Just then, you see Gran coming through the back door from the corner of your eye.
You turn toward her. She looks worried, distressed almost, but as soon as she meets your eyes, she quickly changes her expression and offers up a smile.
You frown slightly, wondering why she looked so distraught just a second ago. She’s trying to hide something from you. You know it. But you also know, that as stubborn and headstrong as she is, she won’t tell you what it is.
As she walks up to us, her attention turns completely to Doctor Frost, and she has to tilt her head back to actually look up at him.
“Well, hello young man,” she says smiling.
He offers a smile of his own, the cold expression he had for Liam just a moment ago completely gone from his handsome face.
“Hello, Mrs. Gallo,” he says, extending his hand to her. “My name is Dexter Frost,” he continues. “I apologize for my timing, but I would be remiss if I didn’t pay my respects to your late husband. He was such a renowned and inspirational icon. Like so many others, I and my whole family have so much respect and admiration for him.”
“Oh, nonsense! You have nothing to apologize for,” Gran admonishes, waving her hand. “Thank you so much for thinking of him and for coming here despite the weather. I know it must not have been easy.” She takes his hand in both of hers and gently squeezes, still smiling in gratitude.
“Of course, Mrs. Gallo. The honor is mine. Really,” he says.
She releases his hand, and her attention turns to you once more.
“Ramona, what are you doing? Offer our guest something to drink,” she says.
Suddenly, you feel flustered by her words. Why does she have to go and put you on blast in front of him like that? As if you don’t already feel self-conscious whenever you’re around him as it is. Granted, you’d completely forgotten to offer him any refreshments, but how could you when your mind’s been busy trying to figure out why he’s here in the first place?
“Oh, I-I’m sorry. Uh, what would you like to drink?” you ask, trying not to show how embarrassed you feel and trying to keep your wacky nerves under control.
“Thank you, but I can’t stay long,” he says. “I should be leaving soon. I have to be at work in a few hours.”
“Already? But you just got here!” Gran admonishes.
“Really, it’s no trouble at all,” he assures her, his voice even and deep. “I just came to show my support.”
You don’t know how he can sound so polite and so firm and assertive at the same time.
Gran eventually nods in understanding. “Well, alright. If that’s the case, then I appreciate you coming even more,” she smiles.
The whole thing is just so confusing to you. She obviously doesn’t know him. It’s just so strange that he’s here, especially when Danny, the only person he claims to actually know, isn’t here himself.
You have so many questions just ready to spill from your mouth, just waiting at the tip of your tongue to pour out of you.
“Ramona dear, would you get me a bottle of water?” Gran says, bringing your focus away from Doctor Frost and your questions surrounding his appearance here.
“Sure, Gran,” you say simply.
You head back to the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge, and the whole while, your mind remains preoccupied with Dexter Frost.
When you return, the corridor is empty, and neither of them is standing there anymore. You look around for a few more seconds, frowning slightly when they’re still not in sight.
You hear Gran’s voice coming from the living room, and you dash in there. Mr. Dickson is still going on about some story involving an oak tree and a three-legged sheep, and you try to block out his incessant rambling. You look around, but there’s still no Dexter Frost.
“Here,” you say, finally handing the bottle to Gran. “Where’s Doctor Frost?” you ask.
“Oh, he just left, dear,” she says. “He seemed to be in a hurry.”
You realize, with surprising disappointment, that he’s gone. You don’t know why, but hearing that makes your shoulders slump slightly. You can’t believe he left without so much as another word.
Whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if he owes you anything.
But as much as you tell yourself that, for some reason, the little stab of disappointment doesn’t go away.
With a sigh, you head back into the kitchen and immediately dial Trixie. You need to talk to someone about something else—anything else—entirely and get your mind out of its current funk.
You know you’re not going to be talking about anything important—mostly mindless chatter that’ll probably focus on her and Jordan—but that’s the whole point. You need to keep your brain busy so that it won’t resort to thinking of Dexter Frost and the weirdly disappointing feeling he just left you with.
***
It’s a little after midnight. Everyone’s finally gone, and the day really is over. The house has been completely quiet for some time now.
Gran called it a night almost two hours ago, but you decided to stay up and clean up all the aftermath of today despite her insistence that you follow suit and head to bed as well. It’s not like you could’ve fallen asleep if you did, anyway.
You feel way too restless right now. You’ve been on edge ever since you got here, but seeing Doctor Frost again, and so unexpectedly, has made you even more scatterbrained.
With a sigh, you finally place the last dish in the dishwasher and set it to run right before you haul the very full trash bag out to the back porch. It’s way too cold and you’re way too exhausted right now, so you decide to take it to the dumpster in the morning before you leave instead of doing it now.
You lock all the doors, and just before you turn the kitchen light off, you notice one of the drawers is ajar with a few envelopes sticking out of it. You head over to it, nudging the drawer so it can slide back in, but it won’t budge.
You try shoving it a few more times, and on your last exasperated attempt, you finally get it to move, but not in the direction you intended. The entire drawer slides off its support rollers and comes crashing onto the kitchen floor along with everything it contains.
Piles and piles of paper and envelopes are flying everywhere, scattering themselves all over the place. You can’t stop the frustrated groan that leaves your throat.
Ugh, of course this would happen right when you’re about to call it a night. How annoying!
You contemplate just leaving the newly created mess there and dealing with it tomorrow, but this isn’t your apartment, and you don’t want your cluttery tendencies to cramp Gran’s style. You let out a loud, tired huff, right before stooping on your bare heels and gathering the papery mess below you.
You look down to find stacks upon stacks of foreclosure statements, overdue bills, and warnings from collection agencies. Every single one displays information of some sort of debt. And they’re all addressed to Gran. Each and every one of them.
You can’t believe what you’re seeing. You’re in total shock as you continue to go through them, feeling bewildered when you keep seeing pretty much the same thing again and again. As you keep scrambling through the clutter, you hear light footsteps coming your way, and you look up to see Gran shuffling into the kitchen in her night robe. You don’t waste any time making your discovery known.
“What are all these?” you ask, holding up one of the flimsy letters as if you didn’t just read what the hell was on it. You’re trying not to sound accusatory or suspicious, but you don’t think you’re succeeding.
“They’re nothing,” she insists.
“Nothing?! Are you kidding me?” you feel beyond incredulous right now. Incredulous and livid! She tries to sidestep and brush it off a few times, acting nonchalant about it, but you’re not buying any of it.
“Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?” you demand.
You know you’re raising your voice at her and you’re dead wrong for it, but you’re feeling yourself becoming more and more frustrated by the second.
Gran’s voice is quiet when she answers, almost apologetic. “I didn’t want you to worry,” she says.
You sigh. Now you feel bad for yelling. You feel like every ounce of energy you had left just got bulldozed out of you. Your shoulders slump on their own will, and your fingers let the envelope slip out of their grasp, suddenly too weak to do anything.
You sit there on the cold floor, feeling so defeated. You can’t help but realize just how similar you both are; so much more likely to suffer in silence than to ask for help.
You want to be angry at her, and for a little bit, you are, but you can’t stay mad. You’d be a hypocrite for expecting her to tell you about her problems when you’re keeping a few of your own from her.
This is seriously ridiculous. You’re seriously ridiculous.
You look down at the pile again and you already feel a headache coming on. You breathe out a tired sigh.
This is not at all how you imagined this night would end.
***
You hear a car honk from behind you, and you realize the stop light’s green. This is already the second time it’s happened, and you’ve only been on the road for less than ten minutes.
You’re in such a daze, you almost feel like a shell of yourself. You didn’t sleep last night. You couldn’t. Your mind wouldn’t let you. Worry wouldn’t let you.
You ended spending each and every hour tossing and turning in bed, trying to think of ways to come up with money so that your grandmother—your only living relative who gives a damn about you—won’t lose her house, or worse.
To say you were shocked last night would be a gross understatement. After quite a bit of coaxing on your part, Gran finally fessed up and told you everything. You just hadn’t realized you weren’t really prepared to hear it all.
You had heard the rumors, as everyone else in this town, but that’s all you figured they were—rumors. Public figures and well-known people often fall prey to scrutiny and negative criticism all the time, so you weren’t that surprised when folks started slandering your grandfather’s name and reputation. But what Gran revealed last night…you still can’t believe it.
You’ve spent every second since she laid the info on you pondering and trying to understand the hows and whys of it all. There has to be some other explanation. Your grandfather wasn’t that kind of man. He just wasn’t.
Gran even confessed that she had completely underestimated just how much ruin grandpa had fallen into before his death, and after looking at the proof, you can’t help but share her sentiments.
He’d made mistakes. Lots and lots of them, apparently. And now, Gran is the one suffering for it. For all of it. Her own husband of fifty-three years did this to her.
She’d actually said those very words herself. You know there’s no way in hell she would lie about something like that, but at the same time, you’re having a really hard time believing any of it. It’s all too much to take in. You just don’t know what to think anymore.
You finally get back to your apartment, still in a daze as your body operates on autopilot. You can’t stop thinking about what Gran had said. You can’t stop worrying. With everything else that’s going wrong in your life, finding out about her financial situation is almost more than you can bear right now.
You just don’t know what to do.
You feel like a complete mess. You almost wish you hadn’t stumbled upon those envelopes. You should have just fucking gone to bed like she’d said and stayed away from that damn drawer.
Your phone buzzes a few times, but you ignore it. You don’t bother to even check who it is. You’re so out of it right now the last thing you want to do is talk to anyone. Even Trixie.
The hours pass even as time seems to stand still. The only thing that remains constant is your relentless worrying and overthinking. You can’t stop your mind from racing even when your body is physically drained and exhausted. You’re going to drive yourself insane if you keep this up.
When your phone buzzes again, a thought comes to mind; a thought that you immediately push away.
Another couple of hours pass, and the thought keeps coming back, again and again like an annoying bug that you can’t get rid of but can’t ignore either.
When you finally have enough of torturing yourself, you close your eyes and take a deep breath, and then another one, and then another, before reaching for your phone.
You realize you’d already made the decision hours ago. It very well may be your only option.
When you scroll through your contacts and finally hit the call button on the intended number, you feel your stomach sink and the threat of bile rising up your throat.
After three rings, the familiar, high-pitched voice that you know all too well comes through.
“Hello?”
You struggle to swallow. “Hey, Nicole,” you croak, your voice little above a hoarse, sad whisper.
You can’t believe you’re really about to do this.
“It’s Ramona,” you continue, your restless nerves making you stutter and pause. “I-I, um…I was…wondering…uh…w-what exactly do you do at the Rainbow Service Club?”
***
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