Lily White Lies(28)

As Gramp sliced watermelon, I poured tea, feeling intimidated in his presence. My feelings for him had gone through so many changes over the years. Although I remember little of him from my childhood, I do remember that I loved him. As a teenager, I felt deserted and even embarrassed by him while he was in prison, and as an adult, I felt distanced and uncomfortable around him. Now, standing in the same room where I sense an important conversation about to take place between us in a matter of minutes, I feel intimidated.

When he sat at the table, he began to speak as if he had never left off. “Gayle Crenshaw—that was her name—she was about the prettiest girl in Willoughby. A real looker. She came from old money and had the voice of a songbird to boot. She sang in the church choir and let me tell you; she’d hit those high notes and ooh... she’d have us guys melting in our pews and praying to the Gods.” His eyes seemed to flicker as he spoke of her. “There wasn’t a fellow in town that didn’t want her for his bride.” He hesitated. “But, she wanted me.” His chest swelled with pride, as he smirked, adding, “I’ll tell you, I held my head a little higher, I walked a little straighter and I smiled a little broader knowing I was her first pick.”

Listening to Gramp boast brought a smile to my face. The last two decades of his life had held little reason to smile and I was grateful he had memories worth smiling about.

“What happened? Why didn’t the two of you ever marry?”

He shook his head, his disheartened expression telling me the happy part of his memory was over.

“She left me for love.”

Five little words. I had been expecting a long, sad story about how in a cruel twist of fate, love had been yanked from their grasp. His last sentence left me without words.

Without prodding, he continued. “I worked for the railroad in those days. Right out of high school there wasn’t much around as far as work went. There was the mine, which would kill a man before his fortieth birthday, stone quarries, which didn’t pay enough to support a family, or the railroad. Only a handful of us were lucky enough to hook up with the railroad.”

Tipping his head back to finish the last of his tea, he took a moment before continuing.

“My father owned the press that put out the only newspaper in Willoughby. Times were tough all over, but especially in small towns it seemed. Some bigger company down south started buying up all the paper, right from the mills. Without that paper, my father would have been put out of business.”

“What happened? What did he do?”

He shook his head. “He didn’t do anything. I did. Back then, everything was shipped by train. I used my job to keep my father in business.” His face colored in shame, as he continued. “When the mills began shipping the paper that once went to my father, to the big companies down south, I started re-routing it back to my father with the help of a few of the guys at work… it just sort of disappeared without a trace.”

“Gramp, that’s stealing! You could have gone to jail for that.”

“I knew that. But I couldn’t sit back and watch my father lose everything he’d worked all his life for. Besides, a lot of the guys that helped me had family that worked for my father. It meant a lot of jobs for a lot of people.”

I suddenly felt a pang of sentiment creeping through me. There were two very different sides to the man sitting across from me. There was the dark, secretive side that spent over twenty years in prison, and the loyal, loving side that held family in the highest regard.

Wondering how this story was going to make its way back to Gayle, I asked, “Gramp, did she leave you because of what you were doing for your father?”

“So to speak.” With one leg crossed over the other, he picked at the hem of his pant leg, as he continued, “Joker found out about the stolen loads of paper and threatened to turn us in. He’d always had a thing for Gayle and she knew it, so she sacrificed her own happiness to spare me from going to prison.”

Confused, I asked, “Wait, who’s Joker?”

Gramp’s eyes seemed to darken as he spoke of the man with the unusual name. “Joker... Joker’s the man who’s been my nemesis since before I was born. His father started a feud with my father many, many years ago over a piece of property that they each claimed they owned and it’s been our birthright to keep it going.”

I let out a half-laugh, and teased, “You’re kidding… right?”

“Some things a man never kids about, Sugar. Feuding is one of them.”

Resting back in my chair, I studied my grandfather’s features. His carefree personality showed in the soft lines on his face, but life’s tragedies showed in his eyes. He was serious about this man and their ongoing feud, and I found myself intrigued by his story.