CHAPTER 22
Emma
My grandma was sitting at the kitchen table, turned toward me with a table set for tea. It was our favorite tradition and one that I adored. Every Sunday, she would request the tea service to be brought in for us to enjoy.
Even though she didn’t make it herself anymore, I still loved every bit of it. A throwback to simpler, happier times.
The china was hers. A set that I knew well. Bone-white with a faint gold rim, and so fragile I always hesitated before touching it. Each cup sat on its matching saucer with perfect alignment next to tiny silver spoons so dainty they barely fit right in my hands.
A tiered stand of sandwiches—crusts meticulously removed—stood at the center of the table.
Smoked salmon on rye, cucumber with mint, egg salad with just a touch of truffle oil.
Scones were in a cloth-based basket, warm and soft, with clotted cream and her favorite strawberry preserve, the sweetness almost too much but perfect when added in the right proportion.
The tea itself was loose-leaf, steeped in two porcelain pots under the quilted cozies that had been a present from my grandpa.
Silly cozies that were covered in bright orange dancing cats and laughing mushrooms. They were the most out-of-place things in the entire suite, but I knew they were her favorite.
And next to all of it sat my grandma. My favorite person in the world. The one person who had been there through my entire life for me. The lines on her face didn’t make her any less beautiful.
Her hands may have curled with arthritis, but her tongue was as nimble as ever—sharp, clever, and never unkind, just precise. She moved like someone who refused to let age rush her; every step was a quiet rebellion against the world’s impatience.
“I’m not slow,” she’d say to me whenever she saw someone rushing, arching one elegant brow, “I’m deliberate. There’s a difference.”
Despite the aches in her joints, she never surrendered her style.
Her cardigans were cashmere, her lipstick always perfectly applied—even if it took two tries and a magnifying mirror to get it right—and her perfume—a faint, powdery floral that brought back to mind every hug she’d ever given me—clung to her like a signature.
Her sense of humor was dry with the ones she loved, a little wicked, and delivered with the impeccable timing of someone who’d spent a lifetime mastering the art of the comeback.
But under the wit and the pearls was a heart so open it hurt—soft in all the right places, generous in the quietest ways. She baked when her hands let her, listened more than she spoke, and treated everyone she met with the same warmth.
“I do love guests,” she gushed, her eyes wrinkling at the corner with pleasure as her lips curled with a grin. “And you brought me a handsome one!”
I smothered a laugh, gesturing toward Krusk with my free hand. “This is my friend Krusk, Grandma. Krusk,” I said, gesturing toward my grandma now. “This is my grandma. You can call her—”
“He can call me Grandma,” she interrupted me, patting the table to let me know she wanted us to come closer.
I narrowed my eyes, giving her my best warning look, but she was too busy studying Krusk from head to foot.
Oh Gods, it’s going to be bad.
“Be good,” I murmured to her as I got closer and she nodded absently, waving me off.
“I’m always amazing,” she scoffed, and while that was true, I couldn’t help but wonder what she had planned for me with that gleam in her eyes. “Now, please, Krusk. Come closer.”
Krusk stood in the middle of the kitchen like someone had just dropped a battle tank into a dollhouse.
His massive frame hunched awkwardly, trying to take up less space but only managing to knock a paper towel holder onto the floor with his elbow.
It hit the tile with a metallic clang that echoed like a warning.
“Oh dear,” my grandma said, turning in his direction, her orthopedic shoes squeaking softly with the movement. “Is the demolition a part of the visit?”
Krusk fumbled to pick up the paper towels, his blunted claws accidentally getting stuck and unrolling most of it. “Sorry!” he started, before grumbling, “Weak human construction.”
“I suppose next you’ll tell me the butter dish attacked first?” my grandma said, tongue in cheek as she pointed to where it had been sitting next to the roll. The porcelain was now shattered where it sat.
He blinked down at the damage, glancing back at her and wincing. “It looked… hostile.”
I tried to suppress a laugh behind my hand but my grandma didn’t bother, guffawing out loud, waving at him to move closer. He did, looking around first to make sure he wouldn’t hit anything else on his way.
She stood too, shuffling over and peering up at him with a magnified squint that could spot a lie at twenty paces.
“So. Are you a new boyfriend?” she asked, and Krusk’s mouth opened and closed without answering, glancing over at me, but I was too busy covering my face with my hands to help.
“What an… impressive dental arrangement,” she mused, peering up at his tusks.
Krusk straightened, baring his tusks awkwardly. “Thank you. I floss every day.”
“You’d have to. One of those things could hold an entire dinner plate,” she marveled, moving closer to study them. Krusk stayed perfectly still, as though he was a display doll, and I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.
Just then, the smart fridge—probably reacting to Krusk’s heat signature—chirped to life and opened its doors with a soft pop. Krusk roared instinctively, spinning around, and body-blocking my grandma and I protectively.
“What the hell—?” he started, but Grandma waved him off, slapping him heartily across his back before turning to wiggle her eyebrows at his impressive back muscles that I was certain she was copping a feel of.
“It’s a brand new thingamabob they installed and it keeps reacting to anything that moves in here,” Grandma muttered, going back to where she’d been sitting, taking a placid sip of her tea.
Krusk stared at the fridge. “Why does it have a touchscreen?”
“It’s supposed to help me plan meals and remember my medicine,” Grandma explained, “But all I’ve used it for is to tell me where the mustard is.”
“Interesting,” Krusk murmured, edging his way toward the table, trying not to make direct eye contact with the fridge again.
“Now, as I was saying, tell me about yourself,” Grandma said, taking another long sip of her tea.
He nodded, his face a mask of determination as he moved in front of her, dropping to one knee and then slamming his fist to his chest. The sound was so loud that I winced, wondering if he’d damaged himself. “My name is Krusk, Grandma, and I’m honored to meet you,” he said in a firm voice.
Grandma blinked down at him before looking over at me, her eyes gleaming with amusement. She knocked her own fist against her chest, much more quietly and with significantly less force, but Krusk’s face relaxed as she said, “My name’s Eileen, and I’m honored to meet you as well.”
His grin was fast and relieved. “Can I still call you Grandma?”
“That’s all I’m going to accept from you from now on,” she told him, her tone admonishing, but her grin was huge.
“Understood, Grandma,” Krusk said with a smile of his own, standing in front of her.
Grandma waved toward one of the chairs. Krusk eyed it for a long moment before he sucked in a deep breath and took a seat.
I wondered if he thought the extra air would make him lighter.
I covered my mouth to smother another laugh as I took my own seat.
Krusk’s chair creaked ominously under him, and he was perfectly still, bracing himself for it to be crushed under him but after a few long moments of waiting, it seemed fine.
“I made these cookies,” Grandma said with a smile, pointing toward a tray of delicate almond cookies.
I perked up at once, recognizing them. “They’re Emma’s favorite,” she explained to Krusk.
“And I hope you like them too. They’re not as good as the ones I used to make, I’m sure,” she added with a sigh.
“These hands just aren’t what they used to be. ” She held them out to him to see them.
They were beautiful to me. Wrinkled and knobby, but the strongest ones I knew. They’d held me, comforted me and raised me. There was no other way to see them. I held my breath as I waited for Krusk’s response.
He grinned, nodding with enthusiasm as he reached out to tap one of her fingers with one of his. “They still look like they could take me if we went against each other.”
Grandma mirrored his grin, leaning closer to look him dead in the eye. “If you break her heart, I’ll break your kneecaps. Not both—just enough to make a point,” she told him and I slapped my palm against my face.
Krusk’s expression was a mix of both terror and honor. “Yes, Grandma.”
“Good,” she harrumphed with a nod. “Now try a cookie.”
He reached out to the plate and attempted to lift one but it crumbled between his fingers.
I was certain he hadn’t meant to do it. But it was as if his fingers were tiny trash compactors made of kindness.
With each cookie he attempted to pick up, the same thing happened until Grandma slapped the top of his hand with hers.
He pulled away, ducking his head with shame and she lifted a cookie, gesturing for him to hold out his hand.
He did and she dropped the cookie into his palm with a satisfied nod.
He gave her an embarrassed smile before tilting his palm so the cookie slid into his mouth without him having to touch it again.
The rest of the tray looked like a war memorial of broken cookies, but I grabbed a piece of one anyway.
I moaned as it melted in my mouth, seeing Krusk staring at me out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored him.
I couldn’t be caught having a moment with someone who was supposed to be my friend and only a friend.
I didn’t bother to listen to the part of my brain that was telling me that I shouldn’t be having moments with anyone. I’d take that into consideration later. For now, I was just going to try to keep my head above water while Krusk and my grandma met.
She was smiling at him. “I like you. You’re a bit of a disaster, but you mean well. Like my late husband, bless him. He once tried to unclog the toilet with a ladle.”
Krusk blinked at her. “Did it work?”
“No. But we got a new bathroom out of it.”
She offered him another new cookie—one of the survivors—and he took it with two fingers like it might explode.
“Now stay here before you accidentally cook yourself on the induction stove.”