A Simple Life Ch. 24-26

Chapter 24

With the fresh, moist air rejuvenating my body as much as my visit to Winona had done to my spirit I wasn't tired in the slightest. Initially I ride for home but at the last moment I decide not to take the turn and carry on riding right down to the harbor. I simply had to share what happened with someone. Well, parts of what happened. I just hoped he was still awake.

The very first thing I do after parking my bike is to shoot Kayla a text to make sure the movie night idea was on. It was thankfully. My date with Winona was on!

At somewhere between a fast walk and a slow jog I make my way down the docks and find the area surprisingly busy with people tidying up and checking in on their yachts and boats in the wake of the storm. With all of this activity tonight it is no surprise when I round the corner to see the lights of Grandpa's boat on and him leaning over the rail chatting with his neighbor. His grizzled old face wreathed by cigarette smoke lights up like a sunbeam through the clouds the moment he sees me.

"Buttercup!"

His current neighbors, a couple of retirees from California, wave down at me from their vessel in the berth opposite. "Hello Avery."

"H-Hello Mr and Mrs Jackson." I say with a polite smile.

"Come to check on your Gramps?" Asks Mrs Jackson.

"Yes Ma'am." I say. "It was a heck of a storm."

"What a fine young man."

"That's my boy!" Grandpa says as proud as a man could be.

"Permission to come aboard skipper." I say.

"Get on up here kiddo." He says. After a final drag on his smoke he mashes it out and begins to crank down the folding gangway.

The Jackson's say their good nights and head back into their yacht as I wait for the ramp to bump the dock. I scamper up and onto my Grandpa's floating home. We hug and I kiss his scruffy cheek.

"How bad was it?" I ask him.

"Ah, it was nothin." He says. "I ever tell you about the storm of 81?"

I giggle. "Yes Grandpa. Many times."

"Now THAT was a storm!"

As he goes on to recount the harrowing ordeal of he and his crew being out on the water on this very ship during that legendary storm he leads me into down into the main living area of his converted fishing trawler. As always, the place is an immaculate jumble of gaudy kitsch, baubles, knick-knacks and gewgaws. What most would consider clutter to Grandpa these were his treasures. He was no hoarder though. There was no filth or squalor here. Everything was clean and secured in its place. Here and there among the old signs, bright toys, oddball heirlooms and peculiar bric-a-brac were dotted pictures of our family along with photos I had taken of the island over the years.

"See. Not so bad." He says as he shows me around the main deck. On the floor of the galley there was strewn some broken ceramic and a whole drawer full of cutlery and across the hall in his hobby room some books and papers were scattered but other than that he'd made it out unscathed. Without being asked I enter the kitchen and start to gather up forks and spoons. Across from me Grandpa settles into a comfy armchair in the hobby room and tidies up the books. "I'm surprised to see you down here so late."

"I was out and about anyway." I say, unable to hide my smile. "It was no trouble."

"You were out?" He looks across at me. "Eyyy, what's that smile about?"

I laugh. "I was at Winona's."

"Ohhh!" His bushy eyebrows raise. "Miss Perfect?"

"Oh Grandpa!" I swoon back to rest against the cupboards. "She is perfect! She's kind and beautiful and funny and she likes me...and...and...and...oh Grandpa. I've...I've never felt this way before."

He chuckles and stacks a couple of books beside him. "That was fast."

"She invited me up to make a character for a game we're going to play." I say. "And...well, I had the wind in my sails...so I agreed."

He grins. "The wind in your sails."

"I...I asked her out on a date. Tomorrow." I say dreamily. "And she said yes! She said YES! Ahhhhh!"

He leans back with a merry chortle. "Atta boy Avery."

"Tonight we made dinner together and ate and listened to music and watched a show." I say. "And just had the greatest time together."

"Sounds like you've already had your first date."

"Ha ha ha! Sorta I guess." I say. "She calls me Sprout. Sprout! Pfff. He he he."

"That's cute."

"Yeahhh."

"And?"

"And?"

"A first kiss perchance?" He cocks a curious brow. "Mmm?"

I blush and cover my face while shaking my head. "No! It wasn't a date. And...she's not that kind of girl." Needless to say I wasn't going to mention anything about what happened between the music and the show. "She's a lady. A real classy lady."

"Sounds like it." After a short bit of coughing he clears his throat and swallows. "I'm real happy for you."

Turning my head I look through the two doorways to him. "You said with Grandma you knew. You knew right away."

His eyes drift off to where I knew a picture of his dead wife hung on the wall. There was a photo of her in each and every room of the old trawler. "I did indeed." He pats his chest. "It just hit me. It knocked me right up off of my feet and it's never let me down again."

"I think I feel that way Grandpa." I sigh. "It feels...I can't even describe it."

"It's easy to get swept away Buttercup." He says. "You'll know if it's real in time. Just...don't get too attached before you're sure. Take it slow."

"You didn't take it slow." I jibe. "Love at first sight you always said."

"Hey! Don't turn this around on me."

"Didn't you ask Grandma to marry you on your third date?"

"Now that was different! It was different then! Not at all the same." He protests. "Besides, she said no."

"In the end she said yes."

"True."

"I think she's the one Grandpa. I think she's...the One."

"You hearing this Anna?" He says up at the photo of my Grandma with both concern as well as a big grin on his face. "The boy is as hopeless as I was."

I raise my chin and state boldly. "And proud of it!"

We share a good laugh and return to our clean up. As we go we chat and joke and Grandpa tells me the story of his and Grandma's first date.

"So I roll up to her house, my beetle all rodded out. Bell bottoms, beads, suede jacket, fringes and peace symbols galore. I was lookin goooood." I laugh just imagining my Grandpa in his 60's pomp. "I hit the horn a few times and out comes her dad with a Richard Nixon scowl and a Johnny Unitas haircut." I hadn't a clue who Johnny Unitas was but I got the drift. "He comes stomping up to me, face as red as a lobster, and I say 'You must be the Daddio, Daddio. Groovy man.'"

"Ha! Daddio?"

"I was nervous!" He laughs. "I was just trying to keep things...groovy. Ya know?"

"He he he! And were they? Groovy?"

"Ohhhh no." He says. "It was anything but groovy."

I had deposited the cutlery into the sink to clean it later I move around the island counter and out into the attached dining area to grab a broom and dustpan for the broken plate and spot some papers, a calculator and a few pens on the floor beneath the table. There was a proper dining room attached to the main room but Grandpa and I usually ate back here when it was just the two of us. Less fuss and less mess that way.

"So what happened?" I call back over my shoulder.

"He tried to run me off." He says. "Said that no daughter of his would be going out with any longhair."

"Longhair?" I kneel down and gather up the stuff under the table.

"Hippie." He explains. "That was the least of it. He said I was a drug fiend and a sex fiend and an unemployed leech on society. Ha! I was already working the boats at that point. I was probably making more than he was! Ha ha ha!"

"Must have been scary."

"I was shaking in my in my Birkenstocks, Buttercup, but I stood my ground. Nothin was gonna scare me off. Thankfully Anna came out after a few minutes and cooled things down between us."

"So not a great start, huh?"

"To put it mildly." He says. "Your great grandpa had it out for me after that. He tried so hard to make Anna cast me away. It wasn't until your mother was born that he ever really accepted me. And even then it was more a truce."

"You're lucky Grandma didn't listen to him, huh?"

"There was no chance of that." He says softly, followed by a long pause. "Once it gets going...there's nothing on this world that can stop true love Buttercup. Not one single thing."

I smile. It always warmed my heart to hear him talk like this. I put the papers up on the table and go to reach for one of the pens when something stops me. Something I'd just caught the scantest of glimpses of. In those papers I'd just put up...there was a word that caught my eye. I'd seen it so quick I couldn't be sure if I saw it at all, yet it snagged at my attention like a fish hook. Just one single word that stood out of place among the rest. Not an everyday kind of word. A serious word. A technical word. A very, very bad word.

As Grandpa goes on to tell me about the dance he took Grandma to I silently stand and look down at the pile of papers. My hand cold, my fingers trembling, I slowly turn the folded top paper, a medical form of some sort, so that it faced me properly. My eyes scan for the word I thought I saw, all the while praying I'd seen it wrong. Right away I find it again. It sits there, ugly and nasty, standing out from the rest as if the letters themselves were a malignant black tumor upon the page. And as I read it again...carcinoma...my whole world shatters around me.

***

Chapter 25

"No." I gasp.

Grandpa stops mid-sentence. "Buttercup?"

"No!" I shake my head. "No, no, no, no, no!" The room around me starts to swirl and spin. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"Avery!" Grandpa hurries into the room. "What's wrong..." He stops dead in his tracks when he sees the paper in my hands.

I look to him. "C-C-Carcinoma?"

"Aw, my boy." He says softly.

"That m-means cancer." I say between short, hard breaths. "Th-Th-That means c-c-cancer!"

He approaches and gently removes the paper from my hand. "You weren't supposed to see that."

"That means cancer Grandpa. That means cancer!" His anguished expression blurs as tears fill my eyes. "Wh-Who is this f-for?" I ask, hoping beyond hope.

The look of sadness and worry on his face gave me the answer. "I'm sorry Avery."

"Y-Y-You can't have cancer. You can't. You can't."

"Come here."

Grandpa pulls me into a hug and the moment my face touches his shirt I begin to sob. Wrapping my arms around him I grab the back of his shirt with both hands and I hold him with all of my strength. He holds me back in a warm embrace.

"It's not true." I blubber.

"I'm sorry Avery. It is." He kisses my head. "I never meant you to find out like this. I'm so sorry."

"But it's c-c-curable...right?" I plead as if he could decide such things. "You'll get better, won't you Grandpa?"

"There are treatments." He says. "If I decide to pursue them."

"If?" I push off of him. "If!?"

"I haven't decided yet."

"Haven't decided yet!?" I couldn't believe my ears. "What's there to decide!? You get cured! You get well! You fight!"

He looks at my, love and hurt in his eyes as he sees my suffering. "Buttercup. It can't be cured. Only treated. It's too far along now."

"No." I whimper, fat tears rolling down my cheeks as I shake my head in denial. "Noooo."

"Avery...I've had a good life. A full life."

"Don't say that." I weep. "Pleeease."

"I couldn't have asked for anything more."

"Stop."

He looks off to the corner where the picture of his beloved Anna was hung. "I think it's poetic. To leave the same way that she did. Hers pancreatic, mine in the lungs, but the same disease." He then says at a hush. "My Anna is waiting for me."

My grief swings to a sudden rage. "It's not poetic! It's stupid! And you're stupid!"

"Avery..."

"She's not waiting for you! She's dead! She doesn't exist anymore!" I shout. "B-But I'm here, now. I'm real. And so are you! And...and...I-I need you!"

"Buttercup..."

I snatch the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Opening them I yank the bundle from the pack and tear the whole lot in two. "These are stupid!" In a cloud of dried tobacco I hurl the pack to the floor. Mashing the cigarettes further I stamp on them again and again. "I hate them! I hate them! I hate them!"

Grandpa knew me well. Better than my own mother. After my outburst he waits a few moments for the heat to fade before speaking again, softly and calmly. "We don't get to live forever my boy, as much as we might want it."

"It's not fair." I whisper, then mewl as the sadness overtakes me again. "Mmmm." Weakly I reach out my hand. Grandpa takes it and holds it in a firm grip.

"I was going to tell you. When the time was right." He says. "You'll be the only person I tell, until I can't hide it anymore."

"Why?"

"I don't want the fuss."

"You're not a fuss!"

"There will be a fuss. Trust me." He smiles. "I'll take care of everything. You'll get the boat Avery." Looking around him he says. "She's a reliable old girl. If you don't keep her I'm sure you can get a good..."

"I don't want your boat!" I say. "I want you!"

"I know my boy. I know." He says with sympathy. "I'm not dieing tomorrow. We've still got some time."

"How long?"

He pauses, then says. "Three years, maybe."

"Three years!?" He might as well have said three seconds.

"Maybe longer with chemo and radiation." He says. "But there is no guarantee with them except for the illness and side effects that they bring. I don't know if I'm strong enough to live my last years like that." He says. "I want the sea air and a good deck beneath my feet. I want to sail off on my own terms."

"You have to try Grandpa. You have to." I squeeze his hand. "You have to live."

"My boy. I have been blessed with every good thing this world has to offer. I've had adventure and laughter, so much laughter. I lived the life I wanted. I walked my own path. I've watched a family grow. I've had true love." He cups my cheek with his weathered hand. "And 23 years ago I had the most pure and beautiful soul come into my life and watched as it blossomed into a beautiful man. I am so, so proud of you Buttercup."

My lip trembling, tears flowing freely, my heart shattered into a million pieces, I beg. "Don't s-say that. You're g-gonna be alright. You're gonna be okay."

"Avery..."

"Y-You're gonna get that treatment. They'll make you better." My arms fall limply to my sides, my head bows low, and I whisper. "I...can't lose you Grandpa."

Again he steps in and wraps his arms around me. As I break down a second time he holds me close and just lets me cry.

Pain, agony, despair. These words didn't even come close to describing my suffering. He was so much more than my Grandpa. He was my Dad, my best friend, my confidant, my mentor and my hero. He was the one I could always turn to. The one that always made everything alright. He formed the very bedrock of everything that I was. Without him...nothing mattered.

***

Chapter 26

Keeping me safe in his arms Grandpa leads me out into the living room and sits me down beside him on the sofa. There he lets me cry until I'd cried myself out, which took awhile. My emotions kept swinging wildly between despair, grief, anger and stubborn denial. It was the strangest thing mourning for the living. My Grandpa was right here, holding me as I clutched to him, but for some part of me it was like he was already gone. A living ghost. That was so unfair. Unfair to him and unfair to us. He was still alive! I couldn't waste what time we had acting like he wasn't. Gradually the crazy ups an downs level off to a constant state of somber sadness. Only as the tears began to run out did I realize how selfish I was being. Here he was the one comforting me even though he was the one with terminal cancer.

Sitting up I look at him and touch his cheek. It was warm against my cold fingers. He smiles, his own eyes twinkling with tears that hadn't spilled. Using his sleeve like a handkerchief he daubs my wet cheeks dry.

"I love you Grandpa."

"And I love you my Buttercup."

With a sniffle and a wipe I clear my throat. "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He says. "I cried just like you did when I found out about Anna. It's good to cry."

I take a deep breath and slowly let it out. "I...I think you should get the treatments."

His smile remains though now mixed with melancholy. "I will think about it."

"But..."

"I will think about it." He says again more firmly.

"Okay." I say. "I'll...I'll be here for you. If you need anything...ANYTHING..."

"I know my boy. I know." He kisses my head. "You must be thirsty. Why don't you go grab us a couple of beers?"

I nod and hurry to the fridge for a couple of cold cans. We crack them open and butt cans, as we always did, then I take my sip and he takes his swig.

"I-I-I'll..."

"Avery." He puts a hand on my shoulder. "Slow down."

I nod, take a breath, take a sip, and start again. "I'll come around more. I promise."

"See here? This is part of the fuss I was talking about." He says. "You come around lots, not that I'm complaining or nothin. You don't need to change anything."

"Well I'll be here more." I insist. "As much as I can."

"Avery..."

"I can check on you everyday after work. It's not even a five minute ride."

"Avery..."

"I-I'll cancel my date tomorrow."

"What? You will not! Not on my account at least."

"I want to spend my time with you." I say. "I want to be with you. I want to help."

"No, no, no." He shakes his head. "You keep living your life Buttercup. That's what you can do for me. More than anything I want that."

"But..."

"We've got some time Buttercup." He squeezes my shoulder. "And I want to hear what happens with your Miss Perfect. Before I sail off I need to know if she's The One or not."

"We'll go another time." I say. "It's not important."

"No. You go this time. It is important." He says. "Some opportunities never come around again. One seized moment can change the course of a whole life."

"It's just a date."

"It's the first line of a new chapter." He says. "Better to make it a good one."

"Grandpa...life's not a story."

"Oh my boy, you are so wrong about that." His smile warms. "It is THE story. A comedy, a drama, a tragedy all in one. With a dash of poetry mixed in if we're lucky." Looking into my eyes he says. "You go and you sweep that lady off her feet." He lays his hand on my chest. "You show her the real you. And if your souls were meant for each other...it'll click." He winks. "Maybe it already has."

A part of me wanted to resist, to insist that I would be here at his side every precious minute of every precious day until the end. But another part of me could not deny the truth in his words. In my bones I could feel there was something special going on. Though I'd only met her Winona had added something to my life that I hadn't even realized I was missing. I adored every moment I had with my Grandpa. I loved him more than everything else in this world put together. He made me everything that I was. But I could feel an irresistible pull toward the person I would become. Whether it was heeding his wisdom or a selfish desire to be with her, I agree.

"Okay." I nod. "I'll go."

"Atta boy." He clinks my beer with his. "Here's to swimmin with bare naked women!"

"Pff!" I giggle. "Grandpa!"

He chuckles and raises a real toast. "Here's to the ladies that make this journey worth takin."

"And to true love." I raise my beer toward my Grandma's picture.

"To true love." He smiles up at his one and only.

We drink.

The remainder of the night Grandpa and I talk and laugh and cry a bit more, but just a bit. We even get the cleaning up done along the way. The hurt of the terrible news is still there, but muted by a fresh zest for this treasured time we shared.