My parents died when I was ten, and Grandpa had raised me ever since.
The few things I had left of my mother sat in a cedar box at the back of my closet – old photographs and letters I’d never dared to go through.
Grandpa drove me to every prenatal appointment. He cried when the technician said « girl. »
I turned onto his gravel drive just past four. He was already on the porch, the way he’d been every afternoon for two weeks, waiting.
He saw the car and stood up so fast his coffee mug tipped off the arm of the rocking chair and shattered on the boards.
« Emily. Who is her father? »
« There are my girls! » he called, coming down the steps two at a time, quick for a man of seventy-three.
I lifted Nora out, and he opened his arms like he’d been holding them open the whole time I was gone.
« Say hi to your great-grandpa, » I said, easing her into the crook of his elbow.
I expected him to cry. I didn’t expect him to look afraid.
