Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [74]
“I have to tell you that she never mentioned you, Mr. Ross,” Gran observed pointedly, watching his face.
John Ross nodded. “I’m sorry to hear that. But she kept a lot to herself. I don’t suppose I was very important to her in the larger scheme of things. But I admired her greatly.”
“Well, she may have mentioned you, and we’ve just forgotten,” Old Bob soothed, giving Gran a warning glance. Gran sniffed and sipped some more of her drink.
“She had a lot of friends while she was at Oberlin,” Ross added suddenly, glancing around at their faces as if to confirm that what he was saying was true. He looked at Gran. “This roast is delicious, Mrs. Freemark. I haven’t tasted anything this good in a long time. I’m very grateful you included me.”
“Well,” Gran said, her sharp face softening slightly.
“She did have a lot of friends,” Old Bob declared. “Caitlin had a lot of friends, all through school. She had a good heart. People saw that in her.”
“Did you know my father?” Nest asked suddenly.
The table went silent. Nest knew at once that she had asked something she should not have. Gran was glaring at her. Her grandfather was staring at his plate, absorbed in his food. John Ross took a drink of his water and set the glass carefully back in place on the table.
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, but I never met him.”
The dinner conversation resumed after a few moments and continued throughout in fits and starts, with Nest’s grandfather asking questions of John Ross, Ross offering brief replies, and Gran sitting angry and still throughout. Nest finished her meal, asked to be excused, and left almost before permission was given. She walked out onto the porch and down the steps to the backyard. Mr. Scratch was sprawled on the lawn sleeping and Miss Minx was watching him with studied suspicion. Nest moved to the rope swing, seated herself in its weathered old tire, and rocked gently in the evening heat. She felt embarrassed and frustrated by her grandparents’ reaction to her question and wondered anew why no one ever wanted to say anything about her father. It was more than the fact that he got her mother pregnant and never married her. That was no big deal; that happened all the time. It was more than the fact that he disappeared afterward, too. Lots of kids grew up in one-parent households. Or with their grandparents, like she was doing. No, it was something more, and she wasn’t even sure that it was something anyone could actually explain. It was more like something they suspected, but could not put words to. It was like something that was possible, but they were refusing to look too closely at it for fear that it might be so.
A few minutes later John Ross came out the back door leaning on his cane, carefully negotiated the worn steps, and limped over to where she twisted and bobbed in the swing. Nest steadied herself as he came up, grounding her feet so that she could watch him.
“I guess that question about your father touched a sore spot,” he said, his smile faint and pained, his eyes squinting as he looked off toward the approaching sunset. The sky to the west was colored bright red and laced with low-hanging clouds that scraped across the trees of the park.
Nest nodded without replying.
“I was wondering if you would walk me to your mother’s grave,” Ross continued, still looking west. “Your grandfather said it would be all right for you to do so. Your grandmother gave him one of those looks, but then she agreed, too.” He turned back to her, his brow furrowed. “Maybe I’m misreading her, but I have the uncomfortable feeling she thinks she’s giving me just enough rope to hang myself.”
Nest smiled in response, thinking of Wraith.
Ross ran his hand slowly down the length of his staff. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think your grandmother trusts me. She’s a very careful woman where you are concerned.”
Nest supposed that was so. Gran was fierce about her sometimes, so consumed with watching out for her that Nest would