Chapter 4 #2
“What do you think he’ll do to retaliate this time?”
“It better be something good. Last time all he did was replace my sugar with salt. Maury Haven thinks I won’t drink some salty tea? Ha!”
I winced. “You drank tea with salt in it instead of sugar?”
“Absolutely. Didn’t make a single face while I did, either. I couldn’t let him win, could I?”
“What if he puts something worse in your tea next time?”
She shrugged and took a sip. “We’ll see if he’s good enough to get something worse by me.”
I had a feeling she kind of hoped he would.
It had not escaped my attention that our conversation about Sean had been interrupted.
And I was hoping Grandma wouldn’t notice and bring us right back to where we’d left off.
Because despite what I’d said about wanting to know what she thought, I mostly didn’t.
And the implications of that were getting harder to ignore.
To be honest, I was starting to feel pretty pathetic.
But things had been so different in the beginning. He’d been fun and sweet and so romantic. Not in the sense that he’d showered me with gifts or flowers all the time. But he had showered me with his attention, and I’d loved it.
Thrived on it, even.
He’d made me feel like I was important to him—maybe even the most important person in his life. Like his favorite thing was to just be with me, regardless of what we were doing.
Somewhere along the way, things had changed. And it had happened so slowly, I’d hardly noticed. Not until it seemed like I was dating a different guy.
But maybe that was just how relationships went. We’d been living together for a couple of years, so the newness had long since worn off. We were both busy. As much as I loved teaching, it took a lot of energy. And he worked for his dad’s HVAC company, which could be physically demanding.
Luckily for me, Grandma didn’t bring up Sean again, so I didn’t have to keep pondering what I was doing with my life.
We chatted more about her squirrel friends, and how she wasn’t supposed to be feeding them but did it anyway. That was no surprise. Colleen Wilson had never been one to be told what to do.
That probably had as much to do with why she kept pranking Maury Haven as the old feud. If the staff told her not to do something, that was a great way to get her to do it. Repeatedly.
When our mugs were empty, she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting a bit too chilly for me.”
“Do you want to go up to your apartment, or maybe sit by the fireplace downstairs?”
“Fireplace.”
“All right. I’ll get our dishes.”
I gathered up our mugs and followed her inside. There was a busing station next to the coffee and tea, and while she made her way to the fireplace, I put our dishes in the plastic bin.
“Ha!” Maury held up a pair of glasses as she wheeled by him. “Found ’em!”
“Took you long enough,” she said.
He grumbled something under his breath, but I didn’t catch the words.
Probably for the best.
I pulled a chair from a nearby table and moved it closer to Grandma.
She’d grabbed two copies of the local newspaper, the Tilikum Tribune, and handed one to me.
A lot of what I did when I visited was just hang out while she did whatever she wanted to do—even if it was just reading the paper by the fireplace.
I figured it made her happy to have some companionship, and it was nice that I didn’t have to worry about entertaining her.
I was also pretty sure she’d chosen to sit in the common area instead of going up to her apartment so she could keep an eye on Maury Haven.
But that was fine. I opened the paper and scanned a few of the headlines.
There was a Hometown Spotlight on the front page featuring Gerald McMillan, longtime Tilikum resident and owner of The Art of Manliness, one of the barber shops in town.
I smiled as I read it. The Hometown Spotlights were always so charming.
They made me feel like I knew the people in the community a little better, even if they were people I’d never met.
Below that, a name caught my attention. Edwin Morris. He was in the paper now and then, usually when he put on a special gallery display or opened a class to the public. But the headline made my breath catch.
Local Painter Edwin Morris Dead at 64
“Oh no,” I said. “How sad.”
“What’s that?” Grandma looked up from what she’d been reading.
“Edwin Morris died.”
“Who?”
“He was a painter.” I pointed to the canvas above the coffee and tea. “He painted that.”
“Did you know him?”
“A little. I’ve always been a fan, and I took one of his classes over the summer.”
“How did he die?”
I scanned through the brief article. “It doesn’t say. Just that his wife came home from visiting a family member and found him. Oh, that poor woman. How awful.”
“I bet it was a heart attack,” Grandma said. “With the men, it’s always a heart attack.”
“Who had a heart attack?” Maury asked, his gravelly voice booming across the room.
“Not you, obviously,” Grandma fired back.
“Don’t you wish.”
“Don’t worry, Maury, I’ll be sure to wear red to your funeral.”
He chuckled and waved a hand at her. “I’ve got a suit picked out for yours, Colleen. With a pink tie.”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Your least favorite color.” He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t think I won’t remember.”
She clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes.
“You two are terrible,” I said with a little giggle.
“When you get as old as we are, you either joke about death, or you start to long for it. I’d rather go out laughing.”
“That’s oddly wise.” I glanced at the paper. “Hopefully Edwin Morris went out laughing.”