A big thank you to JE for creating the wonderful characters below for me to play with.
Jenny (JenRar) thank you isn't sufficient for the work you've done as the beta on this story.
Chapter 13 – A Little Friendly Advice
"Steph, wake up." Manny was shaking me, and his voice was cutting through the wonderful dream I'd been having, where Nagymama was baking fresh bread. It was so real, I could swear I smelled it, and I was just about to take a bite drenched in softened butter, but Manny wasn't letting up and the image slipped out of my subconscious.
"What?" I blurted out, perhaps a little on the grouchy side, forcing my eyes to open just so that my glare would be more effective.
"Someone is here," Manny said, nodding to the door.
I didn't see anyone and was about to tell him to go back to sleep because he'd obviously dreamed it. But before I could find the words, I heard a key in the door, as though someone were having trouble getting it in the lock.
Manny handed me the cell phone and said, "Get in the basement and call the control room. No matter what, don't come out until you hear the guys respond."
"No," I replied flatly, as though we had time to argue the point. I hit a speed dial on the phone and put it to my ear before explaining, "I'll call the guys, but I'm not leaving you out here to fight whoever that is alone."
"You can't sacrifice yourself for me," he argued.
"Then you'll understand when I say the same thing to you," I countered. "You don't know who that is, and for all we know, it could be someone here for me, not you."
"Not likely," he disagreed, pulling out the Glock that was attached to his cast and aiming it at the door.
The control room answered, and I jumped in and explained what was going on before they could get the name of the company out fully. Luckily, Lester was the one taking the call, and he had me hold on while he checked the camera they had at the door.
He started laughing just as the front door swung open. Manny disengaged the safety on the gun and used his head to indicate that I should stay behind him.
"I think you can put the gun down," I warned him as the eighty-plus-year-old body of Grandma Mazur appeared in the doorway.
"Can you kill the alarm?" I asked Lester, who was still snickering into the phone.
"Sure, Beautiful. I can handle it." He laughed once more before asking, "Is Manny still in a hospital gown?"
"No, why?" I knew I probably shouldn't encourage him, but I'd missed being around the guys and was curious as to what he was thinking.
"Because your grandmother would have a field day with Manny's ass swinging in the breeze," Les barely got out around his obvious amusement.
"I'll pass the message along," I told him, hanging up, just to show him how it felt to have someone be that rude to you on the phone.
Manny lowered his gun, put the safety back on, and shook his head.
Grandma Mazur just grinned as the unmistakable sound of her clicking her dentures the way she liked to when she was having a good time filled the room. "Don't put that away on my account. I would've come back here a lot more often if I'd known there was a bed with a half naked man who knew how to use his big gun like that."
I was still behind Manny, on my knees on the mattress. He leaned back into me, his head still hanging down, and whispered, "I'm pretty sure I'm going to be sick."
I assumed he was serious, that the adrenaline and the medication and lack of activity had all worked together to leave him nauseous and shaken. "I'll get you a trash can," I told him, turning to move.
Manny grabbed my hand and looked up at me. "No, I'm not really sick. Just hearing her talk like that…" He shivered instead of finishing his sentence.
That these big tough guys were afraid of a little old woman never ceased to make me laugh.
"Come on, tough guy," I told him, patting his shoulder. "I'll put the rails up on your bed so she can't climb up here with you."
Not once in the time I'd been around Manny had we used the rails on his bed. He was in no condition to even attempt rolling over with the casts and bruising, but when I mentioned them as a level of defense, he nodded, agreeable to the suggestion. After getting him settled, I asked if he needed anything.
Manny's eyes cut to Grandma Mazur first, and then he asked, "Can I use the tools and work with the wood from yesterday?"
"Sure," I agreed, bringing a towel over first and laying it across his lap in the hope of catching the shavings and dust so that I didn't have to change the sheets again. I got him all set up and turned around in time to see Grandma Mazur grinning at me.
"I can see why you wanted to be locked in here alone. A man that knows how to use his tools is something worth hiding," she commented with a cackle, as though her wit was too funny to contain any longer.
I could have sworn that Manny whimpered, but I knew that bad ass guys didn't make pitiful sounds like that, so I must have been mistaken.
"Come on, Grandma. Let's have some tea in the kitchen." With that, I swept her away from Manny, figuring he was still recuperating and the stress of being around my family might set his recovery back if I didn't intercede.
Once we were out of Manny's immediate presence, she settled down and looked at me. Most people look at my grandmother and see a flamboyant personality too crazy to get close to. I'm pretty sure that was all a part of her master plan, because underneath was a truly amazing woman. Unfortunately, part of that amazing woman included the ability to read people with an alarming accuracy, and I could feel her watching me intently while I busied myself putting on a kettle and selecting the right blend of tea.
"How's the house?" she asked, surprising me that she'd elected to begin so harmlessly. Usually Grandma Mazur jumped into the deep end in conversations. She said it was because she was too old to waste time on small talk and pleasantries and didn't want to keel over before the conversation turned to what she referred to as the "good stuff."
"It's like I'm staying in the Twilight Zone. Everything is just like I remember it, except the windows being boarded up makes it seem like it's on a sound stage for a movie instead of it being real," I explained.
"Anything unusual happen since you've been here?" She was using her innocent voice, so I knew she had something specific in mind.
"What do you mean, unusual?"
"My parents loved this house, and they loved you," she started as she rose to go to a set of canisters on the cabinet and pulled out one that contained various leaves and nuts. "This place was where they concentrated their life and their love, and if they thought you needed help, it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to give you what they thought you needed."
"You mean, like ghosts?" I didn't want to tell her about the voices and dreams yet.
"No, child," she replied with a smile, using the term her parents had always used for me. "Ghosts implies that the people who died didn't want to leave and move on. My parents had nothing to fear, so they wouldn't be here all the time with a shell of their body to try to spook you into doing things."
I decided not to argue the point. I had been taught enough respect to know better than to fight with my elders.
"But my parents were always drawn to love, and if they felt love here, they would want to do whatever they could to help you have what they had," she explained.
"How would they help?" I wondered, hoping she would say something to keep me from feeling like I was losing my mind.
"It's different for every person," Grandma Mazur explained. She was quiet so long, I figured she wasn't going to say any more, but then her eyes narrowed, and I knew she was remembering something. "When Grandpa died, I came back here, wondering if I could make it without him. I missed him."
I reached out and put my hands on top of hers. She rarely spoke of her husband, and seeing the look in her eyes now, I could see his memory still hurt. I guess the fact that she tried to live as though he didn't exist was proof that my ability to live in denial was inherited from her and not something I'd created on my own.
"At first, I would see them in my dreams, and we'd talk just like we used to when they were alive," she explained, duplicating my experience. "Then when I would come by and talk to myself, I could swear I heard them respond – giving advice the way parents like to with their children."
"Did you ever hear from Grandpa?" I wondered. It seemed logical to me that if her parents could reach her that her husband should be able to, as well.
"No." She smiled at that question. "But this wasn't his house, so if I wanted to go to a place where our love was concentrated, it wouldn't have been here. My father made him nervous."
I nearly laughed out loud at that. "How could Nagypapa make anyone nervous?" I wondered, picturing the kind old man, molding wood with his hands and speaking only kind words to anyone he encountered.
"Can you picture your father being cruel to someone?" she challenged.
I tried – honestly tried – to imagine him yelling at a guy, but failed completely. "No, he doesn't have a mean bone in his body."
Grandma smiled at me and asked, "Did you know Steve came to the 'Burg about two weeks after Valerie came home with the girls?"
"Steve?" I hadn't heard that, and I wondered why it had been kept from me.
"Yep. I answered the door and said his name in greeting, but before I could ask what the sleazeball that cheated on my granddaughter wanted, Frank was practically pushing me out of the way to get right up in Mr. Hollywood's face. I couldn't hear everything he said, but when he finished talking, Steve nodded and then turned and practically ran away," she reported with a small smile.
"Why didn't Dad let him in? He might have been there to reconcile with Valerie." I couldn't figure this out.
"No, child..." Grandma Mazur squeezed my hand. "He was there to hand her divorce papers so that he could rush the process and run off legally with the babysitter. Once your dad realized that, he ran him off and threatened to be sure Steve didn't have the necessary equipment to run off with the babysitter if he ever stepped foot on his property again. There is something about a father that makes him protect his daughter. You may not see it as possible until the time comes, and then it just explodes. Your grandpa and Nagypapa got along beautifully, but there were just enough moments of Nagypapa asserting how he felt about the man taking his baby away from him that kept Grandpa from thinking of this house as the place he could fully relax." She laughed when she stopped talking, which made me think there was more to the story, but I got the feeling I shouldn't push for it right then.
"Now, tell me what they've been telling you." She looked at me with an expression that said pretending that I hadn't heard from them would be useless.
I let out a breath and finally decided to just admit to it, and I'd use Grandma's reaction to see if I was losing my mind or not. Of course, this plan was sort of like taking an exam, knowing in advance that it was being graded on a very generous sliding scale. Using Grandma's point of reference for a sanity test gave me a lot of wiggle room.
"Mainly it has been encouragement when I was feeling like I wasn't making a difference, but there were a couple of dreams where Nagymama talked to me about Manny, too." I didn't want to explain the rocky start to our time here.
Grandma's eyes narrowed, and then she said, "Let me guess. He was stubborn and fought you about what he should and should not do while you're locked up here."
"Something like that," I agreed, figuring it was close enough.
"Is it getting better?" she asked, her trademark grin coming back.
For some inexplicable reason, my face decided it needed to be redder, so I blushed at her question, encouraging her to push a little more.
"It is, but you wish it were better still, right?"
"Grandma!" I cringed at how much I sounded like my own mother when she scolded me.
That response earned me a good laugh. "I brought you some food from your mother," she abruptly changed the subject.
"What does she know?" I blurted out, worried now that Mom would show up, too.
"Relax." Grandma patted my hand once more. "I told her you were here with your husband and that he had been injured and was in danger. So the only way for you to survive long enough for her to meet her new son-in-law was for her to stay away until the danger had been resolved."
The tea sprayed out of my mouth before I could attempt to hold it in. "You said what?" I knew I was nearly screeching at my grandmother, but I couldn't stop myself.
"She took it very well," Grandma explained. "Sometimes if you tell the truth just right, people assume you are lying and choose to believe something else entirely. In the end, she won't be able to get mad at me, because she'll realize I told the truth."
"What?" I knew I needed to calm down, but it never boded well when Grandma tried to be sneaky, and this had huge blowup written all over it.
"Helen assumed that you had gotten yourself into some kind of trouble with that job of yours and that one of the studly men you often bring around the house is assigned to protect you." That explanation did sound a lot more likely and easier to talk my way out of. "Of course, she did see lots of possibilities for you to perhaps come out of this with someone who could be husband material, so she sent the food along, hoping to help."
Leave it to Mom to try to win me a husband by feeding him well.
"What's wrong?" Manny's strained voice came from the edge of the kitchen, nearly scaring me to death.
"Manny!" I screeched, jumping up to rush to his side. "What are you doing walking on your leg?"
He nodded at the wood in his hand that was a rough version of what I assumed would be a cross between a long cane and a short crutch that he could lean on easily once it was finished. "I'm not walking on my leg," he corrected. "But you seemed upset, and I wondered if something was going on that I needed to be aware of."
His color was off, telling me this walk to the kitchen to help me if I needed it had come at a high cost to him. Despite the rough crutch to lean on, he was still hurting.
"Silly man," I said, pushing his hair back from his face and realizing he probably wished for a hair tie to pull it back the way he always wore it at RangeMan.
Grandma was strangely silent during our brief encounter and didn't make a single comment, which probably should have made me nervous.
"Do you want some help getting back to the den?" I asked.
"That depends," he replied, obviously not easily distracted. "What had you worked up a minute ago?"
Grandma took that as an invitation to speak up. "I was just catching up on news from home, and something I said caught her young ears off guard." She winked to press her point a little further.
Then she opened her purse and pulled out a mass of cables. "I also brought these in case you decide to do laundry while you're here." She held out the black wires, expecting me to take them. "One of these is the power cable for the washer, and another is for the dryer, but I don't know which is which."
There had to be a dozen cables of various sizes, which meant I'd need to try them all to find the right ones. As much as I wasn't looking forward to crawling around in the basement to get to the back of the appliances, I did need some clean clothes, so I double checked that Manny was balanced and then took the cables from her hand.
"I need you to check them now while I wait, because the ones that don't work here are probably for your father's tools, and it would be my luck that he'd decide to work on something in the garage while I had his power cables." Grandma sounded perfectly reasonable, but I couldn't help but feel that she was playing me.
Manny didn't seem to doubt the story being given.
"Are you okay for me to disappear for a while in the basement?" I asked, trying to warn him that he'd be alone with the woman he seemed to fear.
"I'm good," he replied, short but not unkind.
My offer to help him get settled somewhere was brushed away, and he repeated that he would be fine, so I went downstairs to untangle the mess Grandma had brought, in the hope of having some clean pants to wear tomorrow. It took awhile to get the ball of cables sorted, and then I had to move the washer to be able to see behind it. After shoving, kicking, and groaning, it finally moved enough for my hand to fit, and then I realized the cord was attached to it already. It just wasn't plugged into the wall. Since I'd moved the machine, I was able to reach the cable and pull it up to plug it in. Learning from my mistake with the washer, I groped around blindly behind the dryer until my hand felt something similar to a cable, and then I pulled it up. The dryer power cord was also attached, so I plugged it in and decided the washer was fine pulled away from the wall, mainly because I didn't want to go through the trouble to move it again.
I looked at all the wires I'd sorted out and realized Grandma Mazur had totally played me. It should have pissed me off, because I hated feeling like I'd been lied to, but for some reason, the fact that she'd gone through all that trouble made me smile instead. I gathered the cables and moved up the stairs slowly. On the third step, it hit me that she had orchestrated this big rouse to get rid of me, which meant she was no doubt interrogating poor Manny. I wanted to rush up to his defense, but something cool on my shoulder felt like it was holding me back.
So instead of rushing up and interrupting, I tiptoed and listened from the top stair to the voices from the kitchen.
Manny was in mid-sentence, "Then why wouldn't you stay here?"
"Are your parents still alive?" Grandma asked him.
"No, they died a few years ago," Manny confessed, a little quietly for him. "But until then, they lived in New York, where I grew up, so I got to see them pretty often."
"Would you have wanted to live with them?" Grandma pushed her point.
"God, no," he quickly replied, before attempting to soften it. "Not that I didn't love them, but once I got out on my own, I just preferred to live my life without their advice and suggestions constantly being thrown at me."
"And that's exactly why I didn't want to move back here," Grandma explained. "Every time I came here, I felt and heard them. It was wonderful because I could come when I needed them, but when I left, they stayed here, and I could live my life by own rules."
"Why didn't you want Stephanie to stay here when she got married?" Manny had asked a great question that time.
"Never liked that sleaze ball," Grandma quickly told him. "Never trusted him not to try to take the house, and I knew my parents would never forgive me if I'd allowed that. Plus, I knew they wouldn't last, and I didn't want my parents to pick up on it and attempt to break them up. I knew that dick would screw it up on his own. I just had no idea he'd do it literally."
For some reason, Manny hadn't heard the whole story, so Grandma took her time in telling him about my first marriage and its disastrous ending, complete with the media circus divorce. I couldn't stop the satisfied smile when Manny had some choice words for my ex-husband after hearing what had happened. I knew down deep that it wasn't my fault, but it was nice to hear it stated so clearly by a neutral party to be sure the self doubt didn't creep back in.
"Why are they interested in helping us, then?" Again, it was a great question.
The clicking of Grandma's dentures made me slightly nervous. "My guess is my mother took one look at you and thought you two would make beautiful babies, and my father took one look at her and saw that she had changed."
"Changed how?" Manny wondered.
"For five generations, my family has been single child families. After Valerie was born, we all assumed Helen was done with children, too. Then she unexpectedly announced she was pregnant with a second child, and Stephanie was born. From the moment she entered the world, she was special. She was a handful that probably aged her mother at an alarming rate, but despite that, her great-grandparents adored her. Everything from her curly hair to her wild spirit reminded them of their family back in Hungary, and they believed she was destined to live a gypsy life."
I sat down on the top step, not wanting to interrupt, because I'd never heard this before.
"Doesn't that mean she was destined to live alone?" Manny asked, obviously liking the distraction of this story as much as I did.
"You know nothing of gypsies, do you?" Grandma teased. "They hate rules, being tied down with expectations and laws. They answer to just a single governing principal – love. When they love, they do so deeply, and it guides every action, every decision. So when they said she was destined to live a gypsy life, I can see the truth of it. She loves everyone, goes out of her way to do what she feels is the very best she can for everyone, yet when somebody tries to assert a power over her, to tell her how she should live or what is the right and proper thing to do, every part of her rebels against it."
"So she isn't looking for marriage and a few kids with a white picket fence?" Manny quoted what I knew Ranger had always assumed I would want as well.
I felt myself shiver at the implication that I should somehow want that for myself.
Grandma laughed. "Not because it is what her mother wants for her. If the man she loved asked her to marry him, I can assure you they'd have a passionate life together. If they had children, she'd devote her life to giving them a wonderful and happy childhood. And if she took a house, I'm sure it would feel like a home quickly, because she would fill it with love, and everyone who came in would feel it right away."
There was silence for a few minutes before Manny asked, "Why would your father want to encourage me with her if the fire he loved in her wasn't as bright?"
"I'm guessing it's because he saw her come alive in some way when she was around you. If he thought you could bring that spark back to her then he won't give up until you bring our girl back," Grandma explained.
"Where has she gone that you think she needs to come back from?"
"She's not gone far, but she seems to have forgotten the way." Grandma was sounding more and more like her parents with every riddle she spoke.
"What makes you think I know the way?" Manny challenged.
I heard Grandma Mazur tapping him and pictured her palm hitting his cheek playfully. "Alone, I don't think either of you do. But if you only guide her to places that you feel are best for her in love, and she only guides you to places she thinks are best for you in love, then you will stay on the right path together."
"What makes you think we can love each other?" he blurted out, sounding a little stricken at the idea. "Just a few days ago, she yelled at me and called me a name I'd rather not repeat."
I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing at that.
More patting from Grandma happened before she spoke. "I'm sure you gave her good reason to. I said you would have a passionate life – I never said she would bow to whatever you wanted. Loving a gypsy is like trying to hold the wind. You can exhaust yourself trying to catch it and fail every time, because it's not something you can hold. Once you learn to just stand still and let it blow over you, then you can learn to live with the moods and the changes as they shift."
"Can I ask you something else?" He sounded amused, which was a relief, because I was still totally confused by her last answer and was glad she hadn't spooked him even more. Apparently, she let him know it was all right to keep going, because he asked, "Is the crazy old woman routine an act, or are you really that outrageous?"
Grandma laughed out loud, cackling and hitting the bar with her hand. Obviously she'd enjoyed that question, and it didn't escape my notice that she never really answered it. Instead, after she pulled herself together, she said, "If you decide you aren't up to the challenge of my granddaughter, come see me. I won't make you work nearly as hard for it, and I think we could have a lot of fun."
There was a crack in Manny's voice when he attempted to respond that told me I'd eavesdropped long enough. "Ahh…Mrs. Mazur, I think if I can't keep up with Stephanie, there's no way I could keep up with you."
"Aren't you a hot ticket," she replied as I came into the room and handed her the neatly organized cables.
"Did one of these work?" she asked with a grin and a wink.
"I've got them plugged in and ready to go," I replied, knowing she was fully aware of the fact that she'd made up that errand to get me out of the room, but I didn't think confessing it to Manny was the right move.
She stood up, crammed the cables into her purse, and began walking out of the kitchen. When she stood in front of Manny, she patted his cheek once more and told him, "There is no controlling the wind, but to someone who knows how to appreciate it, it can bring many good things."
His eyes narrowed, as though he were trying to figure out what in the hell she was talking about. I felt the same way, so I didn't bother interrupting.
As she hugged me, she whispered, "I like him. Give him a chance, and I think you could be happy."
I pulled back and said, "Grandma," meaning it to be a warning that her meddling wasn't helping. This was a guy I was only pretending to be married to and who was a co-worker that could barely stand me until a few days ago. While I appreciated her talking to him and coming by, especially with food from my mother, I didn't want to encourage her in case she got her hopes up.
I walked her to the door and smiled when she turned back and called out, "Szeretlek Mama a Papa."
With a kiss on my cheek, she turned and walked out.
As soon as I shut the door, I heard that familiar voice reply, "We love you, too."