m pretty sure that sleep disturbances run in the family.”
Grandad snorts. “Whatever it is that you and I got, your sister sure doesn’t have it. Birdie would sleep all day if you let her.”
I smile. “That’s absolutely true. When I went past her room, she and Dex were sound asleep. Snoring like two little bears during the winter.”
“That sounds like them. Don’t know where they got the ability.” My grandfather closes the last album and starts to stack them up.
I pull a mug down from the dark-stained cabinet and drop an herbal teabag in it.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you or anything. You can go back to looking at photos.”
Grandad sips his coffee. “No such thing as disturbing a person who’s so bored he’s countin’ the ceiling tiles.”
I walk over to the table and point to the albums. “May I?”
Grandad’s eyes blaze amber as he regards me. He purses his lips and pushes the stack of photo albums across the table. The tea kettle whistles and I pour steaming water in my mug.
Then I sit down at the now-crowded kitchen table and pull an album close. Opening it, I see a weathered Polaroid that’s warped with age. I brush my fingers over the image of my young, red-headed grandfather and my gorgeous blonde grandmother. They are no more than twenty or so in the photo, and they are kissing while proudly holding up their matching wedding bands.
“Aww. You were both so beautiful.”
Grandad gives me a soft smile.
“It’s a trick of the eye. Your grandmother was so dang pretty, she just lit up everything around her.” He smiles down at her picture and smooths a fingertip over her image. “You take after her. Your mom and your sister take after my side of the family.”
I point to the next photo, which is a family portrait taken when my sister and I were kids. Grandad and Grandma stand in the back, dressed in their Sunday best. My mom is seated before them, her hair a vibrant red, her big-boned structure impossible to make out in her boxy gray sweater. She has a red-headed little girl in a navy dress on her lap and a bald baby wrapped in a cream blanket in her arms.
I remember how desperately I wanted a navy dress just like Birdie’s when I was a little girl. Birdie refused to let me have the dress as a hand-me-down and wore it long after it was too tight and too short for her. Even back then, I just wanted to fit in with my sister. To this day, I still think she’s pretty much the coolest person who’s ever walked this earth.
Tapping the photo with a fingertip, I ask, “Where is Dad in this photo?”
“You can bet your britches that he was out in the trawler, bringing in fish. He always said he made the most money working on Sundays when everybody else was at church.”
I wrinkle my nose. “I can’t really remember him.”
“Your dad didn’t like to sit for photos too much. But he sure did love the ever-loving stuffing out of you and your sister.”
I nod. My dad passed away from cancer when I was only two. Growing up without him was difficult. Once my father has passed and my mom moved our little family into her childhood home, my grandad sort of filled my dad’s shoes.
I flip the page and see an image that twists my heart. My mom standing with her arms around my grandma’s waist, grinning widely. My grandmother smiles at my mom and brushes back a lock of her auburn hair. The captured moment is so tender that it makes my eyes well up with tears. Though I’ve seen these albums countless times, the images still fill my chest with longing.
