Benny
I don’t know everything my grandma said to Bree, but I heard all the highlights. They’ve been playing on a loop in my head since we finished cleaning her house and setting up the tables for bunco night with her friends.
At some point, you have to decide loving each other is worth everything you’d have to face. To decide it will be okay, because you know you can do it together.
She’s right. Bree is worth everything we’d have to face in order to be together. But nothing is worth sacrificing Grandma’s health.
I bag up the trash and carry it outside. When I come back in, Colby is pouring himself a glass of water and Grandma is at the stove. “I’d better get started on my cookies, now. Thanks, boys.”
“Love you, Grandma,” Colby says. He heads out.
I reach to give her a hug. “Have fun tonight.”
“You know I will. Rose will be here any minute, so you’d better get Bree home.”
“Okay.”
“Benny?” she says, dumping eggs into her mixing bowl without looking at me. “You know you can’t put off living your life just because you don’t want to add stress to mine, right?”
Mind reader? I stare at her, watching her go through the motions of mixing chocolate chip cookies without thinking too much on it, because she’s done it a million times.
I remember sitting at this counter as a kid, licking the bowl clean and using my spoon to sing into because I wanted to be a famous singer one day.
It’s funny how some dreams come true, and they’re nothing like you expect them to be. Then others sneak up on you and you realize they are what you wanted all along, but you don’t know how to make them happen.
“We’re taking it a day at a time.”
“Baloney,” she mutters.
“Grandma? What?”
“I said it to Bree and I’ll say it to you: baloney. You need to choose each other. What’s holding you back, honey?”
I gaze into her eyes, knowing full well I can’t tell her. I’ve come to terms with all the other sacrifices I’d have to make for Bree, but Grandma is not one of them.
“I’ll see you later. Have fun at bunco.”
“Wait a minute. What is it? I can see there’s something you won’t tell me.” She turns off the mixer and steps closer. “It’s not me, is it?”
I wait a beat too long to answer, because she draws back the spatula she was using to scrape the sides of her bowl and smacks me in the chest with it. “Benjamin Rhodes. Do not dare tell me you’re putting off love for me.”
Then I won’t. I keep silent. “They’re in the car. I’d better go.”
“Don’t you walk away.”
I obey her. This woman was more of a mother to me than my own ever was. The minute I stepped away from fame, my parents dropped me. They hardly even call anymore.
“We can never predict what is going to happen or where life will take us. Waiting on my health is pure folly. You have one shot at this life, and you have the perfect woman waiting for you out there. Are you really going to lose her because of something so silly?”
“It’s not silly,” I say firmly.
Grandma softens. She puts down the spatula and frames my face in her hands. “Don’t worry about me. Haven’t you seen improvement since Bree showed up? I’ve walked to her house many times. That’s only the beginning.”
I don’t know whether to buy it or not.
“If you make me the reason you lose out on that woman a second time, I’ll never forgive you.”
“Ouch, Grandma.”
“Well, I won’t. If you walk away, it’s your own dang fault. You can’t put that on me.” She huffs, picking up a rag to wipe batter from my shirt. “Now you can go.”
“Love you.”
“Well, that is clear.”
I can’t help laughing as I make my way outside, but she’s given me a lot of food for thought, too.
I agree with her, and I don’t want to get in my own way.
She’s right. I’m scared, and I need to push aside those feelings and face a future with Bree.
It would be better than anything I’m imagining anyway.
I get in the Bronco and close the door. “Is Bree hiding in the back?”
“Yes,” comes her muffled reply.
“You think Peter has made Zoey and Olive crazy yet?” Colby asks, chuckling.
I give him side-eye. “Why is that so funny?”
Colby shrugs. “One of them deserves to have her feathers ruffled, that’s all I’m saying.”
“I heard that,” Bree says. She must move the blanket because it’s easier to hear her now. “What do you have against Olive, anyway?”
“Nothing. She’s…fine.”
“That wasn’t convincing.”
“Trust me,” Colby says, pulling onto our street. “It’s mutual.”
I watch Bree scoot back under the blanket to hide and think, Same.