Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“Better get used to it, pal. You’re stuck with me now.”
He’s another unexpected part of this inheritance. Unlike the company, there was no wedding clause assigned to him.
What the hell will I do with this lazy old dog?
I think he can spend whole days without moving.
Even when Gramps first got him, he was a tortoise.
Not the kind of dog you take on runs or into the woods for tracking. He’s an ornamental beast, even if the roaring howl he lets out at any hint of an intruder doubles as an alarm system.
The women of the family adore him, of course, but that’s expected.
Women love big helpless lumps they can cuddle.
Only, I’m his caretaker now.
Crap.
I rake a hand over my face, sipping my whiskey.
Today hit me like a fucking Mack truck.
I still don’t know where any of this is going.
The alcohol burns like a rocket on its way down my throat.
I give myself a few seconds to appreciate the feel, the flavor, the reassuring warmth of the fire.
Then I open the first album.
Gramps’ familiar face grins out at me, the photo bleached of color with age. I estimate it’s from the 1950s, back when he was a young man, scrappy but infinitely confident.
When he was comfortable, but not yet wildly rich, fresh from the war and gallivanting around the Mediterranean like some kind of Mainer Indiana Jones before Indy was even a thing.
I take another sip before paging forward.
Gramps at the beach.
Gramps with my grandmother at their lake house upstate—I don’t know what the hell will become of that retreat, but it’s not my problem.
I barely knew her. She died when I was young and he never married again.
Time moves through the sixties and seventies and things start changing. He’s wearing more expensive suits, his hair slicked back.
There are a few photos at fancy events with Grammy dressed up. A slender, pretty figure with eyeliner and big brown hair, even into middle age.
Gramps fucking glows. It’s his eyes, I think, lit up like stars.
I never saw him look that happy when he was alive.
Mom and Dad, conspicuously absent, aside from a few photos of my mother as a little girl, standing awkwardly with her parents.
I page forward, watching him progress from stuffy old New England workhorse to modern and wealthy man of culture. Rich beyond his wildest dreams.
The old man made life look easy.
There are a few later shots of him relaxing on his yacht, holding a glass of bloodred wine up for the photographer with a mysterious half smile.
“Dammit, Gramps. Why’d you have to go and complicate my life?” I mutter. “I don’t need your sense of adventure.”
It’s not like he ever got hitched because someone else forced him to from the Great Beyond. I never really knew my grandmother, again, but it’s obvious he loved her.
It was a natural relationship, the kind of fairy-tale simplicity so many folks used to have. They lived, they fell in love, and then he missed her for the rest of his days.
So why me? And why Hattie?
I push the album aside and pull out another photo book, this one more recent.
He looks a lot older here, like he aged twenty years in the five or so since Grammy died.
Still, he looks good. Healthy and active.
If not happy, then at least confident, always in his element.
Mom’s absence hits me again, but they never seemed close.
For as long as I’ve known her, she’s only come ‘home’ to Portland a handful of times. Some old beef I’m not sure I care to understand.
Also, I don’t blame her.
When we finally hit the 2000s, I recognize myself. Plus, Margot and my cousins and me as kids—all old enough to spend summers with Gramps.
Sailing up and down the coast, bumping around bustling New York, occasionally horseback riding on Gramps’ ranch in Santa Fe. He taught me to appreciate the desert as much as the sea.
So did Gramps’ hardass bodyguard, Holden Verity, his tall, gruff figure leering over my shoulder in damn near every photo. The guy wound up like a glorified babysitter in the later years.
When he wasn’t keeping Margot and little Cleo out of trouble, he was always there every time I stepped out at night, ready to stop me from raiding the wine cellar or lighting up a contraband joint.
What a fucking pill.
Though now that I’m older, there’s a certain respect.
The man was dedicated, and I guess he’s still helping oversee Gramps’ properties until they’re sold off.
Those long summers were half a lifetime ago, but I still remember them like they were yesterday.
Especially the sailing trips.
Those continued well into my teens, the times when life made sense. When it was peaceful and innocent and stupid the way every young man likes.
Even if my bratty sister and her friend made my life hell.
Sometimes, I deserved it, punkass little prick that I was.