Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69452 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“Hey!” Hoax laughed as he came into the garage. “I heard that!”
I looked over, focusing on Hoax’s nose.
“Grandma wants you to go inside and get some lunch before you start,” he said, his eyes on my bike. “I can’t wait to help you with this. So we get all the fuck-ups on your bike and not mine.”
I flipped him off, causing Grandpa to laugh.
“Listen to me, kid,” he said carefully before he let me go.
I flipped my eyes to his. “Yeah?”
“You’re one of the best things that ever happened to me. Remember that,” he ordered.
I went inside, feeling this warmth in my heart at his words.
When I got there, my grandmother came over to me and wrapped me up in her arms.
There weren’t many people I could tolerate this kind of a hug from, but my grandmother was one of them.
She smoothed back my hair and looked into my eyes—when had she gotten so short?—and said, “Promise me one thing, Bayou.”
I nodded.
I’d give her the world if she asked.
“Don’t ever ride faster than your guardian angel can fly,” she urged, her smooth hand patting my rough-haired cheek. “We’d miss you too much if you were gone.”
My heart ached at her words.
She used to say the same thing to Grandpa, too.
Maybe still did.
“I promise that I’ll be careful,” I agreed. “But I can’t promise that I’ll not go fast.”
She rolled her eyes. “Bayou, baby. I darn well know that you won’t always go slow. It’s a motorcycle, for gosh sake.”
I loved my grandmother.
I loved even more that she knew me so well, and she tried so stinkin’ hard not to say curse words.
I also loved listening to her voice. It was always so soft and smooth, not harsh and abrasive like some women’s voices could be.
“Oh, look!” Grandma said softly.
Always softly when she was around me, knowing that I couldn’t do the harsh, startling sounds.
I turned to find her pointing at the window behind me, and it was…snowing?
What the heck?
“Was it supposed to snow?” I asked, dumbfounded.
I mean, sure, it was cold.
But not cold enough to…
“Oh,” she breathed as she went to the door.
I followed her, my smile growing by the second, because Grandpa was outside the door, waving like a lunatic.
I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I could read his lips.
Come outside!
“I think he wants you to come outside, Grams,” I teased.
She popped the latch on the sliding glass door, which she struggled with.
I caught it up for her and pushed it all the way open, not wanting to think about how she was so tired and exhausted that she could barely open a door that she never used to have a problem with before.
The door slid open, and the first thing I heard was music.
“I think he’s playing your song,” I teased.
From what Grandma had told me, she and Grandpa had walked down the aisle to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
But Grandpa wasn’t only playing the music. He was singing it himself as he stood by a surprisingly quiet machine that was spitting out snow toward the deck that Grandma was now standing on.
“Since I can’t take you to the snow, I figured I’d bring it to you,” Grandpa said once the closing lyrics were sung.
I looked over at Grandma to see that she was crying. Thick tears were coursing down her cheeks, and she had her hand over her mouth as she held in her sobs.
I made eye contact with Hoax across the yard, and we both disappeared, leaving them alone.
“I want that one day,” I said to Hoax as we watched Grandma and Grandpa dance in the fake snow.
Hoax crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I don’t think it’s ever going to be possible to have what they have.”
No, maybe not.
But that didn’t stop me from wanting it.
Chapter
Thirteen
Big Nick Energy.
—T-shirt
DIXIE
Present
I headed to the bathroom after the door shut on the boys and their wives.
The first thing I saw was the Live, Laugh, Love sign above the bathroom doorway.
I hated that sign.
It was the first thing we’d hung up in our new home after we’d moved to Benton, Louisiana after Mary’s cancer diagnosis.
When we’d moved here, she’d been sad.
We’d had to leave the house behind that we’d had four babies in. That we’d welcomed our first ten grandchildren to. Where we’d spent every last one of our days as a married couple.
We’d added on four times to that old house.
Each time we’d added on, we’d said it would be our last.
But there we were, making sure that each kid had their own room. That Mary could have a big pantry to put all of her canned food in. That I had a garage where I could tinker on my bikes and cars.
When we’d moved to Benton, she’d loved it.
But she hadn’t loved it like she’d loved the home we’d built.