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The Restaurant

It’s a family outing! Gram, my parents, my siblings and I all meet up at the newest restaurant in Oasis Springs, already decorated for the upcoming Romance Day. It shows off an impressive menu, including quite a few dishes from Selvadorada that only mom and I dare touch.

The food is pretty good, the moment is amazing, and to Mom’s surprise and delight, we run into her friend Marie and her youngest kid, who’s about the twins’ age. She looks much nicer than the only one of Charlotte and Shanna’s kids I know, whatever her name is.

Wedge

“No, Mom, Gram and I are not mad at each other.”

“She said you’re barely speaking!”

“She’s the one who doesn’t want to speak.”

“…”

“Look we’re just not doing everything together. No one’s mad.”

“Okay, Hannah. Just… Remember Naomi is doing her best. She lived through a lot.”

“Mom, she said… Do you think you could…”

“I have to go, Hannah. Be kind to grandma please.”

A Door Closes

“It’s just not for me to tell you,” she answers. “It’s up to your mother. It’s always up to the person that came before. I already crossed a line by telling your mother when her mother didn’t want to. I’m sorry, Hannah, I’m not doing it again. Maybe it’s time the story dies. Maybe it’s safer. But it’s just not up to me anymore.”

There’s nothing else to say at this point, so we don’t. We just leave.

And the door closes on the silent lanai.

On the Lanai

Gram has been here for a few weeks now, and it has been amazing. We were always close, but now our bond has blossomed, and I understand how she became such an important mother figure for two generations of Stewarts before me.

But the longer she’s been here, the more I’ve had this idea, buzzing in a corner of my mind, that maybe now would be the time when she opens up. So one evening, as we’re hanging on the lanai, I take a leap and ask her what I need to know about the older Stewarts generations.

… And she shuts me down instantly.

I can’t say I didn’t expect it, but it still hurts.

Gram, please. I’m an adult, you’ve told Mom, it makes no sense to keep secrets.

They’re all dead anyway, and all you’re doing is hurting me.

Don’t you trust me enough to share?

Don’t you see that I can’t trust you if you won’t tell me?

The Painting

On a warm afternoon, Gram goes by the lake with her easel and starts painting.

Gram has done and accomplished so many things in her life, sometimes you just might forget, before anything else she’s a world-class painter. Fifty years ago, people paid millions for one of her pieces. Nowadays she rarely ever creates more, so today is just that much more special.

I join her by the lake and she smiles at me, puts a new blank canvas on the easel… And tells me to hold the pose.

Holding the pose is tiring, and when she’s done and the weather has cooled down, I take a beautiful nap under the shade of a tree.

San Myshuno Anglers

One afternoon, I mention to Gram in passing that I’m pretty sure I’ll never be as good as fishing as dad is. So she takes it as a personal challenge to teach me, and on a weekend we head to San Myshuno for a drink… with our fishing canes in our bags.

The city’s rarely peaceful, but that day, silently staring at the water with Gram, it sure feels like it.

Gram’s touch

Having Gram around means there’s always fresh flowers in the living room. Bees buzzing in the courtyard, with honey they’ll only ever allow her to harvest. And Loladorada gets double the cuddles.

I keep doing everything I’d normally do, but everything looks and feels so much warmer.

The Roommate

When I get back home, something has changed. For starters, I’m not sleeping in my own bed anymore. I have a roommate.

You see, Gram is getting old. Very old. And though it pains her to admit it, she doesn’t feel as comfortable living by herself. So when she asked me, her great-granddaughter, the only person with space in her house, if I could open my door to her…

Of course, I said yes. Having her close is worth sleeping on an air mattress, and that’s without even mentioning her cooking. The first breakfast with her here is something else!

Gardening Day

It’s Gardening Day! You may remember it at this yearly holiday where my family gets together to garden. Gram says this tradition was born from our ancestors in Windenburg, who made their fortune from gardening and wanted to make sure the skill was never lost. That’s about as much as Gram has ever told me about our family history, so I decide to take this information as truth.

The weather isn’t the best this year, but Gram says it makes the plants in her herbology’s shop back garden happy, and I suppose she knows best. I’m happy I get to hang around my family for the first time since I moved out, even though Cléo and Cyril are totally paying more attention to the basil than me.

Gram doesn’t only talk about old family lore, though. While everyone else is busy, she says she has a favor to ask…