When she left, she hugged me at the door. It was awkward. Neither of us knew where to put our arms.
“Same time next month?” she said.
“Same time next month.”
She’s come every month since.
Grandpa didn’t go back to Briar Glen.
The week after the hearing, Daniel and I helped him find a little one-bedroom cottage about ten minutes from our apartment. It had a porch, and a yard with room for a bird feeder.
Daniel built him a new bird feeder. And a bench for the porch. And a little table by the window for his crosswords.
“You’re spoiling me, son,” Grandpa said.
“You’re my only grandfather-in-law,” Daniel said. “I’ve got to make it count.”
The day he moved in, I brought him a plastic storage bin.
It still had the masking tape on the lid. DAD — MISC.
Helen Park had gotten it from my parents’ house as part of the legal discovery. When she handed it to me, she’d said, “I think these belong to you.”
