Page 3 of His Haunted Desire

She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, back facing me, hunched over her cellphone. “You think you can take any damn thing you want, you little cretin,” she hisses, her slur almost nonexistent in her anger. “You think the world belongs to you, that you’re some grand conqueror, some transcendent specimen, hmm? Hmm?”

When Grandma speaks with big, fancy words, I know she’s pissed.

“Grandma?” I say.

“You’renothing,” she says, then hangs up the phone.

I walk to the other side of the bed, sit, and meet her eyes. “What was that about?”

She tosses her cell phone onto the side table. “Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“You don’t need to worry about it.”

“I drove six hours through a storm. Astorm. To get here. To see you. You know how tough that was for me. Don’t insult my intelligence when I finally get here.”

She massages her forehead. “I really wish you’d stayed in New York.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“A granddaughter of mine studyingfashion designat FIT. Do you know how special that is–how special you are?”

I grab her shoulders. “Grandma, explain.”

“Aurora, sweet girl. I don’t want to stress you out.”

I laugh in sheer disbelief. “Stressmeout? I’m not the one who had a stroke!”

She curls her lip. “I hate these fragile human husks we call bodies.”

“Grandma.”

She lets out a huff of reluctance. “Property developers have been trying to buy the building. The shop. The apartment. I’m one of the last holdouts, so now they’ve decided to get nasty. Hirepeople to go through the trash. Start nonsensical lawsuits about waste disposal. I know what they’re doing.”

I’m gobsmacked, well and truly. That’s the sort of phrase I read in books, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually felt. A British friend at college once said to me,“Gobsmacked, darling, as in–smacked right in the bloody gob.”That’s how it feels. Like she punched me in the mouth.

“How long has this been going on?”

Grandma looks away guiltily. “Long enough.”

I stare. She tries to wait me out. We get into a staring battle, which I win when she looks away.

“Just after you went to college this semester.”

I gasp. “For two months!”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” she says.

“How bad is it?” I ask. “Are you going to lose the shop?”

Grandma shakes her head. “They’ll have to kill me to get me out of there.”

I pull her into a hug. “Don’t say things like that.”

“I’m sorry, sweetness.” She strokes her hand through my hair. There’s a croak in her voice. “It’s not good. They’ve already dented my savings and then some. But I’ll keep fighting.”

Guilt twists in my gut. “Maybe I should talk to the school and see if we can get this year’s tuition back.”