Page 2 of A Legacy of the Light

“Only one body has been found,” the officer said. They thought it might be Mom. We would need to go to the station to identify her. They found Granny’s purse at the scene; that’s how they knew our details, but that was all that remained of her.

Apparently.

They’d been driving back from dinner in the rain and the breaks on Granny’s car failed. When she tried to slow down, she lost control and careened off a bridge and into the river. Mom was killed on impact, and they never found Granny.

Grandpa didn’t ask anymore questions other than when we could see Mom’s body, and I never understood why. Granny’s car had just been serviced and she was a safe driver. While it had rained that day, it hadn’t been so bad to warrant that type of accident. Whenever I asked him about it, he would ask me to let it go.

“They’re gone, and we need to make our peace with that,” he would say softly as he wiped the tears from my cheeks.

I still have my suspicions that we didn’t get the full story. We weren’t told how or why the brakes failed, why Mom was still in the car and Granny wasn’t.

I really have tried to come to terms with it over the last eighteen months, but something always stops me from moving on. I have always listened to my gut, it hasn’t failed me yet, and it gnaws at me to find the truth. Grandpa is the only family I have now, and I do my best to respect his wishes but, with each unanswered question or brushed aside suggestion, my frustration grows. I have to remind myself that he is grieving too—he lost his wife and daughter.

With hindsight, I wished I’d asked more questions of the police, but the shock and anguish held me too tightly to think clearly.

Today it’s hard not to think about what happened. It’s a week away from my twenty-fifth birthday and I’m having dinner with Grandpa like we do every Tuesday; a tradition we started when I left for college.

“Would you like to do something for your birthday next week, Elsie?” he asks.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I reply. I have little desire to celebrate anything these days.

“Well, I have. Why don’t we go out some place nice for dinner? My treat?” Grandpa pushes.

“I’m not sure. I’m not really in the mood to do anything.”

“You said that last year, and at Christmas and New Year’s. You can’t go on like this. I know you don’t like to celebrate these things anymore, but life goes on. I know it’s hard to accept, but they wouldn’t want you to not live your life,” Grandpa says, squeezing my arm softly across the table.

We have this conversation a lot. For the most part, I do try to live my life. I go to work every day. I see Rachel—the only friend I have left. Sometimes I even laugh.

But most of the time, I feel hollow, as if I’m floating from one day to the next. I only do those things because I have to. The look on Grandpa's face when he sees how much grief I still carry every day forces me to pretend that I’m okay. A lot of the time, I put on a happy face and act as if I’m living to the fullest.

“You say that like they’re both dead, Grandpa. We don’t know what happened to Granny—we never saw a body,” I reply, regretting the words as soon as they leave my mouth.

“Please don’t start this again!” he pleads with me.

I clamp my mouth shut and poke at the food on my plate.

“You were here when the police came and told us they were gone, and we saw your mother and what state she was in. That’s that. End of story!” His tone becomes more forceful.

This is another conversation we have a lot. I refuse to accept it. The accident left Mom almost unrecognizable, and nothing remained of Granny.

Maybe I’m stuck in the denial phase of grief that the self-help books tell me is the natural cycle of dealing with death. But I call it common sense, when there was only one body and zero evidence, aside from her purse, that Granny was even there. I love Grandpa more than life, but it’s almost like he doesn’t want to find out what really happened to them. Whenever I try to talk to him about it, he gets furious with me and quickly changes the topic. In the end, I’ve grown tired of the arguments and have just given up. It’s not the right thing to do, I know that. But the fight I once had isn’t there anymore.

I’ve even suggested we hire a private investigator to do a little more digging into their ‘deaths’. He shot down that idea very quickly. He got so upset when I mentioned it the first time, I haven’t brought it up since.

“Okay, let's not talk about it then,” I grind out. I can see his growing sadness and I don’t want to ruin our dinner, so I let it go.

We finish our meal in silence, the soft sounds of the TV drifting from the living room. He places his knife and fork down, and sits back in his chair with a satisfied hum.

“Now, what do you want to do for your birthday?” he asks me again, his usual lightness returning.

“Let's just go someplace nice for dinner. Nothing fancy, but somewhere that does great desserts,” I suggest.

He smiles warmly at me; we both have a sweet tooth and often order multiple desserts to share.

“Okay, sweetheart, I’ll make us a reservation. How about that place we went to last year with all the cheesecake?”

I stand from the dining table to clear away the dishes. “Sounds great, thank you,” I mumble, dropping a quick kiss on his head then heading to the kitchen to load the dishwasher.