Fisher's Light(89)

Trip pushes his plate away from him and folds his hands together on the table in front of him.

“Fifty years IS a long time to be alone, but I’d rather be alone with my memories than to try and fake something with another woman,” he tells us.

“Why would you have to fake anything? You don’t think you could love someone else?” Lucy asks him softly.

“I KNOW I couldn’t love someone else,” he informs her, before turning his face to look at me. “Your grandmother, she was an amazing woman. I wish you could’ve met her, Fisher. She was beautiful, smart, kind and she loved me more than I ever deserved. We grew up together, did I ever tell you that?”

I shake my head in silence, not wanting to ruin the moment by speaking. Trip rarely speaks about my grandmother, and it’s amazing to hear about her and their relationship now.

“Yep, we were practically raised together as babies. Our parents were best friends and always did things together, so the two of us were forced to be together. Oh, she hated me when we were kids,” he says with a laugh. “She was two years younger than me and I liked to tease the ever-living hell out of her. I’d pull her pigtails and chase her around the island. I didn’t tell her until we were older that the only reason I did that stuff was to get her to chase me back.”

Lucy puts her elbows on the table and rests her chin in her hands and I lay my arm on the back of her chair, twirling the ends of her hair in my fingers as we listen to my grandfather talk.

“It wasn’t until we were teenagers that I stopped annoying her so much. Or maybe she just realized that I only did things to piss her off so she’d notice me. I’d been in love with that girl for as long as I could remember, so finding out she loved me back was nothing short of a miracle. We got married before we even finished high school and got busy starting a family as soon as we got our diplomas,” he explains with a wistful look in his eyes. “It took a few years before we had your father, but it didn’t matter because we sure had a lot of fun trying.”

He winks at Lucy and she laughs while he continues.

“There’s nothing worse than watching the woman you love slowly slip away from you. Watching her get sick, sitting by her morning, noon and night and knowing there’s not a damn thing you can do to stop the hands of time from ticking by so fast it’s like they’re in hyper speed,” Trip tells us.

Lucy wipes a tear from her eye and I move my arm off of the chair to rub slow circles against her back. Lucy knew the basic history of what happened to my grandmother, the same history and facts that I knew: they were married, they had my father and a few short years later, she died from stomach cancer. Hearing my grandfather talk so openly and lovingly about her is wonderful and sad all at the same time.

“I’ve never tried looking for someone else to love because I know that no one will ever compare to her. Some people can fall in and out of love and that’s great for them. They can find someone else and they can move on, but I’m not one of those people. I found my soul mate when I was a child and she will always be the love of my life, no matter how many years go by,” he tells us with a sad smile. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t miss her, that I don’t wish things could’ve been different. That I don’t wish she’d been here to raise your father and make him a better, kinder man. That she could’ve met you, Fisher, and seen her grandson and what a strong, loyal man he turned out to be. I’m not sad about not finding anyone else. Sure, I get lonely from time to time, but I’ve got my memories of the love of the best woman I’ve ever known to keep me company. I’d much rather have those memories than try and pretend with someone else.”

Silence fills the room and other than the tick of the clock on the wall above the kitchen sink, no one makes a sound or moves. I think Lucy and I are both in shock at how much Trip shared with us. Going by the fact that he’s staring at his hands in silence, I think even Trip himself is in shock over spilling his guts all over this table in front of us. I always thought he was somewhat crazy for never finding anyone else, for never dating or getting married again, but I understand him so much more now than I ever did before.

I stare at Lucy’s profile as she reaches over and quietly rests her hands on top of Trip’s on the table. I look at this woman, who is my heart and my soul and my entire world, and I get it now. I get why Trip chose to be alone all these years. If she decides that this isn’t going to work between us or that she can’t trust me or love me like she did before, I know I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life than pretend to love someone as much as I do her. Every other woman would pale in comparison and my heart would never be in it. I know that I have to do whatever it takes to get her to love me again. I have to break down those last couple of walls she put up and fight for her as hard as I can.