Chapter 7 #2
“So, how are you holding up, Grams?” I asked before scowling down at the frying pan.
Several stray droplets of oil splashed up and hit me in the side of the arm as I turned down the heat.
I hadn’t truly taken in my grandmother’s appearance, but I noticed how thin she had gotten as I looked at her.
She was probably the thinnest I’d ever seen her.
I chose to ignore the slight wheezing and shortness of breath I could hear as she continued to amble about the kitchen.
A few moments later, Maura placed several additional slices of untoasted bread on a plate next to me before settling into a chair at the dining table.
She always asks for help when she needs it.
I’d spent nights, many nights, in fact, staring up at my grandmother and the chair she now sat at, at the head of the table, begging and pleading for bed.
Too many times, I’d found myself in a stalemate against a plate of broccoli or cold Brussels sprouts.
To this day, I can’t walk down the vegetable aisle without feeling inexplicable rage.
“I’m alright, my love,” she said softly.
I strutted off into the living room for just a moment, grabbing a shall and placing it around her before plating up some buttery, scrambled eggs and bacon.
My grandfather would be down soon enough, the smell of cooking likely to pull him from whatever dream he was having.
Either that or he would insist that my grandmother shouldn’t be overexerting herself by making breakfast. I didn’t bother to question which it was, I knew his heart was bigger than his stomach.
I relaxed into the chair next to her, placing both plates on the table.
Whether it was the adrenaline wearing off or the simple fact that I had survived the last twenty-four hours on a sad, little bowl of Froot Loops alone, I was famished.
Not a single word left my lips as I proceeded to inhale the food in front of me.
“So, what’s the plan for today?” I smiled up at my grandmother.
“Well, I wasn’t expecting you for some time,” she said, looking pleased, but traces of concern lingering at the edges of her mouth, nonetheless.
She glanced up at the clock above the dining table, encompassed by a ring of vintage, decorative plates.
“But if you are happy to start now, I wanted to clean the leaves off the lawn out front. And I have a variety of different seeds to get planted. Grandpa picked them up at the grocery store for me.”
“Sounds like there’s a lot to do!” I said, voice a little too cheery. I could feel how forced my demeanour was. And by her furrowed brows and confused expression, it seemed like my grandmother could sense it too. “Did Gramps get any good ones?”
She smiled almost instantly, the confused look evolving into something warmer and brighter.
My grandfather, ever the world’s-best-husband, managed to pick up a swathe of excellent seed pockets from the store.
“I told him to surprise me. I was only expecting one or two varieties, but he’s picked up tulips, daffodils, lilacs, roses, and rhododendrons. ”
“That man is one of a kind,” I mused.
“I consider myself very lucky. He is and always has been the best thing about me,” she agreed as she buttered her toast.
Horace Sterling really was one of a kind.
Smart, charming, albeit a little too fond of a dad joke.
But he was the type of man you could just rely on, no matter what.
He loved my grandmother unconditionally and had channelled all his energy into caring for her since retiring a few years back.
From painting her nails to helping her with her flower beds to sleeping on the floor in the living room when she fell asleep on the sofa.
He truly was the world’s greatest husband and the best grandfather a girl could ask for.
I’d always considered it the greatest shame that not everyone got to know my grandfather like we did.
They took one look at his chosen profession and went running straight for the hills.
But he’d left me wanting for nothing. He had taught me how to fish when I wanted to fish and drove me to and from soccer practice when I had taken it up in the sixth grade.
He hadn’t shied away from teaching me about death and helping me come to terms with it in a way that wasn’t heavy. That didn’t burden me.
My other grandparents had already passed and they didn’t really speak about my parents too much.
But the grandparents I still had were never like that.
Sure, it had been hard on both of them. No one wanted their children to die before they did, and I suppose their grief had been set on a back burner because of me.
Having to take me in when I was only a few months old was probably very difficult to do, but they did so with grace and a love that very few people ever got to experience.
My grandparents were my parents. They were my everything.
Maybe it was something subconscious, but I’d never really felt the need to ask about my parents.
Knowing they were wonderful people who were excited to have me in their lives was enough.
I didn’t not ask out of protection or some loyalty to the people that raised me.
But rather because I didn’t need to. Because Maura and Horace Sterling were the best parents a girl could ask for.
Isacc Pooton: Quincey, I’m going to be on the Cedar Ridge campus on Wednesday. Shall we study lunch?
Quincey: How comes?! I’m in lectures until 2pm but yes (if you mean lunch, and no actual studying)
Isaac Pooton: Meeting with a professor.
Isaac Pooton: And that’s obviously what I mean.
Quincey: Oh, I didn’t know you had any professors on this campus. Am I a bad friend?
Quincey: Where were you thinking for lunch?
Isaac Pooton: Quincey, there is only one correct answer to that question.
Sandi’s had been mine and Isaac’s favourite spot in Darling since we were kids.
From birthdays to celebratory meals for good grades and lacrosse games won, there was no place quite like Sandi’s.
From the way the whipped cream, strawberry pancake stack was always topped with shaved white chocolate, to the way the Ultimate Sandi, a breakfast sandwich consisting of bacon, hashbrowns, halloumi, and avocado, always filled you up in the best way, the diner felt like the epitome of our childhood.
The foundations upon which our friendship was formed.
Isaac Pooton: I’m thinking we order one of everything.
Quincey: I’m thinking that might put us into a coma. But I’ll see you Wednesday ! :)
After several hours of pretending I hadn’t, in fact, accidentally summoned a demon, I stalked back into my grandparents' house to find them both sitting at the kitchen table nattering away. Maura was mid-through a sudoku puzzle, one from this morning’s paper that had arrived sometime after I had; and my grandfather was tucking into the rest of the bacon and eggs while flipping through the sports section.
“Hey, Gramps.” I smiled, walking into the room and settling into a sideways hug before plonking down into a seat of my own. “Stellar performance on the seed buying front.”
He chuckled. “Hello, pet, thank you, thank you.” He stopped mid mouthful to put down his forking, opting instead to place a tender hand on my grandmother’s arm. “I’ll do anything to keep this one happy.”
“How’s the bacon?” I asked.
“It never disappoints,” he hummed through another mouthful. “How are things with you, kiddo? How’s school?”
“Oh, same old, same old.” I shrugged, trying not to wince at all the hell Professor Caldwell had given me over the last few weeks. “I love the subject, but it comes with its fair share of stresses.”
“That old fart still giving you a hard time?” When is he not? I looked over at my grandfather to see that his brows were furrowed and he was shaking his head. “Where does that man even get off?”
Probably somewhere between my unfairly graded papers and the regular bouts of condescension hurled my way during his lectures. I wasn’t sure how he found time to still make my life so inexplicably difficult. But he did.
“It’s not just me, grandpa, he’s like that with everyone.”
Well, I wish that were true. But Vincent Caldwell had it out for me in a way that felt deeply personal.
In a way that seemed to traverse all metaphysical dimensions into something that was deeply ingrained in who he was.
My Ancient History & Occult Sciences professor had taken a keen dislike to me from my second week of term.
I’d handed in a paper on the validity of Numerology, which, unbeknownst to me, he’d had a paper coming out the following week.
Caldwell was an outspoken proponent of a number of different topics, and the clash of opinions had been enough to scupper any and all future impressions I’d tried to make.
So much for open and honest debate in education.
There was no debate when it came to him.
You were either right, in his eyes, or you weren’t.
Professor Caldwell was a pompous prick with a self-inflated ego that tried to compensate for his tiny man syndrome.
What made it worse was the fact that he wasn’t even short at all.
So that made him doubly a prick because, honestly, what was he even bitter about?
“You let me know if you need me to sort him out, won’t you, Quincey. I know more about dead bodies than your average Joe.” He smiled, chuckling to himself.
“If I ever find myself in the position of needing to hide Caldwell’s body, you’ll be the first person I call.”
“How are you getting on out there, Quincey girl?” my grandmother said, looking up from where she was doing her sudoku.
I chuckled, wiggling my fingers at her. “Couldn’t you tell by my grubby paws? I’m pretty much done.”
“Done already?!” My grandfather looked over at me incredulously. “What time did you get here?”
The cogs in my brain whirred into action, spinning with ungodly speed as I tried to find a justifiable reason for turning up to this house before five am in nothing more than my pyjamas and fluffy slippers.
But I couldn’t think of anything. My brain ran away with itself, failing to come up with a single excuse that sounded reasonable.
In all the realm of possibilities, including ‘because I wanted to,’ nothing quite seemed to make sense.
Maura cut in as I stuttered through the beginning of a sentence. “I called her earlier this morning and offered up some breakfast for her services. I know what it’s like to be a broke college student living off beer and Twinkies.”
“What kind of college student were you?” I laughed, looking at my grandmother with a grateful look and mouthing thank you when my grandfather finally looked away. “Was there anything else you needed help with?”
“No, we are actually about to head over to Chesterwood. We can probably leave early now. We are staying at one of the hotels closer to the hospital because we are scheduled for an earlier appointment.” I looked between the two of them before offering up a curt nod in response.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. I was hoping for this to keep me occupied all day.
Maybe long enough for the emotional attachment that tied me to my belongings to fade away.
There were few things I was truly sentimental about.
The photograph of my grandparents, my Blundstone’s, a box of old cinema stubs, gig tickets, and bus receipts from all the things Isaac, Esme, and I had gotten up to growing up.
We wanted to use them, and all the other bits we collected from a road trip we were planning to create a memory board.
And then there was knitted blanket and although he wasn’t mine, I really did love that chonky little cat that came and went as he pleased… .
Mortimer…
Oh my god, my fucking cat. He’s going to eat my fucking cat.