He sanded an old wooden crib in his garage until every edge was smooth enough for him to run his palm across it without finding a single splinter.
When the ultrasound technician announced that I was having a girl, Grandpa cried harder than I did.
One afternoon, while painting the crib, he looked at me and said, “We’ll be fine, sweetheart. You, me, and this little girl. That’s more than enough family.”
I wanted desperately to believe him.
And eventually, I almost did.
Part 2 — Grandpa Saw Something I Didn’t
I turned onto Grandpa’s gravel driveway a little after four in the afternoon.
He was already sitting on the porch.
For nearly two weeks, he had spent every afternoon waiting there for word that Nora could come home.
The moment he spotted my car, he jumped up so quickly that his coffee mug fell from the arm of the rocking chair and shattered on the porch.
