Page 123 of Learn Your Lesson

I knewIdidn’t have any interest in dating anyone else, but did he?

The thought made my stomach bottom out. I couldn’t imagine the day he brought another woman home, holding her close to him and introducing her to Ava.

Would I just have to smile through it, be their nanny on family vacations?

Would I quit?

CouldI quit, leaving Ava after how close we were now?

Tears pricked my eyes, and I sniffed them back, blinking into the present. “I think it’s time for cake,” I said on a forced smile, and before Mom or Grandma could notice anything, I shoved my chair back and hopped up, ducking into the kitchen for a brief reprieve.

By the time I was serving the cake, I had my shit together — if only temporarily. We lit candles and sang to Mom, finished our game of Rummy, and ended the evening with White Russians in the living room.

As the night winded down, I found myself looking at the pictures on the wall.

“What did you love about Grandpa?”

The question stopped Grandma’s rocking in her chair, and Mom’s hand hovered where she’d been lifting her glass to her lips. They shared a look.

“Before you hated him,” I clarified. “Before he left. You had to have loved something about him.”

“Well, I was a foolish woman,” Grandma grunted, staring at her half-full cup.

“Please,” I whispered. “I’d love to know something about him. Something good.”

I knew the request shocked them. For my entire life, I’d been content to only hear that men were useless, terrible things, and that I should steer clear of all of them. I’d accepted that my grandfather and father both had abandoned us, that they were good for nothing.

Maybe it was introducing Ava to her mother that had me feeling sentimental. Maybe it was the sick part of methat wanted to believe in love. Or maybe it was just that I didn’t know anything about the men I came from, but I felt a suddenly insistent urgency to know now.

Grandma sighed, rocking again and staring at her hands wrapped around her cup. “Your grandfather loved to paint.”

“He did?” I asked with wonder.

She nodded. “He was damn good at it, too. Some days he’d sit on our front porch when the weather was nice and paint all day. He’d start with a blank canvas and end with something so beautiful, it would take my breath away.”

I smiled at the imagery, wondering if he would paint the sunrise or sunset, the flowers blooming in the yard, or maybe a portrait of Grandma.

I wondered if that part of me that loved to create came from him.

“He never sold his paintings, either,” Grandma added, her voice a bit quieter. “Proud man that he was. He never found anything he did to be good enough. But any time someone in the community asked him to paint for them, he’d do it. For free. Happily. Even when we didn’t have two red pennies to rub together, he’d find a way to get supplies and make it happen.” A smile touched the corner of her lips. “He was good in that way.”

“I didn’t know that,” Mom said softly.

Grandma shrugged, sipping her White Russian, her job complete and her content to never talk about Grandpa again.

“What about Dad?” I asked Mom.

She blew out a loud snort. “That man wasn’t good for anything.”

Grandma agreed with a hum in her throat.

I leveled Mom with a look. “Come on. There had to be something, otherwise you wouldn’t have made a baby with him.” I gestured to myself. “And youdidmake a pretty awesome baby, if I do say so myself.”

That earned me a smirk, and then she let out a heavy, annoyed sigh. “Oh, I don’t know… he was charming, I suppose.”

“He loved to get you into trouble,” Grandma chimed in. “Always testing his luck.”

Mom softened at that, almost smiling. “He did. Maybe that was what I liked most about him. Where I was always playing it safe, he was looking for risks. He never liked being comfortable. He always said when you were comfortable, you stopped growing.”