By the time she caught her breath, he was gone, the kitchen screen door slowly shutting behind him.
Fifteen
Gabe rapped on the open door to his grandfather’s cozy apartment at Rivendell, Knights Bridge’s only assisted-living facility. It was located down a quiet road on a ridge with glimpses of the reservoir in the distance. “Hey, Gramps, sorry I missed your hundred-and-twentieth birthday.”
The old man grinned, rising from his lounger. “Good thing you didn’t go into comedy. You never were funny.”
They embraced, and Gabe could feel how thin and bony his grandfather had become since his last visit. One of Rivendell’s few male residents, John Gabriel Flanagan had been born and raised in Knights Bridge. He’d lived away from home once, when he joined the army at the tail end of World War II and served in Europe for two years. When he returned, he’d married his high school sweetheart, who’d waited for him while working at the cafeteria at the elementary school. He’d gotten a job at a nearby factory, she’d quit her job and they’d raised four children together. Three girls and a boy. Two of Gabe’s aunts still lived in the area but not in Knights Bridge itself. One had moved to Tennessee after high school and had never looked back, but she visited at least once a year. All were married with grown children and grandchildren.
Mickey Flanagan, Gabe’s father, the youngest, liked to call himself the no-account Flanagan. He was the one who could never quite get his act together—the dream-chaser who was still, in his late fifties, ever hopeful of finding his proverbial pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. He’d graduated from high school at the top of his class and was accepted at every college he’d applied to, settling on UMass-Amherst because it was the most affordable. He hadn’t lasted. He’d dropped out his sophomore year and hit the road, the start of a long history of unfulfilled dreams, restless optimism and disappointments, at least by his standards. To everyone else, Mickey Flanagan was a great guy, the life of the party.
He’d finally returned to Knights Bridge after a few years “seeing the country” and married a nursing student, another local, a woman who shared his optimism and believed in his dreams and had many of her own. They’d settled into life in their small town, raising their sons, making a living, having fun. His father in particular had been ever hopeful a better life—a different life—lay just ahead, if only he kept believing it would happen, never mind taking consistent action, seeing things through and having any kind of realistic plan.
Gabe was in college when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. At her funeral, he’d seen how much she’d meant to his father, despite his chronic dissatisfaction with his life—at least what had looked to Gabe like dissatisfaction. Maybe it hadn’t been. Maybe it had just been his father’s optimistic, restless nature. He never gave up.
His grandfather snapped his fingers in front of Gabe’s face. “Lost in thought? Tune in. I’ve got cookies.” He pointed at a tin of Danish butter cookies. “I keep a stash handy.”
“Sorry, Gramps. Mind wandered. I’ll skip cookies. I can’t stay long, but are you up for a walk? It’s hot—”
“Good. I’m always cold these days. Let me grab my cane. I don’t need you to hold my hand. I can still get around on my own.”
“Okay, good to know.”
They walked down the hall to the sunroom and went out that way through sliding glass doors to a trim lawn and garden bursting with summer flowers. It was hot, but they edged onto a shaded, paved walkway, suitable for canes, walkers and wheelchairs. Gabe noticed his grandfather moved well, if more slowly than just a year ago. “How was California?” he asked.
“Sunny,” Gabe said with a grin.
“You moving out there?”
“I toyed with the idea of relocating there.”
They passed through pine-scented shade. “You could move me out with you. Sun shines all the time. I don’t mind assisted living, but I knew every old lady in this place when we were kids. One more reminds me I wet my pants in first grade and I’m packing up and living in my car.”
Gabe grinned at the old man. “Mark says you have a crush on Daisy Farrell.”
“Wouldn’t do me any good if I did. Daisy was and always will be Tom Farrell’s gal.”
Gabe remembered Tom Farrell, a longtime Knights Bridge fire chief who’d died a couple of years ago. “At least you have friends here.”
“A few old cranks, too, but not many. I’m not as hard on people as I was as a younger man. Getting old isn’t for the faint-hearted, that’s for sure. Thought I’d be in an urn by now.”
Gabe wasn’t surprised by his grandfather’s blunt manner, but he hadn’t had a dose of it in a while. “Instead you’re here talking to me. Imagine that.”
“Yeah. My hotshot grandson.” He slowed his pace, then paused by a patch of daisies. “You’re going to be an uncle. That change things for you?”
“It’s a factor.”
His grandfather peered at him. “A factor? It’s not like you’re buying a used car and its mileage is a ‘factor.’”
“Well, it would be,” Gabe said lightly. “I didn’t get much sleep last night. Cut me some slack.”
“Ha. You stayed with Felicity MacGregor.” He waved a hand. “Not asking.”
“I sat out by the fire in your old fireplace. Alone.”
His grandfather raised an eyebrow, skeptical.
Gabe grinned. “Mostly alone, but it’s not what you think.” Time to change the subject. “I should stop and see Dad on the way out of town.”
“He’s on his way here. He got wind of a Jane Austen tea party this afternoon and wants to talk me into dressing up as a Regency guy. He doesn’t fit into any of the tights or I swear he’d do it. Say what you will about your father, he’s game for anything.”
“Do
