The Lies That Bind(14)

When I return to the living room, I see that Grant has built a small fire and is waiting for me on the sofa with a bottle of wine and two glasses. He smiles at me as my heart races.

“Aww,” he says, doing a half stand as I approach him. “You’re so cute with wet hair.”

    I smile back at him as he takes my hands in his before we sit together.

“Would you like a glass of wine?” he asks, gesturing to the bottle.

I tell him I’d love one, and he pours our glasses a little more than halfway full, then raises his. I do the same, finding it impossible to believe that it’s been only six days since we met.

“To us,” he says, as I remember our first toast: To moving on.

“To us,” I repeat, nodding, thinking that he got it right, once again.

We clink our glasses and take a sip, our eyes still locked.

I swallow, then say, “I don’t know much about wine…but this is really good.”

“Yeah,” Grant says, now reclined with his feet on the coffee table. “I don’t really, either. My brother’s the wine guy.”

“I hope I meet him someday,” I say. “And your parents.”

He blinks, his expression instantly changing for the worse. I brace myself, somehow knowing what’s coming. Sure enough, he clears his throat and says, “So my dad died—”

“Gosh, I’m so sorry,” I say, squeezing his hand.

“It’s okay. It happened a long time ago. My brother and I were six years old. But thank you.”

I wait a few seconds for him to say more, tell me how he died. When he doesn’t, I say, “What was he like?”

“He was a great guy. A really great guy. Honest, hardworking, loyal. Always wanted to help people, and never met a stranger.” He smiles as if remembering something specific, but it quickly fades as he continues. “Anyway, one night, he was on his way home from work. At the steel mill. Second shift. Four to midnight. It was nasty out. Typical February in Buffalo. Rain, snow, sleet, the whole nine…And he sees a guy on the side of the highway with a flat on his Mercedes. So my dad stops to help. I’m sure he didn’t even hesitate…partly because that’s the kind of person he was, and partly because he loved working on cars. He could change a tire blindfolded….So he stopped and popped on the spare in no time.” Grant pauses to take a sip of wine as I stare at him, riveted and very scared of what’s to come.

    “So anyway. My dad starts walking back to his car just as a van slides on a patch of black ice and hits him….And that was it.”

“Oh my God,” I say, wincing, squeezing his hand harder. “Grant.”

He takes a deep breath, then says, “They say he died instantly and never knew what hit him. I want to believe that…but who really knows?”

I tell him again how sorry I am.

“Yeah. It was rough…especially on my mom. She was really never the same after that.” He shook his head.

“Did she ever remarry?”

“No…never did.”

“Did your dad have life insurance? A pension?” I say, hoping the question isn’t a crass one.

“Yeah,” Grant says. “He had a union-sponsored life insurance policy and a vested pension with survivors’ benefits. It was decent, but not like it was when he was working.”

“What did your mom do? Did she work?”

“Before the accident, no. She was a stay-at-home, milk-and-cookies-type mother.”

“And after?”

“After he died, she worked here and there as a receptionist and then a secretary….But it was hard because she wanted to be home for us….You know, since we’d already lost one parent.”

“Of course,” I say, feeling heartsick for those little boys. For her.

“She was a great mom,” Grant says.

I freeze, hearing the past tense. Was. “Oh my God…Did she…” My voice trails off.

“Yeah. She passed away, too,” Grant says.

I shiver. “When?”

    “October second. Nineteen ninety-three. Three days before her fortieth birthday.”

I try to do the math in my head. “So you and your brother were…twenty-two?”

“Yeah,” he says, as both of us keep our eyes straight ahead, fixed on the fire.

I swallow, reach out and touch his hand, and say, “Was it…cancer?”

Grant says no, it wasn’t cancer. Then he takes a deep breath and says, “She had what they call familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.”

I shake my head and say I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that.

“Yeah, you have. It’s ALS…Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

“Oh. Yes,” I say, thinking of Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie. “But wait…familial?”

“Yeah,” he says with a grimace.

“So ALS…runs in families?” I ask as gently as I can.

“Not usually. But sometimes it does,” he says, looking down at me, his eyes turning glassy. “It does in mine.”

I freeze, too petrified to ask the only question on my mind, as Grant says, “I don’t have the gene.”

I take a breath, overwhelmed with dizzying relief until Grant says, “But my brother does.”