It was way past time to visit Pops. And probably her family as well.
Sam texted, asking if she was okay, but she was driving and couldn’t reply. When she finally stopped for gas, she saw he’d called twice and texted again. She gave great thought about what to say. I love you, but we can’t be together because of your trust issues wasn’t really a conversation to have over text.
Instead, she typed in I’m headed to Cali for a few days. See you when I get back. Not knowing what else to say, she added a happy face emoji and hit send.
She got to Medford before she had to stop and get some sleep. In the morning, she grabbed a coffee and some gas and headed off again. Wanting to surprise Pops, she went straight to his nursing home, arriving in the early evening, which she figured would be right around nursing home dinnertime. Sure enough, she found him in the cafeteria, staring at something that resembled pudding.
“Anna Banana!” he exclaimed when he saw her. No one else called her Anna, and she was pretty sure the only reason Pops did it was so he could rhyme it with banana.
He moved as quickly as his tired, old body would allow, stood, and engulfed her in a bear hug. “It’s so good to see you, honey.” When he pulled back, there were tears in his eyes, and she was stricken with guilt. She should never have left him here.
“Oh, Pops. I’ve missed you so much. How have you been? Have you eaten, or can I get you out of here for a proper dinner?” she asked, nodding to his “pudding.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said under his breath, grabbing her arm and heading for the door.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Once they were settled at his favorite barbecue place and had given the waitress their orders, he looked at her, perplexed.
“Why’d you drive all this way when I’ll be seeing you next week?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Crap, was he getting dementia?
“Well, a nice young man came to visit me yesterday and convinced me to move to Bellevue, Washington, to be closer to my favorite grandbaby.” He winked at her. “I thought you knew. Oh, my God. Have I been scammed?” he asked, suddenly alarmed.
She held up a palm. “Was this nice, young man devastatingly handsome and surprisingly humble?”
“Now that you mention it, yeah. He was a pretty good-lookin’ fella. Said his name was Sam and that he was a friend of yours. I thought you put him up to it. I said no at first—told him I was a tired old man that needn’t be bothered with, but he was persistent. Said he’d take care of all the details and the cost, and I finally gave in.”
“That’s Sam all right,” she mumbled. “Wait. Where are you going to stay? I’m sort-of between houses right now. That reminds me, I have a lot to tell you. Wayne came to Bellevue.”
“Sam told me everything,” he said just as the drinks arrived. “Oooh, Coke. Yum.” He licked his lips. “Come here, you sweet poison.” She laughed at his delight over a soda.
“Define ‘everything,’” she said.
“Wayne came to find you, held you against your will, admitted to killing Avery, and then threatened to kill you. A state trooper shot him in your house to save your life. It was quite a story. He wasn’t telling it to gossip or anything. He said you probably wouldn’t want to relive it and was sparing you from having to tell it again. Rather gallant, no?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, very,” she admitted.
“Honey, I’m so sorry about Avery. I could tell that man was no good from the first moment I met him. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.”
“I wouldn’t have listened. Which is probably why you didn’t say anything.” She gave him a sad smile. “I can’t say I’m surprised. I always had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that maybe something like that had happened. There was never any way to prove anything, and the doctors told us it was SIDS, so I just went with that. Maybe I should have pushed harder at the time.”
“You were grief stricken. You did what you had to do to survive. I’m sorry you had to go through all that up in Bellevue. Sounds like a terrible ordeal. Are you okay?”
“I will be,” she said. She needed to get back to her Brody Robinson books and CDs and give herself a refresher on surviving trauma and overcoming hardships. She just had to give herself a little time to adjust and then figure out how she could learn, maybe even grow, from the situation.
She was lost in thought when the waitress arrived with their food. Annie thought she saw Pops drool a little over his plate of ribs and smiled.
“What? They don’t feed you ribs at Ruby Garden?” she asked.
“Ah, no.” He said it like a teenager, dragging out the words, and she laughed.
“What else did Sam tell you?” she asked nonchalantly, picking at her brisket. She’d mentioned to Pops that she and Sam had “gone out” a few times, but not much more about their relationship.
“He said he loves you and that even though you’re being stubborn, he’s going to make you see that he trusts you too,” he said pointedly.
She choked on the meat she was chewing and had to cough several times to clear her throat. “He did not!”
“That’s almost word for word what he said,” Pops stated as if offended. “Why are you being stubborn? You should let him take you to dinner.”
“It’s a long story.” She took a drink of her soda. “We still need to figure out where you’re going to stay. I’m not going back to my old house, and it will take at least a month to buy a new one. I guess I could rent something for us in the meantime,” she mused, talking more to
