I shrugged, realizing how convoluted and confusing this likely all sounded. “I’ve been able to put some pieces together over the last several years, based on what little she’s told me as well as conversations I’ve overheard, and that’s the picture that doesn’t match up to the person I know.”
Drew remained by my side, intently listening as I spilled my family’s secrets.
“This is what I know: until his stroke five years ago, my mom hadn’t seen her dad since she was fifteen. That’s when my grandmother left and took my mom with her. I also know she left because my grandfather was—as my mom put it—a mean drunk. And what I’ve gathered, based on things I’ve overheard, is that my grandmother didn’t simply leave…she ran away. Snuck off in the middle of the night so that he would never find them.
“My mom had also made it known that they didn’t have much after they left, and my grandmother busted her ass to provide for my mom. But after my grandfather came to stay with us, I learned that he had a lot of money. So the fact that my grandmother ran away with barely two pennies to rub together, along with hearing he was a mean drunk, makes me assume he was abusive. I’m just not sure of the extent…like, if he took it out on my mom too.”
“But you said he’s in your life now?”
My grandfather hadn’t been a prevalent topic of conversation since I was thirteen, and even then, there wasn’t much to talk about. The few friends I’d had at the time were only mildly curious about the man who’d shown up out of nowhere, and after that, he was simply part of my life. Other than asking why he lived with us, no one had any reason to question him or his past. Which was why Drew’s unintentional interrogation knocked me slightly off-kilter.
“Uh…yeah. He moved in with us after his stroke and has been there ever since.” A few moments of quiet left me dying to fill in the space with more details. “That’s how I found the diary. When it was decided that he would live with us, my mom and I went to his place to clean it out, which apparently, wasn’t the same house she had lived in. And that’s why I don’t know for sure if the diary even belonged to my grandmother.”
Drew turned to me with one eyebrow arched in question. “How does that make sense?”
“It’s unrealistic to assume he lived alone for twenty years. There were things in the attic that my mom had never seen before—things that definitely wouldn’t have belonged to a man. So, he more than likely had been living with at least one other woman, and therefore, the diary could’ve been hers.”
Slowly putting one foot in front of the other, he pulled his lips to one side and hummed to himself. It didn’t take a psychic to know that he was considering what I’d told him. However, I couldn’t be sure if he doubted it or was just plain confused. And the longer he hummed, the more paranoid I became.
Luckily, he put me out of my misery by asking, “Didn’t you say your grandmother died the same night you were born?”
I nodded, unsure where he was headed with this.
“There’s an ancient Indian belief that death and birth are timed so precisely that when a person takes their last breath as the dying, they take their very next breath as a newborn. And there’s no way to interrupt the cycle—you’ll die when it’s your time, not a second too soon, and the same goes with being born.” Even though he told me an interesting piece of information, he still sounded impressed by his own factoid.
“Where’d you learn that?”
With a smile on his face, he said, “I spent last summer being indoctrinated into a tribe.”
“Are you serious? You really did that?”
Realizing that I’d stopped dead in my tracks, he turned, caught whatever shocked expression I wore on my face, and laughed. “No. I read it in a book somewhere.”
Not wanting him to recognize the heat in my cheeks, I playfully slapped his arm and called him an “asshole” under my breath. Which only made him laugh even harder.
Deciding two could play this game, I turned on my heel and started walking back the way we came. We weren’t too far from The Feeder, and I was technically heading in the opposite direction of my cabin, but that was all right. I wasn’t serious about leaving him anyway. If I played it right, he’d follow me in three…
Two…
One…
“Wait, Kenny, don’t go.” Drew caught up to me in a couple strides of his long legs. “I was only teasing.”
Turning to the side and lifting my chin, I revealed the smile that stretched my lips, reassuring him that I, too, was only having fun. And just like that, the heaviness of our conversation about my grandfather dissipated. Gone. As if we’d spent the entire time discussing the life cycle of a frog. There was something easy about him that I couldn’t put my finger on. It was like he reminded me of someone, though I didn’t have a clue who. He held a familiarity I couldn’t place, and right now, I didn’t care if I ever understood the connection we had.
I simply wanted to enjoy it.
“Sorry,” he muttered, humor still swimming in his tone. “You didn’t seem to be very comfortable talking about your family, so I was trying to change the subject.”
“It’s not that I was uncomfortable with it. I guess I’m just not used to anyone being interested in my life without a purpose. You typically get to know someone for a reason—be it friendship or something more romantic. And with you…” I grew lost in his intense stare, my words vanishing from my lips.
“With me, what?” he whispered, pulling me deeper and deeper into the trance he’d put me under with nothing more than a look.
Without realizing it, we’d both stopped walking and stood on the side of the dirt road, staring at each other, my hand in his. Light poured onto us from both directions; however, it didn’t seem to be as yellow as before. Now, it appeared whiter, like what you’d expect from a halogen bulb. And the more I concentrated on his eyes, losing myself in his stare, the brighter it became. If I’d been more aware of my surroundings, I might’ve questioned the possible presence of a UFO above us.
Suddenly, the sound of a dirt bike revving its engine in the distance broke the spell. And just like that, the light returned to its natural yellow hue, the static in the air evaporated, and the heat in my cheeks came back with a vengeance.
A blind man could recognize that Drew had been locked under the same trance, and now, he appeared just as stunned as I felt. Hopefully, that meant he couldn’t remember the conversation we’d been in the middle of either, because I didn’t care to make a fool of myself and admit that I’d just been in la-la land.
“So, you were saying…” Dammit!
I pulled my straw to my lips and sucked as slowly as possible, needing as much time as I could steal to remember what I was saying. But all I could focus on was his theory about death and birth. It was as if my brain couldn’t process anything before or after that.
Evidently, Drew noticed my struggle and decided to help me along. “You said that everyone has a reason to get to know somebody, and then you said but with you… What were you going to say? What about me?”
I recalled saying that, now that he’d refreshed my memory. However, I didn’t care to finish the thought, especially after staring lovingly into his eyes for what seemed like an eternity. “Who knows, it could’ve been anything. I don’t have a clue where I was going with that.”