Chapter 13

My heart turns into a gooey puddle in my chest. I just wish Gramma had been here, too. It saddens me that she’ll never meet Nelson. They would have bonded over baking, and she would have tried to fatten him up since she declared me a lost cause on that front a long time ago.

I try to blink away the tears that threaten to leak out of my eyes.

“Finnster. What’s the matter?” Grampa pats his calloused hand on my knee.

“I wish Gramma was here.”

“So do I, my boy. So do I.”

But not even the mention of Gramma’s absence dulls the mood. Nelson smiles at Grampa and says, “Tell me about her.”

And he does. He entertains us both with stories from their long life together. I’ve heard them all before—or lived through them—so I take care of the cleanup after lunch and smile at Nelson’s gentle encouragement of Grampa. He’s genuinely interested in every word that falls from Grampa’s mouth, and I’m in deep, deep trouble.

Deep!

After a while, Grampa shoos us back to work and goes for a walk.