SO COLD (18+) currently editing

Chapter 38

SO COLD

25th January 2016.

My grandma was a frail woman, with a strong voice. She wore a string of pearls around her neck and wore a plum coloured suit and silky white gloves. She had just gotten back from church. Recognition flooded through me, I remembered her. I knew her. I sat down next to her and kissed her cheeks and she wrapped her arms around me and sobbed. It was mournful: She saw my mother in me and I was lost time and a past she thought she'd never get to see again. But the tears that trekked down her face were also relieved. We were together again. "My sweet baby," her wrinkled hands grabbed mine. "You're a mirror image of her and you've grown into a beautiful woman."

"Would you like to help me get drinks, Daniel?" Isiah said, and I smiled gratefully at him. I wanted this moment alone, I waited for the door to close after them.

"I'm sorry for not coming sooner. I just..." My breath became shaky and my cheeks were wet. I couldn't help it, I was emotional and I didn't control myself for once. I cried on her shoulder and I wasn't ashamed. I missed her and I missed my mother and I missed the familiar smell of her and safety and a sense of belonging. I hated my father for taking us away and isolating us, it was cruel and heartless of him to strip away everything and everyone I knew and then to refuse my family from seeing us, getting to know us. I blubbered and she wiped my face but then she was tearing up and I wiped her eyes. And then we laughed, "We're going to flood this house with our tears."

"You're home," she squeezed my hand. "This house can be set on fire and I wouldn't mind."

"Where's granddad?"

"Oh, sweetheart, you don't know? He passed away soon after your mother, it was a heart attack. We told your father. He didn't tell you?"

"No, he didn't." I stood up and walked to the mantelpiece and picked up the photograph. My thumb grazed against the faded colours and I said softly. "I remember him. He would chew on his pipe after dinner but he wouldn't lit it because he promised you that he'd quit ruining his lungs. And he took me out of the city to buy you a gift. Was it your birthday? No, anniversary. Mum was mad at him because he didn't tell anyone where we were going and we were gone for almost a day... It was a good day. We ate a lot of junk food and then we went to a wine tasting and he let me take a sip and I hiccupped...no wait," I frowned deeply, angry I was confusing my memories. "That didn't happen that day. You were there. I ...Why can't I remember?"

Grandma beckoned me over. "Are you staying? You should, this is your home."

"I am, grandma," I held her hand. "I promised."

We had a lot of catching up to do.

***

26th January 2016. 10:19 a.m.

We slept in the guestroom. Isiah was going to sort out his office and turn it into another bedroom and then take the spare storage room as his workspace. We sat around the breakfast table. Our plates were heavy with eggs and sausages and toasts and fried tomatoes. "What do you do for work?" I asked Isiah. He had told me I could either call him uncle or by his name and for now I settled on the former. I could say grandma without a problem but Isiah felt like a stranger to me. 

"I'm a doctor."

"That's impressive." I wiped the corners of my mouth with a napkin. "You must've been away a lot for your studies. It's the only reasonable explanation I can think of as to why I can hardly remember you."

Grandma said, "It was a struggle to get him back for Christmas. He liked his freedom, and he liked his girls. Nothing else mattered."

"I came back for Sunday dinner and clean laundry," he laughed. "I was a brat. What about you? I want to know everything there is to know about my niece. I have a lot of catching up to do."