“Well, that we definitely needed to hear. At least when you started talking to us and sending emails, we knew that you were still alive, but we worried.”
Greyson nodded. One of the first things he’d done when he woke up from surgery was lock down tight and push everyone away. It was his modus operandi. He wasn’t sure who and what he was facing, and he knew it would be a journey he had to go alone, so he just kept pushing others back in a way. It wasn’t everybody’s system, but it was his.
“Well, I should have contacted you earlier,” Greyson said. “It’s pretty hard, when you’re coming in and out of surgeries all the time and living in pain, to find anything pleasant to say to anybody. And the last thing you want to talk about is your injuries or your surgeries.”
“I don’t talk about that stuff much anyway,” his grandfather admitted. “Much easier to forget about it.”
“Exactly,” Greyson said with a laugh.
With the two of them in the front of the cab and his bags stowed safely in the back, his grandfather pulled out onto the main road, exiting the airport.
“You made quite a change yourself, moving from New York to Hawaii.”
“Across the ocean,” he said, with a nod. “Thought we were leaving behind big cities, population, taxes, and too much political atmosphere,” he said. “Instead we just got a smaller version of it all.”
“Which is to be expected,” Greyson said. “Regrets?”
“No,” his grandfather said instantly. “It’s still a climate that we do much better in, and it’s a much smaller population, at least where we live. And, when we want to go to the big city, we still can, but we don’t do it that often.”
“What about hospitals and health care?”
“We’re not that far away from the main center,” his grandfather said. “So it’s about a thirty-minute drive to the hospital.”
“Which sounds just fine,” Greyson said.
“So, this dog,” he changed the subject, “where is it?”
“Well, it was supposed to be flown to Denver and somehow ended up in Hawaii. But then it was picked up by a rescue for a few days, until the next leg of its journey could be arranged. Then apparently it disappeared from there. That was like three weeks ago.”
“Wow,” he said. “So how the hell are you supposed to find a dog that disappeared weeks ago?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I think this file was actually one recently added because a lot of the other dog cases have been on the list for much longer.”
“That’s pretty sad. These dogs give their lives for the military,” his grandfather said. “You’d like to think that they had a decent retirement package for their service too.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Greyson said with a laugh. “But it’s never that easy. You know that.”
“I know,” his grandfather said with a big roll of his eyes. “We’re doing nothing but retirement planning.”
“And here I thought you had already retired,” he teased.
“Well, I’m definitely retired, but that doesn’t mean that I planned it all that well. The high property prices in New York when we sold helped, and we definitely bought something a lot smaller here, so we’re just fine. But you know—now that you are on a pension too—there’s never that much to spare. And, depending on how our health goes, it could get ugly at the end.”
Greyson nodded. “That’s the one thing I do get covered,” he said. “Yet I feel like I’ve already done the ugly part, and now I’m looking at finding a second wave of life again.”
“You’ll find it,” his grandfather said. “Just have some trust.”
“Do you know anything about the local rescue center around here?”
“Nope. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of it,” he said. “Do you know where it is?”
Greyson brought up his cell and checked his GPS app. “According to this, it’s only about fifteen minutes away.”
“Well, it’s in the same direction we’re headed. Just a side trip,” his grandfather said, as he glanced at the GPS map on Greyson’s screen. “Do you want to hit that before we head home?”
“That would be great, if you don’t mind,” he said. “I’ll need to pick up a rental, so I can travel around the island looking for this dog. But I figured it could wait until tomorrow.”
“No need to do that,” his grandfather said. “We have two vehicles.”
“No,” he said. “That’s not necessary. I can rent one.”
“That’s just insulting,” his grandfather stated adamantly. “We have two we’re hardly using anyway. I haven’t done much driving around at all. What’s the point? We have everything we want within walking distance. You can take one of our vehicles.” His voice was firm. “If you feel like you need to pay for it, you can take us out for a meal.”
“Well, that was a given anyway,” he said with a laugh. “Anybody got any luaus around here?”
“One of the local restaurants down on the beach around the corner from our place does a big one. Not sure if any are scheduled for this next week though.”
“We’ll find out,” Greyson said. “That would be an enjoyable dinner.”
“It’s always a good time,” his grandfather said. They drove in companionable silence, interspersed with talking about everything and nothing, when his grandfather pointed to a sign on the street. “I think that’s the exit we want, isn’t it?” Just then the GPS gave instructions to take that exit.
“You’re doing pretty good, Grandpa. You’re ahead of the GPS.”
“Stupid computer things,” his grandfather said with a shake of his head. “That’s why so many old people have dementia now. We stopped using our brain cells.”
Greyson laughed. “I don’t think your brain cells are in any danger of dying anytime soon.”
“I hope not,” he said. “I’m seventy-four now, and I’d love to see another ten, fifteen years.”
“In good health with enough money and your own home and a great climate, absolutely,” Greyson said. “I’d
