At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories)(38)

Gracie had always believed that Gramma Del would be with them at the turn of the next century too. It fell to Ben to tell her otherwise the day she arrived home for the summer between her junior and senior year.

"Your grandmother isn't doing well," her father told her. Ben had divorced and moved back to Idle Point the previous winter. He made ends meet by working as a handyman at the church. Gracie would have bet her old Mustang that he had been hired as a favor to Gramma Del. "The doctor says it could be any time."

Gracie had been expecting this for months but hearing it from her father made it all suddenly real. Ben had been sober for awhile now but the weight of his troubles had taken their toll. Gracie realized with a start that he had grown old when she wasn't looking. His dark brown hair had faded to grey and there were lines and wrinkles where they had never been before. The handsome father she had loved so much now lived only in her memory, along with her dreams of a perfect family.

How long had it been since they had last lived together as a family anyway? She couldn't remember. She wasn't even sure it mattered. Like it or not, this small and imperfect union of souls was her blood. A lifetime of disappointment wasn't enough to make her forget how much she loved Ben or how much she wished he loved her back. Next to Gramma Del, he was the only other person on this earth who shared her blood and that connection wasn't something she took lightly.

"I'll need some help on Wednesday nights," he said, almost apologetically. "They shifted the AA meeting time for the summer and your Gramma's church friends can't—"

Gracie raised her hand to stop him. "Of course I'll help," she said and he thanked her. They sounded like two polite strangers on line at the bank and it almost broke her heart. I'm doing really well in school, Pop. I aced all of my finals and they're letting me start pre-med in September instead of waiting another year. Did you know they ran a little story on me in the Philadelphia Inquirer last month? I'm one of the top three students in my class, Pop, and the only one holding down a full-time job while maintaining the grades. Are you proud of me? Do you think my mother would be proud? I'm standing right here in front of you. Why don't you look at me? You're sober now. Why can't you hear me?

"Your father does the best he can with what he's got," Gramma Del said last night, "and if it's not enough for you, there's nothing anybody can do about it." Gramma Del still clung to life with a stubbornness and determination that defined courage.

"Sometimes he acts like he doesn't even know me," Gracie said, trying to make her grandmother understand what she was feeling. "I went to hug him and he took a step back."

"Don't be looking to change the man," she cautioned. "You can't make things perfect, no matter how hard you try."

But Gracie was obsessed with the changes in her father. Maybe if he'd been falling-down-drunk, she wouldn't have felt this way but to see him sober and responsible made her yearn for everything she'd missed over the years.

"If he would just sit down and talk with me," she said to Noah one night in mid-August. "There are so many questions I want to ask him about my mother and—"

Noah kissed her quiet. "Maybe he doesn't want to answer those questions, Gracie. It's taken him a long time to get over your mom's death."

"That's right," she said, "and I'll never get over it if I can't even talk about her with him."

"Leave him alone. He's doing great for the first time in years. Don't mess with it."

She glared at him. "You sound like Gramma Del."

"Thanks," he said. "She's one of my favorite people."

Gracie pushed him away and sat up with her back against an outcropping of rocks near the base of the lighthouse. It was one of those dark and hazy late summer nights that reminded you of why lighthouses were still so important. There was something comforting about the sweeping circle of light. "I wish—" She stopped herself.

"You wish what?"

She shook her head. "Just another ridiculous thought."

"Tell me."

"No," she said firmly. "It's impossible."

"Is it about your Gramma Del?"

He knew her so well. He had this way of shining light into the darkest, most secret corners of her heart.

"I want her to know about us," she blurted out. "She's going to die, Noah, and I don't want her to go before telling her about us. I can't keep this from her any longer." Lying didn't come easily to her. She had done it, and done it well, the last few years but she owed her grandmother the truth.