Chapter 6
MILO
I pour a strong cup of coffee with a side of guilt and place it in front of my grandpa. I’ve been doing this every morning since I came back last week.
“I should have come back sooner,” I say.
Grandpa glares up at me through his thin-rimmed glasses. “Life is full of shouldas. It’s about the right now.”
I grin, taking a seat across from him at the worn kitchen table with my own mug. “See. I need your wisdom.”
“I ain’t wise. I’m just old,” he replies before loudly slurping from his cup.
I laugh. “Potato, potahto.”
He shakes his head. “I know plenty of old people who ain’t wise.”
“Apparently, the grumpy guy in the mirror,” I tease.
His mouth twitches. I take a sip, internally wincing at the taste of the cheap coffee he buys in bulk.
My grandpa has aged. His white hair is thinning, wispy strands combed over where hair has stopped growing at all, and his body seemingly more fragile than it once was.
I flew him out to Jersey a few times before it just got too hard for him to travel with his walker.
He’s the kind of man who keeps to himself—who dropped me off at church or school but never went in.
Who showed up to the games but was always gone as soon as the final whistle blew.
I never got to hug him after a victory or a loss, not that he would have let me hug him in public anyway.
“So, why you really back, son? I know you ain’t here for me.”
So we’re past the pleasantries now. Not that my grandpa really knows what those are.
I tip onto the back legs of the kitchen chair. “School needed a coach. I figured I might be good at that.”
His bushy brows furrow. “You can’t fool me. You didn’t come back for a stupid coaching job.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“Well, it ain’t smart, either. Not unless you came back for what I think you did.”
“And what’s that?” I ask.
“You came back for her,” he says simply before taking another slurp of his coffee.
I breathe a little fuller as he releases the truth.
I made mistakes. Big ones, but when the world grew quiet and my dreams were stripped away in one moment, I realized something . . .
Dreams are only worth the chase if someone’s waiting on the other side who makes you want to keep running. Someone who reminds you what it feels like to laugh, to care, to feel at home anywhere you are.
Of course, I realized this too late, after I’d put years and distance between us.
I set my mug down, letting the warmth seep into my hands. Grandpa watches me over the rim of his glasses, silent but knowing.
“You didn’t find what you were looking for, did ya?” he asks, but I don’t need to answer. He sees it in my eyes. Grandpa grunts, a half smile tugging at his thin lips. “Boy, you’ve already made your decision. You’re here, ain’t ya? Don’t waste any more time on what’s easy or safe.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me,” I admit.
He chuckles roughly at this, more of a reprimand than a real laugh.
“She’s annoyed every time I’m around her,” I add as I picture her big brown eyes always looking at everything else but me, as if she can’t stand the sight of me being back here.
“Well, can you blame her? You left to chase your dreams, and she had to pick up the scraps of her dad’s.”
I flinch. “That’s not fair. She told me to go.”
Grandpa grunts. “You think women always say what they mean?”
“What do you know of women?” I bite back.
“That they don’t say what they mean. Women speak a lot in what’s not said.”
I never knew my grandma. She left my grandpa, just like my mom left my dad. Apparently, the Carter men don’t have a great track record of listening for what’s unsaid.
“But—”
Grandpa snorts. “Listen, son. Women don’t always want rescuing. Sometimes they want to prove they can survive without you—even when it costs them.”
I wonder what experience my grandpa has with what he’s just said.
He doesn’t speak of Rose even though he still has a photo of them hanging in the living room.
A simple black-and-white portrait of a stronger, younger version of him standing beside a woman with light hair and round eyes.
I used to stare at that picture when I was younger, squinting hard trying to find pieces of myself in my grandma—wondering where she was and who she became.
But I never asked. It’s not something you ask Grandpa.
Choices have consequences—costs. I know mine.
“The accident,” I say, letting Grandpa fill in the gaps.
“It was hard on her,” he admits. “But you know Sadie. She picked herself up by the bootstraps and did what had to be done. That girl isn’t afraid to take on the problems of others—family or otherwise.”
I nod. “I should have at least called.”
“What did I say about shouldas?”
I try to smile, but my lips falter.
My grandpa lets out a sigh. “If there’s one thing about Sadie Summers, it’s that you can count on her.”
And while I know that’s true, I don’t want to count on Sadie Summers. I want her to know I messed up. That I regret she couldn’t count on me, but she can now.
I take a sip of the bitter coffee and wince.