“You’re not the same daughter I raised, Christa.” He blinked in my direction.

Me, in my shorts, reading the Sunday paper. My legs toned and brown stretching all the way along his pink vinyl couch. Could’ve put a skirt on, knowing how he disapproved of women exposing their legs. But it was humid in the house. “You’re right. You sent me away to university to get an education. I’m at the top of my profession and married with three children!”

“Education, yes,” his voice rose, “but does that mean forsaking the Lord?” His eyes shifted to his polished brown shoes. As a young girl I’d shined all 13 pairs every Saturday.

I stared at his dark wool suit, his shirt bleached so white it hurt my eyes. His tie made me want to reach over and loosen it, remove his gold cuff links. “Aren’t you hot, Dad? Why don’t I get you a glass of lemonade, with lots of ice?” I swung my legs off the couch and felt the cool of the terrazzo tiles on my toes, painted almost the same red.   

“I don’t need to remind you,” he started.

“No, you don’t, Dad,” I said as I walked away. Enough of his warning about the one thing I would need to do to assure my place in heaven. Repent. Smears had forever dogged me – my brother Jason’s word against mine.I saw her with my own eyes, doing it! Tainted lens through which my father still saw me. You never even had your children christened. It’s not too late, you know.

From the kitchen I shouted, “Let me get us a drink while you change. Want me to make chicken sandwiches too? It’s just us. Robin is at the beach with the twins and Triston.” I wish I could have said, with the twins and Ashley.

I filled his tall glass with ice and lemonade. Should I toss a little rum into it? A splash of beer? I had to get him off his track. Did not fly all the way to hear, God never fails to bless those who devote their lives to Him. Red-eye flight. Vancouver to Toronto, then on to Air Jamaica, with Robin trying to keep our twin girls occupied, Ashley staring at her phone, looking like she was on the way to be slaughtered, I’m not his little robot anymore. Me, remembering the two of them at the chess table, heads bent, then in the garden planting gungo peas.

But this trip wasn’t about me, or about God. It was about Ashley—once his beloved Triston—blue-eyed like him, his favorite grandchild now approaching puberty and claiming new paths into unfamiliar territory, territory outside the boundaries of straight and narrow fundamentalism.

I sliced the bread thinly, the way he liked it, and put just the right amount of mayonnaise on the chicken. The wall clock read just after 12. We would have all afternoon to talk and be done before Robin returned with the kids. I’d gone over it a hundred times with Robin. Why was my heart racing so?

What you gonna tell Grandpa, Mom? Ashley asked on the plane. Certainly not therapist–talk about supporting children to be their true selves, with him looking at me blank, like I’d suddenly lost my mind. I took a swig of a cold Red Stripe beer Robin bought the day we arrived. Sat at the kitchen counter, re-living all the rigid codes, the shoulds and shall nots that restrained us all my growing-up years. How to find a way to my father’s heartstrings, which have always bound him to his dear Triston? Early on he had insisted that, besides the trust, his home with its large prestigious property would be left to Triston. The other children were to be provided for as well. I couldn’t risk any of that changing. Not with Robin’s income being so uncertain.

I pictured Ashley in the shade, texting, no longer wanting to play in the ocean with her two rambunctious siblings. Should I have gone with them? She would have liked that.

My father now was making his way to the kitchen, the clop, clop of his leather sandals sounding slower than usual. Was he getting old, at 79? Or was it just the heat? Clop, clop – ready or not, he was coming. I suddenly felt trapped. Dashed through the back door and into the shelter of the garden.

Carrying his sandwich and drink on a tray, he came towards me, sitting on the bench under the moringa tree.

“Just needed some cool breeze,” I called out to him. Drank the last of my beer, hardly enough to loosen my tongue.

“This lemonade is perfect. Just the way your mother used to make it.”

“Bet you miss Mom so much, especially now that you have lots of time on your hands.”

“I miss her dearly. But I keep busy with the church board and managing the finances, plus doing a fair amount of preaching.”

“Guess you’ll never give that up, eh?”

“Why would I? A man has to have purpose. And my family seems to need me less and less. I notice Triston has barely said a word to me.”

“Guess kids have their own lives.” I didn’t dare look at him.

A faint breeze flowed through the garden, causing the long pods of the moringa tree to sway with a soft whirr.

“Been drinking any moringa, Dad?” I stared up at the tree.

“Every evening. And eating the tender pods too. Keeps me young.” He laughed for the first time that afternoon.

“So, what were you like when you were Triston’s age? Before we know it, he’ll be the age you were when you started working.”

“Yes. By his age, my mother was saying I would soon have to quit school. We needed money. I remember telling my teacher, an old English woman, Mrs. Thompson was her name. Let me talk to your mother, she said. You’re my best student. You can’t quit.

“That was when I put rocks into a big burlap bag, lifted it every morning and evening, to build up my muscles. By the way, Triston is small for his age. You should start him on some weights. Maybe I’ll suggest it to him. Been also thinking it’s time to chat with him about the trust. How are his math studies going?”

“Not so much into math, these days. Seems interested in writing, like his dad.”

“Writing? That’s no career for a mathematical mind like his. He needs to focus on the sciences, engineering perhaps. Let me have a talk with him.”

“No, Dad! Not now.” My heart was racing again. I was shaking my head madly. “What I mean is, I mean, Triston is still very young. Lots of time to choose a career.”

“OK. I’m only being a responsible grandparent.”

He grew silent.

I wondered what he was thinking. What if he changed his will?

Shame sent a rush of heat to my face. I got up. “Going to get something to eat. Want another sandwich?”

I opened the fridge and snapped the top off a beer. Drank straight from the bottle. The conversation wasn’t going the way I’d hoped. Had I slipped into worrying about money instead of Ashley’s happiness? What kind of mother was I?

I drank the rest of the beer in one long stream and sat on the kitchen floor. Would the situation be even more difficult if Mom were still alive? Would she have accepted Triston becoming Ashley? She’d been even more of a fundamentalist than Dad. More ready to insist that the wages of sin is death. She’d put the fear of God and hell and brimstone into me after my brother’s lies.

My hands felt clammy, my underarms were dripping, and my belly had a huge rock in it. I couldn’t deny the raw fear I was feeling. But fear of what? God? My father? He was an almost 80-year-old man.

Here I was, a middle-aged head nurse who saved the lives of premature babies every day. Yet I was too afraid to talk to my father about my child’s well-being.

“Buck up,” I told myself. “Poor old Dad is waiting for his food.” I slapped mayo, chicken, and bread together and headed back out. I was muttering, my flip-flops clutching the grass as I tried hard not to sway. Crossed the lawn, got close to him—and suddenly, my strategy for talking about Ashley flew out of my head.

“Dad, the twins have been asking me what your father died of and what your mother was like. I realize I don’t know very much about them.”

He chewed on his sandwich. “I barely remember my father. He was always sick in bed, and my sister and I had to be quiet. He had heart troubles, my mother always said. Guess high cholesterol, like I have. They wouldn’t have had money for medication or surgery, and one morning, he didn’t wake up. I was 5.”

Were there tears in my father’s eyes? How he must wish his mother had lived to be proud of him.

“My mother took in laundry,” he rambled, “wore an apron, which was always damp.” He swallowed a huge gulp of lemonade. “She was a saint, just like your mother, and she died young too.” His voice was full of tenderness. “They say men often marry their mother. It was certainly love at first sight. Did I ever tell you I met your grandfather before I met your mother?”

He kept going and I thought, is my father’s mind beginning to slip? I must have heard that story a thousand times. The afternoon was slipping too, and the truth, I now realized, was that I had no idea how to tell my father.

I jumped up. “Forgot to take the hamburgers out of the freezer for dinner.” I escaped to the kitchen again.

He had to be told sooner or later. Unless I just waited for him to die. What a cowardly thought! He could live to be a hundred. I had to do it. For Ashley. She was so much braver than I would ever be.

Clop, clop, clop. The back door opened. My father was coming for me again. This time, I snapped the top off another beer, ran down the hall to the bedroom and locked the door. Saw my phone on the bed. I sat and checked my texts. Three from Ashley. Did you tell him yet, Mom? One from Robin, I’m in your pocket, love.

Tears ran down my cheeks. What if I said to him, Dad, remember how throughout my first pregnancy I told everyone I was having a girl? I was right. Wouldn’t he be reassured to know we’d found a perfect doctor for Triston’s transition? Wouldn’t he agree to changing the trust?

“Mom!” I heard loud knocking.

God, are they back already? I dried my eyes, opened the bedroom door.

“Mom, did you tell him?”

“Not yet.” I hugged Ashley, felt the tension in her back. Hoped I smelled OK.

She stepped back and looked at me. “Mom.” Her eyes shone with certainty. “I’d like to tell Grandpa myself. We know how to talk to each other.”

There was Robin, now. “Did I hear right?”

“Yes, Dad.” Ashley faced him.

I twined my fingers into Robin’s. Cried into his damp shirt—trying to see our daughter Ashley with her grandfather, sitting at the chess table, sharing a joke, harvesting beans together.

The two of them as always.

Close Calls

by Rachel Cann

Rachel Cann, born in 1942, has lived an extraordinary life. She is a courageous prolific writer with over 60 published stories in literary magazines and she received a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center. In this unforgettable collection you will find her style funny, clever, heart-wrenching, and inspirational. Rachel knows how to move a plot forward, so there is never a dull moment. She leaves just enough space for the reader to use their imagination to fill in the rest. You won't find long winding descriptions of what a chair looks like. Rachel shares with us her most intimate real-life experiences of being kidnapped and taken cross country, two years of homelessness, her brush with death during childbirth, her affair with a Mafia Don, and many more. Welcome to Rachel's world. Strap in and enjoy the ride! — Karina Ann Francis Holosko, founder and publisher of Rebel Anthologies Available from Amazon

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