“You weren’t warning me because you thought Grandpa would hurt me.”
Dad’s face softened.
“No.”
“Then why?”
Grandpa laughed quietly.
“Because your father thinks you still weigh as little as you did when you were seven.”
Dad almost smiled.
Then his expression became serious again.
“Your grandfather has had heart problems for years. His doctors warned us that pressure against his chest could cause pain and make things harder for him. But he refused to let us tell you.”
I looked at Grandpa.
“You let me think Dad was warning me about YOU?”
“I kept telling him to explain it better,” Grandpa said.
Dad shook his head.
“And I kept telling him to stop letting a grown woman climb all over him like she was still eight.”
For the first time that night, I laughed.
Then I immediately started crying.
Grandpa reached out.
I hesitated before hugging him carefully.
“So why did you ask me to sleep beside you?”
Sleep aids
His expression changed again.
He opened the album to another photograph.
Grandma Rose was sitting beside his hospital bed.
“She was twenty-six when that was taken,” he said. “I had an accident at work. Nothing like tomorrow, but I was terrified.”
He ran his finger over the old picture.
“She stayed awake beside me all night.”
Grandpa looked toward the telescope.
Seating solutions
“And tomorrow morning I have to go into that hospital without her for the first time.”
Suddenly everything made sense.
“I didn’t want you in my bed,” he said with a small laugh. “I prepared that bed for you.”
He pointed toward the smaller one across the room.
“I just didn’t want to spend the last night before surgery alone.”
