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He smiled sadly. “I wish I’d known that then. But I thought I had her best interests in mind. So, I did the one thing that would push her away. I found someone else.”
Cold horror washed over me. “You cheated on her. That’sterrible.”
“It is. I regretted it the second I did it. And even more as her mama set her up with someone else. She invited me to the wedding to make me watch. I didn’t go, but it was in the backyard. I saw it anyway. I deserved it.”
“But Gram didn’t stay with him,” I said. “They were divorced before my mom was born.”
“Yes. When I found out, I tried to make amends, but she told me the pain of losing me was worse than losing him. And to her, I was the worst husband of them all. Even if we were never married.”
“So ... what happened? You guys lived next to each other all of this time?”
He leaned on his cane. “Time softened some of it. We could talk without ripping each other’s heads off near the end. I’d go so far as to say we were friends, at least,Iconsideredhera friend. In the rare times we spoke, she told me about you a lot.”
“What kinds of things did she say?”
“She was so scared when her daughter was choosing favorites. She said you were so happy and bright. And I told her never to let that light go out.”
“You said that? About a kid you’d never met?”
“You were hers. That’s all I needed to know. And once I met you, I saw it even more.”
I bit my lip. I didn’t know anyone else had been on my side. “I wish she’d told me.”
“You would have never talked to me if you knew. And besides, you got one more thing from her. She loved to hide her mistakes. I was her biggest one.”
I remembered the nights when Gram would tell me about her past and all the times her eyes slipped to the window. I assumed she was talking about my grandfather, the man she’d married. The pain in her eyes still shone brightly even all those years later and it had to be the one she seemed to hate the most.
Instead, it was Mr. Buford.
“You really fucked things up with her.”
“I did. And sometimes I wonder if I ever really learned. I probably should have told you who I was, but I wanted some chance to get to know you without my past mistakes weighing me down. I knew it would happen eventually.”
“You definitely should have,” I said. “But ... whether you were a mistake or not, you were hers too. It’s nice to talk to someone who knows her.”
He blinked. “What?”
“When she died, my family cared more about her house than they did her. And over time, I realized that my little sister only had a few memories of her. I had more, but no one to share them with.”
“But I hurt your gram.”
“Yes. But you’ve been here for me. If I give too much power to the past, then I miss out on good things in the present. I might not like what you did, but we can still be friends.”
He stared at me, eyes shining. “You’re something else, Amy. Now I see why she cared about you so much.”
“Until the end, I guess.” The words were muttered, and I regretted it as soon as I said it. Mr. Buford frowned.
“What do you mean by that?”
“It’s just that ...” I took a stabilizing breath. “Something happened in her will. Something changed that I didn’t expect. You said she cared for me, but the house wasn’t left to me. She chose my brother for that. Even when she said she would do otherwise.”
I expected his eyes to widen, as everyone but Calvin’s did when the will was announced. Instead, he gripped his cane tighter.
“She didn’tchoosehim,” he said firmly. “She wasn’t your parents.”
“Wait a second, you know what my parents did? You know what happened with the will?”
“Of course I do. I might have messed things up once, but I would never let anything happen to her. Even when each day felt like I was dying, my purpose washer. I saw her getting sick and I called her daughter.”