Excerpt
November
10, 2007
He stood hunched over the azaleas, shaping the bushes with
ease despite the cold. Melinda Busher-Thompson burrowed her
gloved hands deeper into the front pockets of her Berber
coat as she watched him. Her exposed skin stung with the raw
damp of the November day— another reason for her desire to
leave western New York.
Yet Grandpa Jack moved through his garden as though he was
still forty, like her, and not eighty-seven.
As if Grammy was still here. "Hey, Grandpa." Her all-weather
moccasins squished over the scattered dead leaves Grandpa
Jack had laid down for insulation.
"Hey, yourself, kiddo!" Pleasure lit up Jack Busher's face.
Melinda caught the sparkle in his violet-blue eyes before he
enfolded her in one of his famous bear hugs.
Grandpa Jack might be thinner than he'd been when she was a
child, but his embrace still held all the love in the world
for her. She breathed in his scent—fall morning rain mixed
with soap and old-fashioned cologne.
"I didn't think you'd get here until tomorrow." The familiar
vestiges of his English accent comforted her.
Jack pulled back to look at Melinda's face but his hands
were still on her upper arms. He squeezed her with just
enough pressure that she felt it under her thick coat. Her
heart pounded in response to the unconditional love she'd
only ever found here with him and Grammy.
"I got into town late last night."
"I see." Jack grunted as he hoisted a pile of twigs he'd
gathered and tossed them into his wheelbarrow.
"I didn't want to wake you." She held her breath for a
moment, then watched the cloud of vapor as she expelled it
forcefully from her lungs.
"I slept at my house last night but I have my luggage in the
car so I can stay with you for the next two weeks."
Jack's expression stiffened. "That won't work, honey. You
belong in your own place."
"Grandpa, I belong with you right now."
She felt her neck muscles tighten in exasperation.
Grandpa refused to accept her broken marriage for what it
was.
Irreparable. "Melinda, you've always belonged with me,
you'll always be part of me. But no one's been in your house
for months, except me checking on it, and it needs some
living. It'll do the place good to have the furnace on and
water running through the pipes."
Jack paused in his raking and leveled a look at Melinda. It
was the same look he used to give her as a teenager when he
saw through her schemes.
"I'm not so old that I need a babysitter, honey."
"I'm not here to babysit you, Grandpa. I miss you and we'll
have more time together if I stay here."
"Phooey. We'll have all the time we want. You need to be in
your own home."
He wasn't going to back down on this one. Nor was he willing
to discuss Nick with her.
Not yet. "You taking care of yourself, girl?" Jack's body
might be fading but his eyes and perception weren't.
"Sure, Grandpa." She glanced down, but felt the strength of
his gaze. "It's not easy, you know…."
Her cheeks flushed with shame. How could she stand here
whining about her loss when Grandpa mourned the loss of his
life's partner of more than sixty years?
His breath caught, and she heard the rasp in his throat.
When she raised her eyes back to his, she saw the unshed
tears. Guilt and grief washed over her and she clenched her
fists in her coat pockets.
"Of course it's not easy, pumpkin, but we have to go on.
We're still here. You know your Grammy wouldn't have it any
other way."
He bent down to pick up the shears he'd dropped at their
feet. When he straightened, she saw the strain on his face.
"I know, Grandpa. I'm sorry. I'm being a bitch." Jack's
eyebrows rose. "Nothing this family hasn't experienced from
its women before."
They both laughed, and for a moment all the sorrow of the
past three months was gone and it was just Melinda and
Grandpa Jack out in the garden.
Exactly the way it'd been since Melinda could remember.
She'd even taken her first steps here. Busher family legend
said she'd reached for a tulip to pick, unaware of the
rarity of bulb flowers in a Buffalo spring.
"Honey, I called you for a reason." She heard the slight
quaver in his voice, saw the deep lines around his mouth.
"Grandpa, you don't have to explain. I told you I'd come
whenever you needed me, and I meant it. I'm just sorry I
didn't come sooner."
The truth was, she'd had to convince Senator Hodges that
she'd only be gone two weeks. Thank God it wasn't an
election year or she'd never have gotten this vacation time.
Since she'd taken over as head speechwriter for the senator,
she'd had exactly one week off.
When Grammy died. "You have your own life, Melinda. I don't
expect you to drop everything for me. You know that, honey."
He raked up the clippings from the azaleas and stooped to
put them in the black plastic bag.
"Let me help you, Grandpa."
Together they finished the rest of the job, and within
twenty minutes were inside the warm kitchen. The kitchen was
home to Melinda ever since Grandpa and Grammy moved into the
large suburban house in the 1970s.
Hot coffee steamed from Grammy's chipped ceramic mugs that
Melinda set on the table in front of them.
"Your Grammy was always closest to you, Melinda, even more
so than she was to your father or Lille." Jack's hands
tightened around his mug.
"We don't have to talk about this, Grandpa." Sad
conversations weren't good for Grandpa Jack. Not in his deep
state of grief.
"Yes, my dear, we do. Now let me finish."
He covered Melinda's hand with his, and a lifetime of
Grandpa Jack conversations flooded through her heart at the
contact. Tears seeped from her eyes but she remained silent.
This isn't about you, Melinda. Be strong for Grandpa Jack.
"As close as Grammy was to you, my dear, she didn't share
everything. We didn't share everything, not with anyone,
really."
Melinda sucked in a breath. Now what? She was going to find
out she had long-lost sisters or brothers? The family had a
fortune from bootlegging that they'd kept in Swiss accounts?
Grandpa Jack appeared oblivious to her thoughts. "As you may
remember, we married after the war, here in Buffalo."
Grandpa Jack looked out the kitchen window and as much as
Melinda wanted to follow his gaze, she couldn't stop staring
at his face.
What was he going to tell her? "But that's not where the
story started. Your father was born in 1944." Melinda heard
Grandpa's words but still didn't follow him.
"Yes, so he's sixty-three."
"And your aunt Lille's one year older than he is."
"Sixty-four." As she did the math, Melinda realized that
Aunt Lille seemed much younger than her years. But surely
this wasn't why Grandpa Jack was going through the family
timelines.
"And your Grammy and I were married for—"
"Sixty-one years," Melinda finished for him. Silence fell,
and Grandpa Jack just watched her. She looked back at him,
unsure of where he was headed with this. Okay, so there were
a few years between her aunt's and father's births and
Grammy and Grandpa Jack's wedding. That was hardly uncommon
during World War II.
Wasn't he her biological grandfather? Was that the big
secret? "So you weren't Grammy's first husband?"
What kind of question was that? she asked herself. How much
of a comfort was she to Grandpa Jack now?
Grandpa Jack showed no concern at Melinda's comment. He
laughed.
"Oh, honey, no, that's not what I'm trying to tell you. Your
Dad's my son, no question." But he didn't say anything about
Aunt Lille.
Melinda knew she should've asked Grammy more about her life,
especially after Grammy was diagnosed with cancer last year.
But the final date of her divorce from Nicholas loomed, and
overwhelmed by the thought of losing Grammy, it hadn't
occurred to her.
She'd been too self-absorbed. "So why the gap, Grandpa? It
was the war, right?"
"I was in a concentration camp."
The words flew like bullets from a sleek pistol. Quiet. Oh,
so smooth.
Shocking. "But, Grandpa…why? Are you Jewish?"
Melinda had never seen any great religious fervor in Grandpa
and Grammy. They were spiritual, and both their children, as
well as Melinda, had been raised Catholic, but not in a
strict way.
Melinda racked her brain, trying to remember everything
she'd learned about concentration camps during World War II.
She recalled that more than thirteen million had been
slaughtered in the Holocaust. Six million Jews and the rest
a mix of Catholics, Gypsies, homosexuals and whoever else
didn't fit Hitler's grand scheme for the "master race."
She'd never seen any connections between her grandparents'
lives and what she'd studied.
"No, honey," her grandfather answered. "I'm not Jewish, but
your Grammy and I tried to help the Jews. We also worked
against the Nazis when they moved into Belgium, and the rest
of Northern Europe, for that matter."
Grandpa Jack's statements poured out of him as though he'd
spoken of this his entire life.
But Melinda had never heard any of it before. All her
grandparents had ever said about their lives prior to
arriving in America was that "times were tough. We're happy
to be together now."
Certainly their son, James, Melinda's father, had never
revealed any knowledge of their past. He just said his
parents were from Europe. Aunt Lille had never revealed that
she knew anything, either.
"You're from England, and Grammy was from Belgium, right?"
"Yes, that's true. But it was unusual for a Brit to meet a
Belgian like your grandmother during the middle years of the
war. The circumstances we found ourselves in…"
Grandpa Jack's voice trailed off and he gazed down at the
coffee in his cup. He took a swig.
After a moment he said, "Your grandmother kept a journal.
Hell, more than a journal—it's our life together.
And her life before she met me. Our tough times, even after
the war, here in America. It's part of your legacy,
Melinda."
"Why didn't you mention this sooner?" Melinda searched her
memory for all the times Grandpa Jack could've told her
about Grammy's journal. For that matter, why hadn't Grammy
said anything while she was alive?
"We've always been reluctant to talk about the war years."
Jack grew still, his expression somber. "We experienced
struggles that, until recently, would've been unimaginable
to you, to your parents."
Melinda knew what he meant. Until September 11, 2001, most
North Americans wouldn't have been able to fathom the depth
of suffering experienced at the hands of the Gestapo in
occupied Europe.
"There's one more thing, my dear. I kept a diary after my
release from the concentration camp. I've never even shared
it with Grammy. She'd already suffered too much by the time
I found her again. But you deserve to know both sides of our
story."
Grandpa Jack looked at her and raised his chin. Slightly,
but enough for Melinda to read the pride and conviction on
his face.
"We went through hell to get our freedom." |
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