Chapter 9
Gail didn’t even give herself a chance to think about it, but she arrived at her grandmother’s place without warning. When she rang the doorbell, she heard her grandmother slowly making her way to the front door.
Grandma opened the door, raised one eyebrow, then smiled. “Well, this is a lovely surprise. Come on in,” she said, leaving the door open for her and watching her walk in. “Obviously this is a problem visit, isn’t it?”
Stopping, she faced her grandmother and replied, “Maybe I shouldn’t be here.”
“And maybe you should be,” she declared immediately, “because, if you came to me, you don’t have anybody else to talk to.
” Gail winced at that, and Lorain Montoya nodded, adding, “It’s not so much that I’m the end of the list, but it’s probably something that involves the rest of the family that you aren’t comfortable with. ”
Gail’s shoulders sagged, and she admitted, “Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, there has certainly been an awful lot of turmoil in your world in the last few years, but I thought you were over most of it.”
Her tone was neutral, but her gaze was shrewd as she studied her, reminding Gail that her father had come from and had been raised by this woman.
As her grandmother led her farther into the house, she asked, “Coffee?”
“Yes, please,” she replied.
Grandma didn’t say very much, just put on the coffee. When it was ready, they went into her beautiful sunroom, which is where her grandmother spent as much of her time as she possibly could.
Gail sat down and took a deep breath, enjoying the huge tropical plants that Grandma somehow managed to keep living so well in this room.
She realized just how much work that must be, wondering about it for the first time.
“I hadn’t really considered just how much effort you must put in to keep these plants alive. It’s not insignificant.”
“Well, I have help,” she explained, “but it’s also a matter of understanding the important things in life and nurturing those.”
Her words were startling. Gail stared at her grandmother, wondering how much to say to her. “And that seems to be overlaid with an awful lot of world-weary understanding of how the world works,” she added, watching her grandmother carefully. “Almost as a life lesson I have yet to understand.”
Her grandmother’s lips twitched, as she said, “It could actually be both.”
“Right, it could be, couldn’t it?” Gail nodded her head and began, “I know that you raised him. I know that he is likely everything in your world, but I am really, really struggling right now. Struggling to understand, to accept, and to even find a way to move forward with both of my parents.”
Her grandmother’s eyebrows shot up. “Now that’s interesting.”
“If you could just withhold judgment for a bit and let me explain, I would really appreciate it.”
“Of course,” she replied, “and I would like to think I could give you more neutral wisdom from over the years.”
“Well, if you could, that would be awesome,” Gail whispered, “because I’m all out of it.”
Her grandmother sat back, nodding. “I suppose this has to do with the man you walked away from.”
“The man I walked away from?” she repeated, staring at her grandmother.
She nodded. “Yes, the man you walked away from.”
Gail finally let it go because, in essence, Grandma may have been crude, but she was right. “Yes, it does have to do with him.”
“Of course. I’ve never seen you so happy as when you were with him,” she shared.
That took all the stuffing out of Gail. She noted that her grandmother saw that too, didn’t even know how to broach the subject after Gail’s reaction. So Gail confirmed, “I was very happy. And then, of course, my sister showed up.”
“Yes, your sister broke something fundamental for many of us in the family.”
“I’m not exactly sure how one recovers from that.”
“And yet you seem to have somehow found it in your heart to forgive her.”
“I don’t know that I found a way to forgive her,” she clarified, “as much as we had always been close. And, once I understood why she had done it, I understood it better. I was obviously not initially impressed, and it separated us for a long time.”
“But, child, it’s also been quite a few years, which is why it’s interesting that you are here at my door now.”
She stared at her and nodded. “I know. Part of that is on me—the part of me that I absolutely hate right now.”
Her grandmother winced at that and shook her head. “Oh, dear.”
Gail stared at her grandmother, trying to speak about the reality of it. “Did you know what he’d done?”
Grandma’s eyes widened. “Well, I’m not privy to very much in your father’s world anymore,” she pointed out, shaking her head.
“Once he became a man, he more or less cut me out of his business. And, with your grandfather’s death, I definitely was cut out of most of his day-to-day events,” she added. “So, no, I don’t know what he did.”
“Did Grandfather ever serve in the military?”
“He absolutely did,” she stated proudly. “He was awarded a Purple Heart and several medals for the work that he had done as well.”
She nodded. “How would Grandfather have felt if somebody had deliberately sent him into a war zone, even though he was currently assigned to a training role with War Dogs here in the States at the time?”
She stared at her in surprise. “Well, if he was in the military, reassignment could happen to anybody, as far as I understand.” She gave a wave of her hand.
“That’s not the field he worked in, and he wasn’t necessarily part of that type of work.
I mean, the military has store clerks, admin people, doctors, therapists, all kinds of people who never, ever see a war. ”
Silence settled in as Gail struggled with how to tell her grandmother.
“What was his name again?” she asked, frowning.
“Riley,” she replied.
“Oh, I remember that one. Yeah, what was Riley doing?”
“He was training military dogs,” she stated.
“That’s very valuable work. Those dogs saved so many lives, my husband’s included.
Did you know that?” She went off and told her a tale about it.
As she wound down, she said, “Sorry. I tend to ramble a little bit more these days. It’s kind of nice to have those memories.
Of course, it’s not pertinent to what you’re doing here though. ”
“I’m not sure whether it is or not because I found out …
I don’t even know anymore,” she wailed, staring at her.
Then she took a deep breath and shared, “I found out that Father had Riley shipped off into a war zone and out of the dog training he was doing stateside, the program that he had set up. And Father did it with the basic intention that Riley would never come back alive.”
Her grandmother sat back and stared at her. “And you found this out when?”
“Just in the last couple days. Riley is in town, but he suffered—”
“Suffered how?”
“He’s on medical discharge after being injured terribly. He’s lost most of one leg. He’s got rods in his spine. He’s lost ribs. I don’t even know how much other damage was done.”
“So, in your mind, you’re blaming your father for what happened to him because of what he did, I guess.”
“Yes, I am. My father, however, tells me that it’s all my fault because I wanted Riley gone.
And then I found out that my mother knew that Debbie lied from the beginning, and Mom didn’t bother telling me.
So together, between the two of them, knowing that it was a lie, knowing that Riley hadn’t done what Debbie said he’d done, they shipped Riley overseas to die in some war anyway. ”
The old woman sat back, her face turning all shades of red, then white, and shook her head. “Now that is taking everything a hell of a lot too far,” she muttered.
The amount of comfort those words sent through Gail’s soul was immeasurable. Gail looked at her, tears in her eyes, and she asked, “Am I making too much out of this?”
“What have you done so far?”
She snorted. “Imploded my world. First I kicked him out of my apartment and Mom too. I’ve been told to smarten up, buck up, make this upcoming marriage go the way it should because, of course, the merger is what’s important.
And that I’m to blame for Riley being shipped out because I was so upset and so angry over it all. ”
“And yet your parents knew the truth way back at the beginning?” her grandmother asked quietly.
“Both of them knew. I’ve only just heard about that from Debbie.
And then when I confronted my mother about it, all she had to say was So what?
She was of the opinion that I should be grateful that they had done it.
And that they had done it with my best interests in mind because I was so devastated. ”
“But you wouldn’t have been devastated if you’d known the truth.”
She smiled at her grandmother. “Apparently that’s a fact that nobody seems to care about.”
Her grandmother sat back and sighed. “Oh, the tangled webs we weave,” she whispered.
Gail smiled, holding up a hand, and continued.
“Then … I cleared out my office at work, returned the company car to the parking lot, sent my resignation notice to Dad via email, and broke off my engagement with Peter. Already have notices of that going out via social media and to some of the local online newspapers here.”
Grandma had to smile, hearing all that. “I always liked that young man.”
“And he liked you,” she shared, with a smile. “You’re probably the only one in the family he would have anything to do with right now.”
“Not if you had coffee with him.”
“And he’s been to my place,” she shared. “And, no, nothing is going on. Yet I am dealing with the trauma of what my family did. And I just don’t know how to process it all.”
“And you have talked to Riley about that too?”