me.
“You, me, and this baby.”
Then he smiled.
“We don’t need anyone who doesn’t want to stay.”
I believed him.
Grandpa had been right about almost everything in my life.
My parents died when I was ten.
A car accident on a wet road.
After that, Grandpa Walter raised me.
He was patient.
Quiet.
Steady.
He became everything I had left.
The few belongings I still had from my mother were stored inside a cedar box at the back of my closet.
Old scarves.
And a bundle of letters tied together with string.
I had never opened the letters.
Some memories hurt too much before you even touch them.
Grandpa went with me to every prenatal appointment.
He sat in waiting rooms reading fishing magazines.
He came into the ultrasound room whenever I asked.
When the technician told us the baby was a girl, Grandpa cried.
“A little
