I remember Ivy crying, then giving me away.
Having your entire life rewritten in a heartbeat was an impossible thing.
“You can’t sit there forever, kid.” Bodie had given me my space, but now I felt him slide into the seat next to mine. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes to look at him, because I didn’t want to see the way he was looking at me.
Like he felt sorry for me.
Like I was broken.
The minutes ticked by before Bodie spoke again. “She saved that ranch of yours, you know.”
She as in Ivy. My eyes stung under my eyelids. I swallowed, trying to shut out what he was saying.
“She hired someone to look after things, checks in on it herself every day.” Bodie’s tone was casual, like he wasn’t effectively reaching into my chest and ripping out my heart with each word.
Ivy had saved the ranch. Ivy, who was my—
“Stop,” I said. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. I forced my eyes open. “Why would you tell me that now?”
Bodie propped one leg up against the seat in front of him. “Got you to open your eyes, didn’t it?”
I couldn’t argue that point. “Where are we?” I asked flatly.
Bodie rested an arm on the back of my seat, but kept his gaze focused straight ahead. “Welcome to Boston.”
Boston.
My grandfather looked exactly as he always had. In the three weeks I’d been in DC, I’d tried calling him a half-dozen times. We’d spoken twice. He’d only recognized my voice once.
But today was a good day.
“You’re looking like something the cat dragged in, Bear.” Gramps sat at a small table near the window. The suite was private—more condo than hospital room—but there was no kitchen, no stove, and the nurses were right down the hall. “Got a hug for an old man,” he said gruffly, “or were you raised in a barn?”
It was an old joke, because, of course, I had been raised, at least in part, in a variety of barns. I managed a small smile and was blindsided with one emotion after another: longing and gratitude; loneliness, emptiness, hope I knew better than to let myself feel. Hurt and betrayal. Anger that he’d lied to me for so long. Fear that if I let myself be angry, I might somehow be wishing away one of his last good days.
Swallowing down the lump rising in the back of my throat, I walked over to the window. I willed my arms to wrap themselves around him, but they were dead weight by my side.
Gramps was here, and he was himself. I loved him. He was in me and part of me, he’d made me—but I couldn’t make my arms move.
“How are they treating you?” I asked, my voice rough.
“It’s not the Four Seasons,” Gramps replied. “But it’ll do.”
“I tried,” I said, the words working their way out of the pit of my stomach. “I tried to keep you at home.” If I could focus on that—the older hurt—I didn’t have to deal with the new one.
“You’re a fighter,” Gramps commented. “Always have been.”
Always. Always. Always. He’d always been the one person I could count on.
Always. Always. Always. He’d been lying to me from the beginning—snapping pictures of me and sending them to Ivy.
Pictures she’d kept.
I didn’t realize until I felt a sharp pain in my hand that I was digging my nails into my palm.
“You look skinny.” Gramps pushed himself to stand—slowly, painstakingly. “Doesn’t your sister feed you?”
I wrapped my arms around my middle, when all I wanted was to wrap them around him. “She’s not my sister.”
He saved me the work of reaching out to him by pulling me forward and into his arms. His callused hand stroked the back of my head. “I know.”
CHAPTER 54
That first day in Boston was my grandfather’s best day, like the universe had seen fit to give him clarity where I had none. The next day wasn’t as good. The day after that was worse.
Sometimes, he knew who I was.
Sometimes, he didn’t.
One day, we played checkers. He won. The next day, we played chess. I won. I could almost pretend that coming to Boston had been my decision, that the fact that Bodie slept by the door and paid for our motel room with cash meant nothing.
But.
But then I would think about Henry and wonder if he had someone watching out for him. I would think about Vivvie and whether anyone had explained to her why I had to go.
I didn’t let myself think about Ivy at all.
I filled my days with chess and checkers. My nights filled themselves with nightmares and phantoms—throats slashed and bullet holes and the president and the First Lady dancing a waltz.
On our fourth day in Boston, I was futilely attempting to assemble a full deck of cards so Gramps and I could play poker, when someone turned the television in the community room from an old Clark Gable movie to the news. I tuned it out as background noise until I heard someone say the name Edmund Pierce.
My fingers closed around a card—the nine of spades—and my eyes shot to the television screen.