II

 

The house was a bygone structure that stuck out from the white modern homes around it. The small front yard had patches of crabgrass and daffodils sprung up in odd places, as if there had once been a flower garden long since abandoned.  There the old man sat on a plastic lawn chair, smoking a thin cigar. The dark tobacco so pungent that the young man could smell it before approaching. For a long moment, the young man couldn’t move, instead staring apprehensively at the man who was once idolized. 

His name was difficult to remember. It took a focused thought, and envisioning Grandfather speaking the words, to recall

the name. The old man, Michael, saw him first, smiled, and waved enthusiastically. He then began the rigorous process of standing. His hands shook vigorously, uncontrollably, so that his cane was similarly unsteady. He was still tall, but his back bowed slightly at the waist when he put his weight on the cane. Covering his slim frame was a soft grey cotton suit with a pressed blue shirt underneath, unbuttoned twice from the top, showing the tip of a thick scar beginning above his sternum. His smile remained as he let out an excited exclamation while raising one hand above his head to usher in the visitor. 

Having heard the commotion, a woman rushed out from the back side of the house carrying a hammer in one hand and

calling for the old man. Once she saw the visitor, she relaxed, stowing the hammer in her back pocket to shake his hand.

 This must be Emma, the one who wrote the letter, and the old man’s niece. Emma was an older, skinny woman with

short, cropped hair pushed back from her forehead by a tightly knotted bandana. Her exposed face showed the thin crevices of age. Yet, she was kind, immediately ushering him inside and then trying to assist the old man, who aggressively refused, determined to scuttle on his own. Perhaps he had some redemption later in his life, the young man thought, to have earned such a show of familial loyalty.