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“Please be careful,” I say, while holding his face in my hands. Our mouths are just inches from each other.
“I will. And I’m sorry I have to do this—”
“Don’t be. Like Dylan said, she is his mother. The mother of your child.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“Of course. Now, get going before the situation gets even worse.”
He looks around and then plants a peck on me. But when he turns to leave, I don’t release his hand.
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“I like you.”
“Oh, yeah?” He bites his lip, looks down at the ground, and then back up at me. “I like you, too, Mae Dale.”
After that, I feel like I’m on top of the world, and I watch as he and Dylan drive off in my grandfather’s truck.
I go back inside, and I’m thrown off when Grandpa Bob asks if we can chat. Of course, I agree, and he leads me over to the dining table.
“What’s wrong? Are you feeling okay?” Immediately, I’m panicked.
He pats my hand. “I’m fine, sweetheart. I just wanted to fill you in on something.”
Oh, no. There’s more than just heart failure. What is it? Cancer? Oh, please don’t be cancer.
“When you were a little girl—”
My head cocks to the side. This certainly isn’t where I thought the conversation was going to go.
“I set up a little trust fund for you,” he continues.
“Oh?”
“And I think it’s about high time that I finally release that money to you.”
I don’t know what to say.
“I didn’t do it until now because—I don’t know—I was worried you’d be too prideful to take it. Plus, it’s not like you needed it in the past. You got scholarships to cover your law school tuition, and then you made good money at the firm.”
“But now I’m broke.” I feel like an absolute failure admitting that.
“Hey.” He uses his pointer finger to lift my chin up. “There is nothing wrong with that. Heck, there are times in my life when I hardly had a penny to my name.”
“Really?”
“Of course! I was born at the very tale end of the Great Depression, Mae. And my parents continued to live in a poverty mindset ever since.”
“I suppose.”
“What matters is how you overcome your struggles and succeed in spite of them.”
“You’re right.”
“So, you’ll accept the money? It isn’t a crazy amount, but it’s around $55,000.”
