Page 66 of Luck of the Devil

Grandpa didn’t question it, just skipped me and poured a finger into his own glass, then picked it up and took a healthy sip. Malcolm did the same, then set the glass on the table, out of my reach.

“We’ve all been lied to, child,” Grandpa said, his voice breaking.

“I realize that now,” I said, holding my hands in my lap, trying to keep them from grabbing the whiskey bottle.

He took another sip, then shook his head. “We weren’t happy when Sarah Jane said she was cutting contact with us, but she’d been distant for years, so we weren’t surprised. It was losing you that broke us.” He took another sip. “Especially after what happened to your sister. We knew you had to be devastated, but your mother said she’d have us physically removed if we came to her funeral. And when we tried to reach out to you later, Sarah Jane said you didn’t want to speak to us either.”

I had a million questions, and unfortunately, the one person who might have the answers wasn’t here to give them. Guilt flooded me as I realized I still hadn’t done what I came here to do.

“Grandpa.” I glanced over at my grandmother. “Grandma. There’s something I need to tell you about Mom.”

My grandmother grabbed another tissue from the box and dabbed her eyes. “We know about Sarah Jane.”

My eyes widened. “You know?”

“We know you buried her yesterday,” Grandpa said. “And that your father didn’t tell us about the service.”

“We wouldn’t have gone anyway,” Grandma said. “Sarah Jane made it clear we weren’t welcome in her life, so it seemed wrong to show up after she was dead.”

Her hand rested on the arm of her chair, and I reached over and placed my hand on hers. “I’m so sorry.”

She shook her head, tears flooding her eyes again. “There’s no need to be sorry that we missed her funeral. We mourned her long ago.”

We were all silent for a moment. I was still trying to figure out what could possibly make my mother cut off her parents at the very moment she probably needed them most. I suspected my grandparents were reconciling that my mother had lied about my desire to see them and all the years we’d wasted.

Grandpa took another drink, then lowered the glass so it rested on the arm of his chair. “We’re sorry, Harper. We should have tried harder.”

“We did send you cards and letters,” Grandma said. “But they always went unanswered, and after a while, they started coming back with ‘return to sender’ written on the envelope. A part of me always wondered if it was you or your mother keeping us apart, but deep down I knew it was her. She just seemed too daunting to cross.”

“I could have reached out too,” I said. “Especially after I left home for college. But by that time…”

By that time, I’d shut everyone out. The last thing I’d wanted to do was let someone in.

But my grandmother misinterpreted my meaning, and fresh tears filled her eyes. “By that time, you thought we’d turned our backs on you too.”

I had, but I still could have tried.

“I don’t understand why she cut you out of our lives,” I said. “Why then?” The whiskey bottle was in my peripheral vision and my mouth began to water.

Grandpa shook his head. “I don’t know, but we weren’t necessarily surprised it happened. More by the timing of it.”

I sat back a little on the sofa cushion, trying to put distance between myself and the bottle. “You said Mom grew distant several years before she cut off contact. Do you know why?”

Grandma dabbed her eyes again. “Sarah Jane never thought much of us, even growin’ up. She was friends with girls who had parents with means, and she resented that we couldn’t give her what their families could. When she set off for college, she did so with the ambition to marry a rich man.”

“She was after her MRS Degree,” Grandpa said, staring down at the dregs of his drink and shaking his head.

Grandma gave him a dirty look, then turned back to me. “I suppose she didn’t do too poorly with your father.”

We hadn’t been rich, but we’d been very comfortable. Either they were wrong about her objective to marry rich, or her goal had changed. From what I’d seen, she’d been more obsessed with power and being in control than with money, and living in a small town gave her plenty of opportunity to rule with her iron will.

“So she was already distant before she left home for college?” I asked.

My grandfather cleared his throat. “She wasn’t as close to us as her sister Hannah is, but Sarah Jane always came home for holidays and over summer break while she was at school. She seemed pleased to see us when we were together. Especially after she started dating Paul.”

“And things got better after we agreed to give her the weddin’ she wanted,” Grandma said. “Of course weddings weren’t the expensive affairs they are nowadays, but we still had to come up with more money than we had to pay for it.”

“Had to get a second mortgage,” Grandpa grumbled.