Page 55 of Stronger Than Blood

Chapter fifty

Mick

Iknew immediately something was wrong. I’d woken up early to run by the restaurant before everyone got out of bed. I’d already baked enough for the morning, so I didn’t need to bake, but I was enough of a control freak that I still liked to check in.

When I came downstairs, I saw a very concerned-looking Kalinda holding Granny’s hand. She looked up at me and smiled sadly.

I didn’t need to ask. I already knew Granny was passing over. I quickly walked over to the bed, and Kalinda slipped Granny’s hand into mine. She was lying quietly, the least amount of air coming in and out of her mouth with a gurgling or rattling sound to her breaths.

It was only a few moments later that Rory’s strong arm slipped around my shoulder. He usually slept a lot later than I did, but I knew the same instinct that must’ve alerted me had done so for him as well.

“Tell her it’s okay to go, Mick,” Kalinda said quietly. “I think she’s holding on because of you.”

Just then, out of nowhere, a feather fell from the ceiling and landed on the bed next to Granny Ida’s head. The sobs took me, and I crumpled, my head lying on the chest of the only real parent I’d ever known.

When I was finally able to get my breath, I whispered. “It’s time. You can go, ’cause… ’cause you helped me become strong. You made sure I had a good home, family, friends, and… and a community.”

I couldn’t stop the tears, not even if I tried.

How was I going to live without that incredible powerhouse of a human being in my life?

She’d literally saved my life not once but twice.

She’d surrounded me with the love I’d never known existed and pulled me out of the pits of despair when my death would’ve been a more likely outcome.

When I finally pulled back, Kalinda and Rory’s hands on my shoulders, I watched as Granny took her last breath.

Luckily, Kalinda kept a dining chair next to Granny’s bed because the strength in my knees gave out, and I fell backward.

I don’t know how long we stayed like that. Me in the chair, wailing after losing the lifeblood of my existence, my new family… yes, family, Kalinda and Rory, comforting me. It seemed like a very long time.

It probably would’ve lasted longer, except the windows in the living room began to rattle as if we were having an earthquake. I took the tissue Kalinda had handed me and wiped my eyes before looking to see what was happening.

When things began to fly across the room, I knew exactly who was behind this. “He thinks he’s free,” Kalinda said.

I didn’t wait; I stood up and walked into the fray, grabbing a plastic vase someone had brought flowers to Granny in as it flew past me. Then I threw it as hard as I could toward the part of the room where I always felt the monster’s presence.

“You are free to leave. Now!”

The punch in the gut caused me to bend over for a couple of seconds, but fuck the son of a bitch—I’d just lost my Granny, and he was not going to win the day. I stood up and repeated myself, “Go away! Go away now!”

In the corner where I’d thrown the vase, a ghostly apparition began to form. I had to wipe the tears that’d slipped out of my eyes again. This time, not out of the grief I felt for losing Granny, but the anger I felt at the audacity that monster had, coming at us at a time of loss and grief.

Preston Garrison slowly took shape, and Kalinda and Rory showed up behind me, one on either side.

Clearly, it was time for a showdown. Just as he became visible, he rushed toward us.

I cringed, ready for the attack, but instead of reaching me, an invisible force found him first, throwing him back against the wall.

Seconds later, several wisps formed where he stood. At first, I couldn’t make them out, but then, one by one, the wisps began to take shape and form.

The first was my grandmother. As Kalinda had predicted, she’d come back, I assumed, to take Granny across the veil. Instead, she was facing down the monster who’d killed her. She looked at me as if she could sense my thoughts, then turned and raced toward him.

She disappeared as her ghost crashed into his.

Then Uncle Eddie’s ghost came into view. He did the same thing, smiling at us before attacking the entity.

When I saw the next two ghosts come into view, I broke down again. Granny Ida slowly formed, and next to her stood my mom. “I’m so sorry, honey,” Mom mouthed. Although I couldn’t hear her, I could sense her words in my head.

I guess I knew she’d somehow died, and we’d never gotten word, but that confirmed it. “Live well. I love you,” she mouthed, and then she rushed the entity.

I noticed the ghosts of my family surrounding him, keeping him pinned in place no matter how much he struggled to get away.

Granny Ida came over to where the three of us stood.

She put her hand against Kalinda’s face first, then whispered in her ear before she winked at Rory.

When she came to me, she leaned over and kissed my cheek.

“You’re going to be okay, grandson,” she said.

“But I think we’ll take the trash out as we go. ”

I heard her chuckling as she turned away from me, then stopped and smiled. “I love you all the way to heaven and back,” she said before she, too, rushed the entity.

They all began to encircle him, and at first they stood still, then they lifted off the ground and began to flow counterclockwise around him.

He screamed and fought against them. I could feel his desperation and had to force myself not to feel glee at his pain.

Somehow, I knew that would give him strength.

No, it was okay to be happy he was being dealt with, but it wasn’t okay to find joy from it. Instead, I focused on my loved ones. Those who’d influenced me in one way or another.

Finally, all I could see was a circular cloud whirling around him, slowly causing him to spin with them.

Then, like those tornados you see online that for whatever reason lift up and disappear into the sky, he twirled around the corner of the room rising higher and higher until I heard a gush of air.

Just like that, he was gone along with the rest of my family.

The first thing I noticed was an intense feeling of peace that surrounded us. I realized it was the first time in my memory that the house had felt free; nothing lurking in dark corners, nothing wanting to attack and kill me.

“He’s gone… He’s really gone,” I said.

“They all are,” Kalinda said and ran her hand up and down my back in a comforting way.

When I turned toward Rory, my tears were once again returning, and I welcomed his strong arms as he drew me into his embrace.

We sat around Granny Ida’s bed as we waited for the mortician to pick her up and take her to the funeral home.

Then, having cried all the tears I had left to cry, I made the necessary phone calls.

Brenda and Joann, because I knew they’d know how to let the rest of our community know they’d lost one of their most cherished matriarchs.

After the funeral home had taken Granny Ida, we sat around the living room while our sadness mixed with the relief that the entity had been taken with her.

Right before we all turned in for the night I remembered Granny had whispered something to Kalinda before she’d passed. “Kalinda, what did Granny say to you before she left?”

“Aah.” She smiled over at me. “It was something my own grandmother once said to me. ‘Love is stronger than blood.’”

I must have appeared perplexed because she began to explain, “I’d told Ida about Dupris’s transition and how that’d been difficult for her mother.

Before Dupris was born, my grandmother prophesied of Dupris’s birth.

She knew that one day my nephew would become my niece, although it was never that clear until she was born.

My grandmother had predicted that the legacy of our family’s gift would move down to Dupris after she transitioned, and that the rest of the family would reject her. ”

Kalinda looked at me then. “The prediction was confirmation that I would be right in choosing my love for my niece over the conventions of our other blood relations.”

I nodded, realizing now why Granny had said that to her and not me. Kalinda surprised me then when she added, “Mick, today when all your relatives came together to remove Preston from this home, they didn’t do so because they were your relations, they did so because they loved you.

“It’s their love that made his defeat possible, do you understand that?” she asked.

A tear slipped out of my right eye and landed on the back of my hand.

“Yeah, love is stronger than blood, and that goes with how I feel about you and Rory now too. I love you like family, and it doesn’t matter if we’re related by blood; it only matters that we are linked by our connection to one another. ”

Kalinda smiled and came over, kneeling in front of me and taking my hand.

She turned to Rory who came over and knelt next to her.

When he took both of our hands, she continued, “That’s the message your Granny Ida left for all of us, but also for herself.

It was as important that she knew she was leaving you with people who loved you. ”

I sighed and hope overshadowed my sadness as I looked at Kalinda and Rory. “Thank you, Kalinda, and you too Rory,” I said and smiled at the two people who were still supporting me through this really hard day. “You are my family, and… and I’ll always be grateful that you are.”

***

The week after the funeral, home health services collected the bed, along with all the necessary items to keep Granny Ida at home. Then Kalinda and Rory helped put the dining room furniture back the way it’d been before we’d turned it into a makeshift bedroom.

“She’d want it that way,” I’d told Kalinda when the bed had been moved. “She would hate thinking we left it empty just because she was no longer using it.”