Page 3 of Fight For Me

But I can’t. Not about this.

“I should probably get back,” I say, setting my barely touched plate down on a spindly antique side table. Will looks frustrated, running his hands over his beard the way he does when he’s agitated, but he doesn’t try to stop me. He knows when to let things go.

If only the rest of our family could be the same way.

As I stand, my eyes catch on our younger brother, Silas. He’s sitting alone on the other side of the room, which is probably what grabs my attention. It’s unusual to see Si without Lyric, Nix, and Presley, the cousins he’s closest too. His head is hanging low, shoulders slumped.

“He’s been having a hard time,” Will says, coming up to stand next to me. “He’s worried about you, of course. And, you know…” he shrugs his shoulders a little and when he speaks again his voice sounds thick with emotion. “He misses them, too. We all do.”

Another surge of guilt goes through me. I’m being such a self-involved, selfish bastard. No, none of my siblings had the same relationship with my grandparents as I did. But Alice and Bruce Warner considered my mother their daughter until the day they died. Some people might not have been so generous about a daughter-in-law moving on and getting remarried, but that was just one of the many ways my grandparents were amazing. They called my Mom’s kids with Cash their bonus grandkids, and showered just as much love on them whenever they came to visit.

“I should talk to him,” I say, already moving in that direction. Our younger brother, seventeen now, has always been a sensitive kid. He had a special relationship with my grandfather, Bruce, who used to take him fishing all the time whenever the family was in Seattle. What kind of an asshole big brother am I, to forget about that?

Before I make it more than a few steps, a woman moves into my path. She reminds me of my grandmother, a little. Same soft white hair. Same energetic bearing. My grandparents stayed active right up until the day my grandpa’s cancer finally confined him to bed. Before that, you wouldn’t have known they were in their seventies just by looking at them. This woman gives off the same impression.

Her eyes search my face, a soft smile on her lips. “I haven’t seen you since you were a boy.”

I search my memory, trying to place her, but nothing comes. “I’m sorry, I—”

She waves her hand. “Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to remember. I played bridge with Bruce and Alice at the rec center in Huntington when you were little.”

“I definitely remember their card nights.” Most times they came home arguing. My grandmother always insisted that my grandfather cheated. I think she just liked teasing him.

I swallow past the lump in my throat and the woman’s expression settles into understanding. “My name is Mary Thompson. My husband and I moved down to Arizona after he retired.”

“You came all the way from Arizona?” I ask, the lump in my throat growing.

She gives me a sad smile. “When my George died a few years back, Alice didn’t hesitate to get on a plane to come to the service. We kept in touch after I moved. Always by letter, mind you, even after email became a thing. She said letter writing was a lost art.”

“She always said that to me, too,” I say, voice husky.

Her eyes search my face. “I feel like I know you. Most of her letters were about you.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, then pulls an envelope from her oversized purse. “I wanted to give you these. She’s been sending them for years. I didn’t have grandkids of my own, you see. So it always felt so nice, the way she included me in your life.”

I frown, wondering what she means. She hands the envelope to me. “I hung onto these all this time because I figured someday you might like them.” Her eyes bore into mine. “She loved you very much, Wyatt. You were the light in her life after she lost your father.”

She’s not the first person at the funeral or wake to mention my father—not Cash, but my biological father, Doug Warner. Alice and Bruce’s son. The man my mom married when she was just eighteen. The man who went away to war before I was born and never made it home. Several mourners thought it was necessary to tell me how happy my grandparents must be, to finally be reunited with him. I wanted to punch every one of them. But not Mary—there’s no assumption in her words, no false platitudes that only make me feel worse. She’s simply letting me know what she remembers about my grandmother—that I made her happy even after such a devastating loss.

I finger the envelope. I almost don’t want to open it, but Mary doesn’t change the subject or move away. She’s standing there patiently, waiting for me. On a deep inhale, I open the envelope and a pile of newspaper clippings fall out into my hand.

There must be three or four dozen, from papers all over the country. Little snippets from when my symphony came to town. Larger articles about my solo concerts. Reviews of my performances. A photo copy of my Julliard graduation program, my name highlighted in the middle of a long list.

“They go way back,” she murmurs. “Clippings from your high school paper about the soccer team and the jazz band. There’s even a picture the local paper in Huntington ran when you placed in the science fair in second grade.”

For a long moment, I can’t speak, my fingers running over the worn pieces of paper, barely able to take in what they say. “She sent you these?” I finally whisper, and Mary laughs.

“I’m sure I’m not the only one. She always ordered multiple copies whenever your name showed up anywhere. She was probably bragging to every person she ever met. I wouldn’t be surprised if the mailman and the guy who changed her oil got all the same clippings.”

All of a sudden, it’s too much. That numbness that I’ve been wearing like a suit of armor has a huge crack, right down the center, and I’m afraid if it gets any bigger, I’ll bleed out. I won’t be able to breathe. Italreadyfeels hard to breathe. The sad, somber room suddenly feels too loud, too stuffy. I need to get out of here.

Somehow, I manage to meet her gaze. “Thank you for this,” I say, in a voice I don’t recognize.

A world of understanding is in her sad eyes. “You’re very welcome, Wyatt.”

I don’t say anything else, don’t even try to come up with excuses. I just clutch that envelope and all those clippings to my chest and stumble through the crowded room, not even sure where I’m going. I end up in an empty hallway, a red exit sign blinking like a beacon down at the end. I burst through the door into the damp, fresh air, taking huge, shuddering gulps, trying to get myself under control.