So he hadn’t set foot in Virginia in almost eight years when he arrived in Azalea on a Friday in May. His grandfather had evidently never really recovered from the heart attack. His health had been declining for months now. The doctors said he probably only had a couple more weeks before his heart simply gave out.
Jacob was currently between jobs and didn’t want to leave something so painful hanging unfinished in his life. So he’d flown into the Norfolk airport and rented a car to drive the forty-five minutes to the small town in eastern Virginia where he’d spent fifteen years of his life.
His grandfather was sleeping when he arrived, and the old man was scarily pale and thin. He’d wasted away from the strong, hard man Jacob remembered from his childhood.
Martha, the woman who’d kept house for his grandfather as long as Jacob could remember, waved him to a chair near the bed and whispered he’d probably wake up soon. So Jacob sat. He looked at his phone for a while and then stared at the man who had raised him ever since he’d been orphaned at three years old.
His stomach twisted. He didn’t like the feeling. It reminded him of day after lonely day when he haunted this big old house all alone. For years now, he’d made sure he was so distracted or exhausted that he didn’t feel the pull of those long-ago emotions.
But he felt them now.
Maybe it was the musty smell of the old house, still as clean as ever but in obvious disrepair. A lot of upkeep had been neglected lately. There was a draft in this room that Jacob could feel from where he sat. After a few minutes, he got up to investigate and found the source of the draft in a warped window frame across from the bed.
He grabbed an old newspaper and carefully fit it into the thin crack to block the draft.
His grandfather had always been so proud of this house. The biggest one in town ever since it had been built ninety years ago. Even if the old man could no longer do the upkeep work himself, Jacob was surprised he hadn’t hired someone to take care of it.
“What are you doing, boy?” a soft, gruff voice came from the bed.
Jacob whirled around. “Hey. Sorry to wake you, Grandpa. Trying to block a draft.”
“You get it?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“Good. Damn thing has been bugging me for weeks. Come over and let me look at you.”
Jacob had gone through his last growth spurt when he was seventeen, shooting up to just over six feet, but he’d been a lot skinnier as a teenager than he was now. Years’ worth of physical labor had molded his body, bulking it up and marking it with scars, including a thin white slash that ran from his right ear and down his jaw to his throat from where he’d come close to being decapitated by an out-of-control line in a storm three years ago. His hair was still short and medium brown, and his eyes were still hazel. There was still a cleft in his chin. But otherwise he wondered if he was even recognizable from the boy he’d been before.
“You grew up,” his grandfather said, after the sharp eyes ran up and down Jacob’s body from his hair to his worn shoes.
“It’s been eight years.”
“You look like a man now.”
In a different context, this comment might mean any number of things, but Jacob knew exactly how to understand it.
It was self-validation. Confirmation to his grandfather that he’d made the right decision in kicking him out.
After all, the reason he’d done so was because Jacob was too “soft.” Too weak. Not man enough. That was what his grandfather had said. He’d had it too easy, relying on his grandfather to support him, so he needed to learn to make it on his own and toughen up. He’d also kept his feelings too much on the surface, letting the whole world know what he was feeling, and he needed to change that too.
It had hurt. Badly. The shock and betrayal of the sudden declaration—announced immediately after Jacob’s high school graduation and with no warning or preparation—had devastated Jacob, who’d never gotten a lot of warm fuzzies from the old man but who he’d genuinely believed had cared about him.
He’d been so stunned he’d been frozen with it for a long time. And when the reality processed, he couldn’t hide his hurt. His grandfather had used the emotion he’d displayed in response—nearly in tears from the pain of it—as proof that he wasn’t really a man.
And now—after eight years of Jacob trying to prove to himself and his grandfather and the world that there was nothing soft about him—his grandfather finally felt vindicated in the heartless decision.
It hurt nearly as much as the original rejection.
Jacob had stupidly believed he couldn’t hurt like this anymore.
“Doctor says I don’t have much time left,” his grandfather added.
Jacob blew out his emotions and sat back down in the chair, pleased his voice was even as he replied, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. Getting old is a shitty thing to happen to people.”
Having no idea how to respond to that, Jacob said, “Yeah.”
“I’m leaving you everything.”
“Are you?” He was genuinely surprised. He hadn’t expected it.
“The house. The property on Main Street. It’ll all be yours.”
“O...kay.”
“I hope you’ll stay here. Fix the house back up to what it used to be. Do something with the empty businesses in town.”
Jacob was determined to stay calm—not let emotion surface again—but resentment flickered as quick and brutal as a snake’s tongue. “Do what with them exactly?”
“I don’t know. Fix them up. Try to lease them out again. Most of them have closed, but got a few left. The laundromat and Anna’s Diner and your girl’s florist.”
One of Jacob’s resolutions on making
