Page 6 of Dear Southern Belle
3
BRADEN
Martha managed to convince my grandfather to let me stay. Although it doesn’t feel too good that she had to work so hard to get him to agree.
When I returned back to the house last night, she admitted that she found my name on the back of a picture in my grandfather’s office. It wasn’t hard for her to track me down through social media to get my email address to contact me.
“I’m not sure what your plan was to get me to come down here, but whatever it was, I don’t think it was a good idea. I mean the man has fired you twice in front of me.”
Martha waved a hand like it was no big deal. “That man would be lost without me. And I know that you being here means more to him than you realize.”
She wouldn’t explain further, but only said that it was for my grandfather to explain. But the man hasn’t said more than two words to me since that first encounter when I arrived.
Subtly has never been a strong suit for me, so instead of walking on eggshells around this stranger who is family, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I push open the door to my grandfather office. He’s sitting behind the large ornate desk working on some paperwork in front of him. I walk in without invitation and sit down in one of the chairs across from him. The look of surprise on his face reminds me of one my mom would give me.
“I’m busy,” he grumbles.
“That’s fine,” I say. “I can wait.”
He may be a stubborn man, but we share the same blood. And I can be just as stubborn as I want to be too.
We stare each other down across the desk. Neither one of us willing to concede the upper hand. The silence settles between us over the next few minutes before he finally breaks.
“I didn’t ask you to come down here,” he says.
“You didn’t ask, but I’m still here.”
“What do you want?”
“I want some answers.”
He shifts in his chair. “What do you want to know?”
“I want to know why it’s taken twenty-five years and one rogue caregiver to finally bring us together?”
“Ask your mother.”
“I’m asking you.”
His gaze narrows on me. I don’t think he’s used to most people talking to him like this, but I’m not most people.
“I had expectations for her.”
“Like what?”
“Not to marry your father.”
I figured this might have been a part of why my parents ran off. My father didn’t keep the fact that he practically raised himself as he grew up in the foster system. Bouncing around from one home to another. He always said that meeting my mother felt like for the first time in his life he found a home. One look at her and suddenly he saw a future that he never dreamed of before.
Magnolia’s face pops into my mind. Although if I’m being honest, it never really left. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since our brief meeting yesterday. I could never assume that I’d be so lucky that she could feel a fraction of what I already feel in such a short time of meeting her.
“You couldn’t see that he made her happy?” I ask.
“She was a child.”
“She was almost an adult,” I correct.
