In This With You by Faye Darling

Author:Faye Darling [Darling, Faye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Beach Cottage Publishing LLC
Published: 2023-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Six

Steph

I don’t think I’ve ever been this full in my life. Nan doesn’t mess around with holiday meals, does she? Even if there were only three of us. Turkey and ham. Mashed and roasted potatoes. Lentil "meatballs", brussels sprouts, candied carrots, bacon-laced green beans. Not to mention the homemade rolls, good Irish butter, and a vat of savory gravy.

Groaning, I shuffle out of the dining room, drawn to the massive living room. Behind a wrap-around couch, a wall of windows looks out onto a dark deck and the ocean beyond. The moon cracks through a gap in the clouds, almost full, shining the barest of lights on the waves rolling onto shore. Only the thin lines of white foam are visible from this distance, but it’s still spectacular.

I sigh wistfully and say to myself, “Mom would’ve loved this view.”

“Your mother adored this view,” Nan says, following me into the living room. A box of something called After Eights, a carafe of decaf coffee, and a plate of homemade sugar cookies teeter on a wooden tray she carries. I reach out to take the tray, but she tuts and jerks it out of my reach.

If you hadn’t offered to do the dishes and pack away leftovers, I wonder if she’d let you help her? From what I’ve seen so far, your grandmother is as headstrong and independent as I am, but doesn’t mind bossing you around. It’s cute.

“My mom’s been here before?” I ask Nan as I sink into the deep cushions of the couch, my back to the windows. I can see your shadow shift over the dining room floor as you move around in the kitchen.

Nan plops down right beside me, curling her bare feet up underneath her, the wide caps of her knees pushing against my smaller ones that are bent in the same fashion. She puts her arm over the back of the couch behind me, her fingers passing idly through my auburn curls.

“Loads of times,” she says, biting into an After Eight—a square of chocolate covered mint, I realize now. She washes the melting mess down with a slosh of coffee and sighs. “Your mother was something special, my love. No, not special. Magical. Never met a woman like her. Doubt I will again in this lifetime.”

I take a mint out of the box, removing the dark paper and nibbling off the corner of the candy. “I miss her so much.”

“Mm,” Nan hums, twirling one of my curls around her fingers.

“With her type of cancer, we knew she wasn’t going to make it, almost from the beginning,” I say, the tears welling without any forethought. “I had time to prepare. I had time to grieve even when she was still herself. And yet…”

Nan doesn’t say anything when I trail off. She sits there. Knees locked against mine. Fingers in my hair. Eyes trained on me.

She’s waiting, isn’t she?

Letting me breathe before the next thought arrives that I need to express.

She’s bold and she’s loud, your grandmother.

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