Jackie couldn't stop staring. She knew she needed to stop but she couldn't tear her eyes away from Brianna. Her grand-daughter's presence in her dining room was the equivilent of having a unicorn prance in. She was a mythical creature, something she'd heard about for so long, someone she'd seen photographs of and nothing more. Jackie's hands shook as she spooned gravy over the pot roast on Bree's plate. "You need to eat," she said, her classic Jackie-line, "You look like they've been starving you to death in Atlanta," she added.
It was easy to eat. The pot roast was the most amazing thing Bree had ever put in her mouth. Her mother wasn't the queen of culinary arts and Baylee's idea of cooking had always been grilled cheese pressed together with the iron. Yes, the iron. Like Johnny Depp in Benny & Joon. Jackie's home cooking was incredible, Bree decided, and pot roast was her new favorite meal in the entire world.
"What have you been doing with yourself since we last saw you?" Harold Sr. asked Amanda, shaking salt over his green beans.
"Writing for a magazine in Boston," she replied.
"Not about celebrities anymore?" Harold eye-balled her.
Amanda shook her head, "About tourist attractions and things like that," she said, "In New England."
"Good." Harold Sr. put the salt down. He looked at Nick. "You haven't released music."
"Not in awhile," Nick replied.
Harold Sr. frowned. "You were supposed to release Brian's song."
Nick flushed.
Jackie looked up. "Don't yell at the boy, he's tired," she said. "We'll talk about that tomorrow." She pointed a mashed potato-covered spoon in Nick's direction. "Because he's right, you know, you were supposed to record Brian's song."
Nick stared down at his plate. He'd recorded it, several times, but without Brian there to play the guitar just right in that plinky-plonky way he had during the show at the Braves' stadium, he had never quite gotten the sound of it right. It always seemed too contrived, too over-done... He'd eventually given up. Right around the same time that Amanda had left.
"Are you in school?" Harold Sr. turned his attention next to Brianna.
"Yes sir," Bree replied politely.
"Sir. Pish-posh," Harold Sr. grumbled. He shoved a mouthful of carrots into his mouth.
"You can call us Jackie and Harold dear," Jackie said to Bree. She paused awkwardly, "Or - or Gram and Gramps, if you like."
Bree stared at her food and stabbed some of the meat with her fork. It was weird. She wanted so badly to instantly bond with Jackie and Harold Sr., but it was strange, sitting there and thinking about the fact that these were her grandparents, that she was sixteen years old and this was the first time she'd ever met them in her entire life.
"What's your grades like?" Harold demanded, breaking the awkwardness, "Are you intelligent?"
"I'm honor society," Bree replied.
"Atta girl," commented Harold. "Get that from your father, right there. He was a smart boy. You good at science and math?"
"I'm better at writing and art," Bree replied.
Harold Sr. sighed.
"Do you play music?" Jackie asked.
"A little," Bree answered, "A little guitar. Not a lot. I can't sing. I don't think. I've never really tried, I guess. I sing a lot with the radio. I like the Beatles, and the Backstreet Boys of course."
Nick laughed, "Remind me and I'll autograph your CDs sometime," he joked.
Jackie put more green beans on Bree's plate. "Eat, dear."
Bree felt like she might explode, but she started shoving the green beans into her mouth anyways. She pictured herself being like a gold fish. She'd read somewhere that gold fish have no ability to tell when their stomachs are full because they lack some gland or chemical or something that sends that message to their brains and they literally eat until the food backs up into the rest of their body and eventually die from over-eating.
It would be a delicious way to go.
"Was my father good at math and science?" Bree asked.
Harold Sr. gnawed on a roll. "Yes," he said around the bread in his mouth, "He built a robot once for a competition at the school. It worked and everything. I helped him but he did it mostly himself from a pattern he found in a book."
"That's so cool," Bree said. "I could never build a robot."
"He used to make potato lights, too," Harold Sr. offered. "Turned on a lightbulb with a 'tater."
"Such a waste of food," muttered Jackie.
Nick spoke up, "He made a potato light once to impress a kid at a children's hospital we visited."
"He was damn good at 'tater lamps," Harold Sr. confirmed.
"Should've seen the nurse's face," Nick laughed, "When he was asking for all the supplies to do it. It took them longest to find a light bulb that would work for it."
Jackie shook her head. "Only Brian."
"The kid loved it," Nick said.
"Did you go to children's hospitals a lot?" Bree asked.
"All the time," Nick said, "We were going once a week for awhile. But --" and he stopped suddenly.
"But?"
Nick put down his fork. "We stopped because he felt guilty going after he got sick. Because he was afraid, and he felt cheated out of life because he was dying and seeing the little kids be brave made him feel guilty for feeling cheated. Because he'd lived." He stared at the colorful assortment of food.
Jackie pressed a hand against her mouth. "Excuse me," she whispered, and she left the room in a hurry.
Harold Sr. started to get up, "I'll go check on her," he said.
"I'll go," Bree offered. She stood up faster than Harold could and waved for him to sit down, "I wanna talk to her anyways," she said, and she backed out of the room.
Harold looked around the table. Amanda was concentrating on her vegetables, as was Nick. Harold sighed. "It's been a long sixteen years, hasn't it?" he asked.
Nick nodded.
"He was a good man, my son," Harold commented, "A good man."
"He certainly was," Amanda agreed.
Silence fell over the room as they each studied their plates.
Upstairs, Jackie was sitting on the bed in Brian's old bedroom, hugging a stuffed duck that Brian had dragged around as a small boy. The room was like a shrine dedicated to the memory of the son she'd birthed, raised, and buried. She breathed in the scent of him, which was ever fading, and stared around the room, telling herself that she would come in and dust it later.
There was a knock at the door and Bree hovered in the open jamb awkwardly. Jackie swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat. "Come in," she answered, and Bree stepped through the door and looked around.
Bree's heart thundered. This room was her father's, she thought to herself, and tried to envision him sitting at the various points. The director's chair in the corner, the desk chair, the floor. She saw trophies from baseball and soccer and basketball lining the dresser, and an autographed football mounted in a glass case on a high shelf. A pennent from the University of Kentucky hung over the bed, the desk was cluttered with pens and pencils and even an old textbook with yellowed pages. Sheet music was tacked to the wall in one place. It smelled heavily of a scent that Brianna had only smelled in passing throughout their home, one that Leighanne Lysoled within an inch of itself. She recognized it for the first time as her father.
"Wow," she whispered.
Jackie moved to make room on the bed beside her and Brianna sat down. "I never had the heart to tear it down," Jackie explained. "It seemed sacreligious to remove it." She stared around at everything. "At first, I guess it's because I wanted him to know if he ever needed to he could come home. I mean he left before he'd even finished high school, really, and I didn't want him to feel like there was no home to come to if the music thing didn't work out." Jackie loosened her grip on the duck. "Then when it was evident the Backstreet Boys were going to be successful, I left it so he always had it to visit." She stared at the duck. "And now I guess I keep it so that he isn't completely gone. Now it's here so I have it to visit."
Bree picked up a gold cross on a chain that sat on the bed stand and studied it.
"He got that for his fifteenth birthday," Jackie said, "Never took it off again." She reached over and took it from Bree. "Your mother mailed it to me. After." She undid the clasp and put it around Bree's neck.
Bree touched it, the gold cool and heavy against her skin. She looked at Jackie. "What happened between you and my mother?" she asked.
"I offered to take care of you," Jackie said quietly, "Because I didn't think she could handle the pressure of motherhood so soon after losing her husband." She hung her head. "I didn't mean to offend her." A tear trickled across Jackie's cheek. Her breath shuddered, "I just wanted to take care of you."
Bree's fingers were still on the cross around her neck. A question was burning deep within her, one she wasn't sure she dared to ask but that she'd always wondered. "Did my father know..." she whispered, "About... me?"
Jackie stared at her grand daughter. After a long pause, she put the duck aside and stood up. "Wait here," she said, and she got up and left the room.
Bree sat on the bed and stared around at the things that belonged to her father and breathed his smell. She closed her eyes and for the briefest of moments she could see him in her mind.
The floor creaked as Jackie returned, clutching a jewelry box. She put the jewelry box onto the desk and opened the lid. She pulled out the tray that lay on top and reached into the bottom of the box, pulling out an old, faded envelope. She held the paper in her hands, shaking, and turned around. She stared at Bree intently for a long moment, and took a deep breath. "I was saving this," she said, "Until you were eighteen, I was going to mail it to you, despite your mother's objections." Jackie stepped across the room and held out the envelope.
"What is it?" Bree asked.
And Jackie took a deep breath.
"A letter," she answered, "From your father."
