Life Without You by Liesel Schmidt Read Free Book Online Page B

the week while he was replacing some rotting wood on the deck outside. The man was never idle, never really still. Even when he was outwardly still, there was the underlying hum of some pent-up energy just waiting to be released. It was an inherent part of him, and I wouldn’t have recognized him without it. No one would have.
    I smiled sleepily at him. “Oops. I guess I was drooling, huh?” I sat up, uncurling my legs from where they’d been tucked up under me in the recliner. My eyebrows knotted together. “Please tell me I wasn’t snoring. Or talking in my sleep. I was, wasn’t I? I do that sometimes, I’m sorry,” I babbled.
    “No, no. No snoring.” He smiled. “Or talking. Don’t worry.” He stopped and looked up at the clock on the mantel. The room had gotten darker without the glow of the TV, which now sat black and hulking from its corner perch on the entertainment center. “It’s just late, and I think we both might be ready for bed now, huh?”
    I nodded, stretching as I rose from the chair.
    “Bed. Good idea,” I agreed. “Very good idea. Good night, Grandpa.” I leaned forward on my toes to kiss him on the lips.
    “Good night, Dellie,” he said, returning my kiss. He pulled me in for a hug, wrapping his warm, strong arms around me. It felt good, safe—familiar. And I breathed in the scent of him—an indefinable mix of soap from his shower earlier that evening and
Grandpa
.
    “I love you,” I mumbled into his neck.
    “I love you, too, Dellie. And I’m glad you’re here.”
    I moved my head from the crook between his neck and shoulder to look into his eyes as they glittered in the darkened room. “Me, too,” I said on a whisper. A smile wavered across my lips, unsettled by feelings of fear that were encroaching, but I held on. “Very glad.”
    And I was. Glad to be there. Glad to be looking into the eyes of my grandfather, hoping that he would still be there to smile back at me for many years to come.

Chapter Seven
    It was, in some ways, I supposed, my grandfather’s way of laying claim to a long and bright future ahead, this newly acquired truck in a bold shade of candy-apple red. He had traded in his own truck, an earlier iteration of this one, without all the bells and whistles and info-tech gadgetry that came with the newer models. Ever the die-hard Dodge Ram man, Grandpa had been unwavering in his decision with what make and model he wanted to bring home, no doubt putting the salesmen on the floor at Tidewater Dodge through their paces to earn every single solitary cent of their commission.
    What was missing now—leaving a noticeable hole in the old, detached garage—was a minivan. It wasn’t out on errands, traversing some stretch of Hampton between Food Lion or Walmart or Costco. It wasn’t on its way to church.
    Or maybe it was.
    Wherever it was headed, though, it was never coming back to reclaim its space within the walls of this aluminum-sided garage, such a familiar sight in its dated shade of what was once called avocado green during a heyday of decades long gone by. Someone new had claimed the minivan, moving the mirrors and shifting the seat, erasing her preset buttons on the radio. No key rings dangled a declaration of Mom’s Taxi from its ignition. No box of tissues claimed the space between the front seats and the console.
    Instead, there was nothing but emptiness beside this shiny new specimen of steel. Nothing but emptiness and an old tube sock, stuffed and dangling on a string from the ceiling in anticipation of meeting the slight curve of a windshield, guiding it to a safe stop.
    I stared at the tube sock, then felt my gaze inextricably drawn to the scarred and stained concrete floor. Ghosts of puddles, faded reminders of the inner workings of so many minivans over so many decades.
    It was like the vehicular version of the empty pillow on the empty side of the bed. Stark and lonely. Almost rude in its announcement that something—someone—was