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He glanced at her, eyebrow arched. “Seriously?”
“Seriously. Like I love them. My grandmother used to buy them for me every Easter, and my brothers would make fun of me, but she and I would sit down with the bag between us on the couch and watchSingin’ in the Rain. By the time the movie was over the bag would be empty. But my grandma always had a back-up bag for me to take home. She called them little beans of happiness.” Ella also knew they reminded her grandmother of anisette, her drink of choice.
“She sounds like a great woman.”
“She was,” Ella said as she fought the burn at the back of her eyes, the onslaught of emotions that crept up her throat. Pesky little things. She could never control them when she remembered her grandma.
Ella waved her hands at her eyes and forced a massive smile on her face. “But we weren’t supposed to be talking about me,” she said.
The gorgeous stranger held up the bag. “Have a bean of happiness.”
This time the smile wasn’t forced, it was big and grateful. “Thank you.” She took a handful and leaned back in the chair as she popped one in her mouth. “Mmm,” she groaned as the licorice flavor mingled with her taste buds. “So good.”
“I’ll keep the bag here,” he said, placing it between them.
“Don’t think because I’m distracted by the goodness of these jelly beans I’ve forgotten you still have a story to tell.”
“Definitely nosy.” He popped a jelly bean in his mouth. “Truth is, I didn’t even know I had a grandfather until six years ago. I thought he wanted nothing to do with me.”
Ella’s eyebrow lifted on its own accord as she swung her gaze toward him. “How does that even happen?”
“Before I was born, he and my father had a falling out. My dad up and moved with my mom across the country to California.”
“Wow. I couldn’t imagine not knowing my grandparents. They helped shape who I am.”
“My whole life I didn’t have grandparents. My mom’s parents died before I was born and then there was my grandfather. My dad told me my grandfather wanted nothing to do with me. I believed him, he was my dad, until I was twenty-one, home on spring break for a couple days, and found a stack of cards in my dad’s desk drawer. Birthday cards, Christmas cards, a couple Easter cards… all addressed to me, unopened.”
“Your dad hid them from you?”
“I was furious. My dad took my right away to a relationship with my only living grandparent because he couldn’t see past his own resentment.”
“I’m guessing you eventually reached out to your grandfather?”
“I did. Not right away, though.”
“Why not?”
“Honestly? I was afraid after never hearing back from me, he’d have written me off. Finally, I realized that if he sent cards every year for almost twenty-one years that had to have meant something. So I wrote him back and as they say the rest was history. Now six years after that, I’m going to stay with him for a couple weeks and help him out with his finances.”
“Wow. Now that’s a story. One I think will have a happy ending.”
“I hope so. I want to be able to have a relationship with my grandfather. It may not be like the one you have with yours, but something.”
“You will. As long as you both want it, it’ll happen, and clearly that’s what he wanted all along. So what about your dad?”
“Haven’t spoken to him in six years.”
“That’s a shame,” Ella said, thinking of her own brothers. People made mistakes, they were only human, but if she learned anything, life was too short to hold a grudge. Things happened at rapid speed, and the opportunity to seek forgiveness was gone and all that was left was a big what if? Ella didn’t think it was worth it.
Everybody deserved forgiveness, but when it came to her dad and her three brothers, they were as about forgiving as a brick wall.
“He made his choice.”
“Have you never made the wrong choice?” she asked. If she couldn’t change her brother’s stubborn ways, maybe she could at least help someone else.
“Plenty of times, but I never took the choice away from someone else.”
“Do you ever think you could find it in your heart to forgive him?”
