Cara #2
He reached out with the hand not holding tongs and squeezed my shoulder.
Grandpa was not a hugger at the grill—the grill required focus, and a hug interrupted the focus.
He looked at my face for a second, the way Grandma had, but where Grandma had asked, Grandpa just took it in.
He had a way of looking at a person that was almost more than a hug.
It was the look of a man who saw you and wasn’t going to make you talk about it.
“You look good, kiddo. Happy. Glad to see it.”
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
“Shop okay?”
“Shop’s good. The new Kingsolver is selling.”
“Mm.” A small pause while he flipped a row of hot dogs with the calm of a man who had been doing this for fifty years. “You as happy as you look?”
I felt something catch in my throat. Grandpa didn’t ask questions like that often. When he did, he meant them, and you didn’t get to dodge.
“Yeah, Grandpa. I’m happy.”
“Good.” Another small pause. “Then I won’t ask you anything else. Your grandmother and your sisters are going to ask you everything else. I’m just going to stand here and grill and be glad for you. Because my Cara deserves to be happy.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For asking the question I needed and not the rest of them.”
He didn’t answer. He just squeezed my shoulder one more time, slightly tighter, and turned back to the grill.
I stood there next to him for another minute, watching him work, feeling the warmth of the fire and the warmth of his quiet attention.
Grandpa was the kind of grandfather who could make you cry by accident, and I was not going to walk into the rest of this evening with red eyes when I had four sisters waiting to interrogate me.
I made myself walk away before I could get too misty about it.
I made it about ten feet across the lawn before I realized the rescue enclosure had grown.
Lucy was still at the fence with Briar and Spencer, but Eliza had drifted off the swing and was already halfway across the lawn, moving in their direction with the unmistakable purpose of a sister who had spotted a target.
Piper had set down the napkins at the long table and was reaching for a glass of lemonade, and was clearly about to follow Eliza.
The whole thing was happening with the slow inevitability of a tide.
They had all seen me arrive. They had all seen my giddy face. They were converging.
I considered, for a brief and dishonest second, turning around and going back to help Grandpa at the grill.
Then I sighed and walked to the fence, because there was no version of resisting my sisters in this mood that ended with me still having my secrets at the end of the night. I knew it before I came.
By the time I reached the rail, Eliza was already there, leaning her elbows on the wood with the satisfied air of a woman who had been waiting to corner me all evening.
Spencer, sensing what was coming, gave me one quick sympathetic look, kissed Lucy on the temple, said something low about needing to go help Hunter, and removed himself with the practiced smoothness of a boyfriend who had been part of this family’s functions long enough to know when to disappear.
Piper arrived a moment later with her glass of lemonade and slotted herself into the small remaining space at the rail.
So now it was Lucy, Eliza, Piper, me, and Briar perched quietly on the rail with one leg tucked under her, and Larry, who was standing on the other side of the fence with his enormous chin resting on the top rail and his huge wet brown eyes fixed on me with the dignified, slightly stunned expression he reserved for his closest friends.
“Hi, Larry.”
Larry blinked at me.
“You look weird,” Eliza said.
“She looks radiant,” Lucy corrected.
“She looks weird in a good way,” Eliza clarified. “I was getting to that.”
“I do not look weird.”
“Cara.” Lucy leaned both her elbows on the rail and turned the full weight of her attention on me. “I have known you since we were toddlers. I have been waiting for you to look like this for a long time. Do not even try to deny me my moment.”
I put my elbows on the top rail next to hers and looked out at Larry instead of at any of them, which was the closest thing I had to a defensive maneuver.
Larry, for his part, leaned slightly forward and huffed a wet llama breath into the side of my hair, which was apparently his way of weighing in.
“Thank you, Larry. Very helpful.”
“It’s Jasper,” Lucy informed everyone.
I felt my whole face go warm. Briar, who was thirteen and therefore approximately ninety percent ear, did not look up from the spot on Larry’s neck she was scratching, but she went very still because she knew interesting adult information was happening within earshot.
“Lucy,” I said.
“That’s a yes.”
“That’s a Lucy; don’t say things in front of the children.”
“I am literally right here,” Briar said to Larry’s neck. “And I’m hardly a child. Thirteen is practically an adult now.”
“I know you are, sweetheart.” I reached over and side hugged her briefly, and she went back to scratching Larry, and I went back to trying not to give everything away.
“Okay,” Lucy said. “Stop deflecting. Tell us about Jasper.”
I sighed and looked down at my hands on the rail. There was no point trying to hide anything from any of them at this point.
“He asked me to dinner,” I said. “Friday. He’s picking me up at seven.”
“This is amazing,” Piper said. “Where’s he taking you?”
“He said it’s a surprise.”