April 2022 Challenge
Prompt = Full
"Han, come over here."
Ten-year-old Hannibal Heyes turned to look at his Grandpa Curry, not wanting to leave the card game he was playing with his siblings and cousins. "But I'm having a lucky streak."
His mother looked up from the sock she was darning. "Han, do as your grandpa asks."
From the look in his ma's blue eyes, he knew to do what she said. "Yes, ma'am."
Standing in front of his grandpa's overstuffed brown chair, he was swept up onto his lap. Han's eyes stayed on the card game as he watched his seven-year-old cousin, Jeddie, break into tears when he lost all his matchsticks.
"Grandpa, I would have won that hand. I had a full house. I've been really lucky tonight."
"Oh boy, haven't you ever heard the Irish proverb, 'Luck never gives, it only lends'?"
"But it's not all luck, it's skill," he boasted. "I'm better than all the older girls. They're girls," he said not for the first time, wishing that he had older brothers and more than one boy cousin, not just girls.
"'A kind word never broke anyone's jaw.'" Grandpa reprimanded him gently and then reminded him, "What about Jeddie?"
"He's too little to really play with us."
"Han, he idolizes you and I've seen the way you take care of him. Friendship is a gift, nurture it. A wise man named Aristotle once said that friendship was 'A single soul dwelling in two bodies.'"
Han felt guilty as he watched Jeddie run and sit with Grandma Curry, who made room for him on the couch next to her and dried his tears.
"Han…Han!" His grandpa's voice caught his attention and he looked him in the eyes. Han could smell the whiskey his grandpa drank after their dinner on his breath.
"Yes, sir?"
"Thought it's time we have a talk about life."
"Life?"
"Well, we never know how much time we have on this earth, and I've had a long, full life. I've learned a few things the hard way I'd like to pass on to my eldest grandson before I die. That's what I'm doing now, and I'll go to my heavenly reward happy."
"You're never gonna die, Grandpa. You're healthy. You still work in the fields with pa." Hugging the man tightly, he gave this serious conversation all of his attention.
"Oh, Han, sometimes one single day can change life forever."
"But you're careful, too. Ma says so."
Michael Curry smiled, wondering what kind of conversation had led to his daughter making that comment.
"I want to tell you what's important. First, you must remember another Irish proverb, `What a sober man has in his heart, a drunken man has on his lips.'" As Michael spoke, he realized he was the latter. "Remember what's important, son: family, love, friendship. Never take it for granted; work hard for it."
"Yes, sir," answered the confused boy who had grown up surrounded by family, love and friendship and could not imagine being without it. Sadly, he saw the poker game had broken up and his sisters and Jed's older sisters were talking about the upcoming barn dance and the boys they hoped would ask them. Han considered it nonsense.
As he looked around the room at his growing family, Michael Curry took another long drink of whiskey. He was enjoying sharing his wisdom with this intelligent boy. "'Tomorrow's not promised to anyone, my boy, but what we have here, right now, you will always carry in your heart.'"
Still not understanding, Han turned his attention to Jeddie leaning against their grandma.
Smelling cookies, he slipped from his grandpa's lap to find his ma and aunt pulling the first tray of sugar cookies from the oven.
"Han, would you like a warm cookie?" ask his ma.
"Yes, please, and may I have one for Jeddie?"
ASJ*****ASJ*****ASJ*****ASJ*****ASJ
"Heyes, come over here."
"Eighty-year-old Hannibal Heyes turned to look at his cousin, Jed 'Kid' Curry, not wanting to leave the card game he was playing with his and the Kid's grandchildren. "But I'm having a lucky streak."
His wife, Laureline, looked up from the sock she was darning. "Han, do as your cousin asks; he's working on paying the bills."
"Yes, Dear."
Suddenly, the situation and the words brought back a shared memory and the cousins locked gazes.
Breaking the gaze, Curry said, "Remember what Grandpa Curry said about luck?"
Answering slowly, Heyes surveyed the family the Kid and he had built in the years after they had received amnesty. "Luck never gives, it lends."
"He was right, you know."
Bitterness crept into Heyes' voice. "You mean when he said, 'Tomorrow's not promised to anyone,' and they were all killed two days later?"
Silence fell over the room; they seldom heard that day mentioned and never with such angst in the words.
"No, Heyes, the other part."
"The other part?"
" 'What we have here, right now, you will always carry in your heart.'" Curry smiled looking around and back at Heyes as the ex-outlaws realized that they once again had built the family, love and friendships they had taken for granted as boys.