One #2
Clad in her usual touch of leopard print, today Grandma Winnie had chosen a cardigan, alongside a pair of denim jeans she’d had since the ‘80s.
In her late sixties, she barely looked a day over forty-five, save for the thick veins in her hands and the telling wrinkles on her neck, emphasized all the more by the white gaps in her bottle-achieved tan.
Thia slipped off her shoes and tucked them, along with her backpack, into the hall closet. “Hey, Grammy. How was your day?”
“Good, good,” Grandma Winnie said hurriedly. “Popped into the Leaky Hose. Patrick gets too big for his britches if I don’t give him what for every few months.”
The Leaky Hose was the bar Grandma Winnie owned, though she was mostly retired from running the place. Patrick was the manager she’d set up in her stead. “I bet he loved that.”
Grandma Winnie fluffed the bottom of her blonde bob. “He adores me.”
Thia laughed, following Grandma Winnie as she led the way down the hall.
Their home wasn’t huge, but it was bigger than the two of them needed, and its antiquated charm felt too cozy and outdated for her grandma’s raunchy city aesthetic.
Not for the first time, Thia wondered why she’d never bothered to change it.
It would only take a few small renovations to modernize the place: a fresh coat of paint here, some new cupboards there.
Grandma Winnie had explained once that she wanted Thia to feel at home, but Thia’s parents had died when she was one; she wouldn’t have known any different if her grandma had taken her to live in the loft above the bar instead of moving into Thia’s parents’ house herself.
But her grammy fought loss with preservation, so the house remained a snapshot of the day Jason and Melina Sanbrooke had departed—like if the furniture still expected them home, she could too.
She hadn’t even replaced the curtains, and they had been yellow and moth-eaten when Thia’s parents had moved in twenty years ago.
“There’s pizza on the counter,” her grammy said as they entered the kitchen. “I thought we could take it down to the cellar with us. Along with something else very exciting that came in the mail today.” She slipped a white envelope from the back pocket of her jeans.
Thia skimmed the sender. H-A-R-V-A-R-D. Neat letters she’d been waiting weeks for. Applications were due soon, and she had written to a few faculty members inquiring about internal support.
Excitement rushed over her, alongside a slew of mental to-dos she had to conquer between now and the deadline in eight weeks that made her stomach tighten. Maybe she could bring her laptop down to the cellar and work on her personal statement. She didn’t need Wi-Fi for that.
“Don’t be nervous,” her grammy said, misinterpreting the purse of her lips. “They did more than email you—it’s got to be something official.” She put her free hand on Thia’s shoulder. “Your mom would be so proud.”
Thia’s chest warmed. If her grammy was right, it was a victory ten years in the making, since she’d first learned her mother was a surgeon—or would have been, if she hadn’t died during her residency.
Grandma Winnie traced a weathered finger in a heart around Thia’s face, like she always did when they spoke of Melina, expression a little wistful and a lot sad. “You’re so much like her.”
Thia hoped that was true. Her grammy always said Melina was her angel, prone to deep roots and deeper loyalties, always quick to lend a helping hand.
She’d stayed close for college, and again after, unwilling to leave her mother alone after a long line of family tragedies, Winnifred already having lost her own mother and sister at a young age.
Thia worried how her grammy would fare if she did end up at Harvard, but the woman had insisted she at least apply.
Maybe it was for the best. They’d fought a lot, Melina and Winnifred, in those final years, though her grammy never said why.
Just that she had regrets, and Thia was never to let someone walk away angry.
Maybe she worried about stifling Thia the way she had her daughter.
Though, in all the photos, Melina appeared to be thriving.
Wind growled loud enough for them to hear, and the house groaned in response. Grandma Winnie stiffened abruptly, tapping Thia with the envelope. “Get into something comfy and help me round up the last of the things, will ya?”
“Sure,” Thia said, laughing at the brush of paper. “What do we still need?”
“Extra blankets,” Grandma Winnie said, ticking the items off on her fingers. “Flashlights. Make sure you check the batteries first.”
“On it.” Thia scampered up the stairs, making a pit stop at the hall closet to scavenge the extra blankets from where she’d shoved them after the last storm. She dropped them on the landing to grab on her way down and made for her bedroom.
The storm was much louder up there, the house’s single-paned windows shaking rather alarmingly. The first boom of thunder cracked as she closed the door behind her. She slipped out her phone to text Riley—he was probably gutted about the bonfire’s inevitable cancellation—only to find it was dead.
“Great.” She probably had less than an hour to charge it before the power went.
Plugging it in, she headed for her bed, removing her button-up shirt and jeans as she went.
A delicate dance she’d mastered in her continual effort to maximize efficiency in her life, she reached the bed ready to pull on the cotton shorts and tank top that were neatly stacked on her pillow.
She folded her day clothes and eased into her slippers as another boom of thunder echoed, this one louder than the last. Shivering, she picked up the hoodie hanging on her bedpost and tugged it over her head.
Then she dropped to all fours on the carpet and tugged her box of storm goodies out from under her bed.
The top layer was a bunch of extra socks; she set them to the side and rummaged around until she found the two flashlights and extra pack of batteries.
Hearing Grandma Winnie’s warnings in her head, she pushed the button on the handle.
No light emerged.
Annoying. She tore open the extra batteries and slid in two new ones, then tried again.
Still nothing.
She swapped the batteries around, thinking she might have put them in backwards, but when it still didn’t work, she set that one down and tried the second.
Same thing. She let out a groan of frustration.
She’d taken these flashlights to the lake this summer with Riley’s family. What if someone had borrowed them and dropped them in?
She pushed herself to her feet, tossing the duds back into the box.
“Grammy!” she hollered. “The flashlights aren’t working. I’m going to grab the spares from the attic!”
“Did you check the batteries?” Her grammy’s voice sounded from down the hall—she must have been in her bedroom.
“Yes!”
“Well, be quick about it!”
Thia called a hasty response and took the attic steps two at a time, squinting as the light faded.
Another round of thunder cracked as she emerged into the dusty interior of the top floor.
She flicked the light switch, but the room stayed dark.
The power must have gone already. She sighed, thinking of her chargeless phone.
There was just enough light from the tiny square window on the far wall to illuminate the small space.
It had been years since she’d been up to the attic—Grandma Winnie, too, given the undisturbed layer of dust that coated the floor.
The gabled roof didn’t allow for much storage space; there was a line of shelves too tall for the ceiling’s slope where it met the wall, so the piece sat a few feet out, shrinking the room further as it formed a barricade of storage from floor to ceiling.
She crossed to the window and peered out into the storm. The rain had begun in earnest; it spattered against the glass, blurring the streetlamp beyond into a smudge of orange.
Lightning forked the sky, and the world turned temporarily silver. It was beautiful, even if it was terrifying. She counted until thunder rolled again. “One one thousand, two one thousand….”
BOOM.
The storm was less than a mile away. Yikes. Grandma Winnie was probably shaking in her snakeskin cowboy boots that they weren’t in the cellar yet.
Abandoning the window, Thia made for the shelving unit.
She was fairly sure the flashlights were in a box on the second shelf, but her grammy did not have her organizational abilities, so nothing was labelled.
She tugged the first box toward her and flipped open the lid: sleeping bags.
She put it back and reached for the second. Possibly snow equipment?