But I didn't bother asking because, sometimes, it was better to just let her talk, so I did.
“Sure, Mom.”
“Now, make a wish, sunshine. Make it a good one, okay?”
So, I squeezed my eyes shut, made a wish that this promise wouldn’t break, and blew out the candle, then watched a spiral of lingering smoke reach for the ceiling before it disappeared into the dark.
***
Age Eleven
Grampa's tackle box creaked open to reveal his treasured collection of bobbers and hooks. Last year and every year before it, he never let me touch them myself. I was too young, he'd said. I could hurt myself, he'd said. But now, he was showing me how to attach the hook to a line and bait it without his help.
“Look at you go,” he said, watching with a glimmer of pride reflecting in his tired eyes as I hooked the wriggling worm with ease.
I didn't poke myself once.
“Cool.” I grinned, holding the line up to smile at my handiwork.
Grampa laid a hand against my shoulder and squeezed. “Soon, you won't need me anymore.”
All at once, my pride was wiped away by an unfamiliar, unexplained sadness and dread. Billy's grandfather had died a couple of years ago, and ever since then, I'd been acutely aware of Grampa's wrinkled skin and white hair. He wasn't as fast as he used to be, and he couldn't go up and down the stairs without complaining about his knees. I was doing more of the chores around the house because Gramma had insisted Grampa couldn't do them anymore, and I didn't like it.
I didn't like that dead meant gone, and with every chore that Grampa couldn't do, I knew he was closer to being gone.
What am I going to do without him?
Maybe if I do all the chores, he’ll never be gone at all.
“Hey, buddy. Are you gonna cast that line or what?”
I cleared my throat and threw away all thoughts about death and growing old. Grampa wasn’t dying. He was fine. He was here right now on the lake, like every other summer, and we were fishing, like we always had. Nothing was ever going to change that.
So, I stood on the dock and sent my line out into the water, refusing to pay attention to how he needed to sit instead of stand.
We fished for hours, collecting enough bass to be frozen and eaten for the rest of July. We collected our things and trudged back to his truck in the gravel parking lot. On the way back to the house, we listened to Grateful Dead and George Harrison and stopped at McDonald's for a soda and a burger. Grampa glanced at me across the truck and lifted one side of his mouth in a smile that made me feel weird and confused.
“What?” I asked before taking a bite of my Big Mac.
He stretched his arm out to lay it across the back of my seat. “I don’t think I've ever told you how proud I am of the young man you're becoming.”
“Oh …” I looked at the burger in my hands and shrugged. “Thanks … I think.”
Grampa laughed and gripped the back of my neck, giving me a little shake. “I mean it, Soldier. Gramma and I … we have tried so hard to do right by you and your mother. And I know we've made mistakes—of course we have. God, we’ve made a lot of them. And sometimes, I'm not even sure we've done the right thing at all. I mean, there were a couple of times, I—you know what? Never mind.”
I stared at the gooey mess of cheese and meat and lettuce, even more confused than I’d been before. “What?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’m just saying, all things considered, life could've been worse—so much worse. And the fact that you are such a smart, kind, good kid tells me that, even if we haven't always made the right choices, we never ever went wrong with you. There’s gotta be something to be said for that.”
I turned my head to look at him then, forgetting entirely about the burger in my hands, even as shreds of lettuce fell out and onto my lap. I knew what he was talking about now—Mom's drinking; the parties she went to and the people she hung out with; the trips Gramma and Grampa sent her on; the jobs she got, only to lose them shortly after; and the pills she took from Gramma's medicine bottles and others she’d get her hands on from I didn’t know where. They did what they could to stop it, they did what they could to fix it, but more than that, they did what they could to protect me and keep me with them and out of the system—as I'd heard them put it when they thought I wasn't listening. I didn't know exactly what that all meant, but if it meant living with them and not with a stranger, I was glad for whatever they did to keep that from happening too.
“I love you, Soldier,” Grampa said, squeezing the back of my neck gently. “I love you as my grandson, but even more than that, I love you as my son. You have always been—and always will be—my son. And … anyway, I …” He cleared his throat and turned away, removing his hand from my neck to put it back on the wheel. “I just wanted you to know that.”
My emotions were a fuzzy, confused mess. I didn't know why he was saying this now, or why his words made me want to cry, or why a sick feeling swelled in my stomach like I was going to throw up. I crumpled up the wrapper around the other half of my Big Mac and tossed it into the McDonald's bag as we drove home, and I tried to piece together the reason for all these feelings battling inside my head. But it was pointless. I couldn't do it. There was too much to figure out, too much to sort, like my big mess of a sock drawer—Gramma had called it a lost cause, and she was right.
So, I left it alone, focusing on Bruce Springsteen on the radio and sipping on my Coke until we pulled into the driveway. I helped Grampa get the cooler of bass out of the trunk and grabbed his tackle box from the backseat.
And then, as we walked up the concrete path to the stoop, he clutched his hand to his chest and collapsed at my feet.
“Grampa!” I screamed, tossing the tackle box aside and dropping to my knees beside him. “Gramma! Gramma, help!”
But no amount of screaming, no amount of dialing 911, no amount of pleading or incessant I love yous could stop him from dying in front of me before the ambulance arrived and took him away. Making his death the first real and horrible tragedy to strike my life.
At least I wasn't foolish enough then, even at eleven, to believe it'd be the last.
CHAPTER TWO
TWISTED INTENTIONS
Age Thirteen
“Soldier Mason!”
I lifted my head from the puddle of drool on my desk and opened my bleary eyes. “Huh?”
The classroom full of students broke out in a hushed round of laughter.
Mrs. Henderson didn't look as amused as all of them. With her hand on her hip and her lips pursed, she asked, “Did you enjoy your nap?”
I leaned back in my creaky seat, stretching my arms overhead. “It was okay, I guess. Wish I had a pillow though.”
Another round of laughter. Another unamused sigh from my English teacher.
The bell rang, and the scraping of chair legs against beige linoleum resounded throughout the room. I was quick to follow suit, but Mrs. Henderson stopped me with a light grip of her hand around my arm.
“Soldier, wait,” she said gently, preventing me from leaving, and I turned to face her with a tired nonchalance.
Last year, I had been shorter than her.
This year, I could see the top of her head.
“What?”