by Terry Mahoney

Created on: January 23, 2011

“Grandpa lives with us now, April,” he said.

She knew her father’s moods well. She was his only daughter and youngest child. He didn’t even pretend she wasn’t his favorite. When the boys used to complain about his latest arbitrary decision in her favor he would explain, tongue in cheek, that daughters visit, daughters-in-law sometimes don’t, so they were essentially up the creek. This started when April was five and the boys were ten and twelve respectively.

Now she looked at his face, and knew she should just be quiet and roll with the new arrangement. She didn’t dislike her grandfather, but the man had spent every one of her visits with either a newspaper in front of his face or with an expression so remote that even as a child she had stayed away. He didn’t just treat her that way, it was how he was with everyone. Her father never talked about it, but she never heard them speak about anything but baseball or the headlines.

She had come back for Thanksgiving to visit with her fiancé Ric, a Marine stationed at the Defense Language Institute near her college, Cal State Monterey Bay. He had rotated to Afghanistan for a tour, and had just recently returned. They passed her father, and went into the kitchen.

“You’re just in time, the turkey is done,” her mother said, and hugged her and then kissed Ric on the cheek.

Ric put down their bags, and her mom handed them a couple of serving bowls.

“Take these into the dining room, everyone’s waiting.”

‘Everyone’ turned out to be her brother Michael and his daughter Cal, her uncle Ron and his new wife Penny and grandpa, who was reading a book. He kept reading his book while everyone else got up to greet them.

It was only when everyone was seated that the old man put down his book, a hardcover missing its dust jacket, and looked up at her. His smile was barely perceptible, and it creased his face in a way that accentuated the dozen or so scars that seemed to spread out from the bridge of his nose. Those scars weren’t horrible, and were so much a part of him that she usually didn’t notice them, or even think about them. But she hadn’t seen him in so long; since high school; that they seemed fresh to her, like he had just got them a month ago.

“Grandpa, this is Ricardo. We got engaged last year before he shipped to Afghanistan,” she said.

“Is this the Marine?”

The question was directed

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