A/N:IT'S NOT THAT CHAPTER! I figured out a way to avoid it. Again. Plus, I want the cabin to be separate from every other thing. Sooo... I pulled a fast one on my beta, so this is particularly messy. Woohoo!
"You know, mothers look forward their whole lives to having their family around them in their old age." Ruth said as she separated Andy's hair into three separate strands. "And here I am, big empty house, with one granddaughter."
"Gran, what about Lucy?"
"Well, yes, I have Lucy. Who I speak to on Thanksgiving, at Christmas and Easter, and again on my birthday and hers. That's... not what we imagine." Ruth sighed, weaving the strands between her fingers and pulling a little to be sure the braids wouldn't be loose. "We imagine you coming up every other weekend, and bringing friends sometimes. And I imagined more grandchildren, to be quite honest."
Andy was sitting on the carpet in Ruth's room, in front of her large reading chair, knees folded as she flipped through a magazine. She stopped skimming over the words of the old Cosmo she'd shoved into the bottom of her suitcase and stayed stock still for a moment.
"What are you reading that trash for?" Ruth had said when she found it. "That is patriarchal garbage. I can't believe you brought that into my house."
"I know, but, still. Helpful, sometimes."
"That is heteronormative, cis-gendered, sexist bullshit." Ruth had drawled like those words were nothing.
"Geez, Gran, I just wanted to-" Not long after starting that sentence she realized she couldn't explicitly tell her she wanted to look into the 'ten tips for your tongue' article.
"Oh, I realize what you wanted to, but sweetheart that is not the way."
She let Ruth tug at her hair a little longer before asking the question burning a hole in her mind.
"You haven't met Claire's- You don't know her kids?" Andy said it so quietly, she thought it had gone unnoticed.
Ruth simply let go of the hair she had collected and shook it out with her fingers, undoing the braids she'd nearly finished, thinking it was too distracting.
"It helped that that choice didn't rest solely on my shoulders. They don't exactly live nearby."
"So she's not even in the province?" Andy asked tentatively.
Ruth shook her head when Andy craned her head around to look at her, indicating that Ruth wasn't going to divulge that information. Not because Andy couldn't know, but it wouldn't do her any good.
"It was helpful that Claire knew how upset I was about her leaving." Ruth admitted.
Andy's eyes turned sad at that. As easy as it would be to resent the kids, or her grandmother for having relationships with them, Claire was always the root of it. Her choices that screwed them all over.
"I just wish I had a full house again sometimes."
Ruth signalled her to turn back around, and Andy did, placing her magazine onto the floor and leaning back against the chair. The teeth of a comb ran through her hair and Andy sighed, remembering the time Ruth had to comb gum out of her hair with olive oil when she was six. Ruth had this way of turning back time, of welcoming all the fond memories without evoking the pain, the way they both wanted it.
"How come you never remarried, after grandpa." Andy asked, staring at the picture of the two of them on the dresser. "You could've had someone with you here all the time."
Ruth laughed and looked at Andy's discarded magazine, rolling her eyes again and then thought about the question she'd heard so many times. Wondered how to make a twenty one year old understand.
"I suppose there was no one else I wanted to commit my life to." She started. "I've not been lonely, my dear, don't worry yourself. I've spent time with people and had relationships and companionship. But I don't see myself living out the rest of my days with another man, the way I was meant to with Joseph."
Andy stared at her Gran, wondering what it might feel like, to have something meant to last forever and lose it well before it's time. To be left with nearly grown children who would soon leave the coop.
"There's no one else who will ever have me or know me like he did. I made vows to him. And for me, I felt they might be cheapened if I could say them to another. It may seem close minded but... He was my world, my story."
Andy felt her heart crack a little, trying to imagine a world where she knew her grandfather that she had idolized so much. She wished she could have witnessed a love like everyone said they had. Her parents didn't have it. She didn't know if she'd ever have it. But she guessed time would tell.
"Wow, Gran..."
"You're so like him, Ducky. So loud and bright, and thoughtful. And you have his jaw." She said, poking Andy in the cheek. "Don't cry for me, Argentina. But please, promise me something."
"Yeah?"
"Trust your gut. I keep insisting you make happiness the most important thing, because it is. I always knew there was something missing in your mother. That she didn't feel about your father the way he felt about her. Love is delicate and you need to be careful, but you also need to trust in it."
"Hello?"
"Dad?"
"Andy?" His voice of surprise struck a guilty chord in her when he picked up the phone on Thursday night. A chord that was slowly being plucked at ever since her conversation with her grandmother.
Her mother never loved him the way someone ought to. That played over and over again in her head, and she stopped being angry. Or - she tried. She understood his helplessness a little more. She tried to think about her actions over the last couple of years leading up to the stunt she pulled, breaking into the University pool, and how she hadn't tried hard enough. He still had mistakes to own up to too. But maybe she had to be the brave one and take the first step.
One last talk, one from Sam this time, was what had her finally dialling his number while he sat on the porch swing, waiting patiently for her return.
"If it's only four minutes long, will you lie to Ruth for me?" She giggled, head on his lap while he placed another M&M into her mouth.
"Hmm, I might be persuaded to lie for you."
"Oh yeah?" She laughed, grabbing at the neck of his shirt and pulling him down for a kiss.
"Maybe."
She seemed so content in that moment but when she sat up properly, and moved back to where she'd been twenty minutes ago, a troubled look took over. She'd looked that way all day and Ruth seemed to be hovering a little more than usual. He knew he was missing something - but he also knew it had nothing to do with him. Her dad was a tetchy topic, that she'd slowly been revealing to him. He knew he'd had a tough time since her mom left, that he spent too much time at the Penny. The rest - he wasn't sure how to ask.
He picked up his guitar that he'd left leaning on the side of the swing, and began tuning it.
(She'd made him promise to bring it to the cabin.
"You could serenade me!" She'd said, looking so serious and excited.
"What? No, how about you serenade me?"
"Oh, I can do that, I can absolutely do that. Not well, but if you need me to sing to 'Hero' at the top of my lungs, I can do it at the drop of a hat."
"How about this then, how about no one does any serenading?"
"Alright. You're too cool for that, I get it. But bring it anyway. Please Sam. Please bring it?"
He was reluctant to say no. So he didn't.)
"Okay, no more stalling I have to do it." She said, letting him into her head a little.
He stopped moving his fingers and rested his arms over the guitar and touched her shoulder before she had the chance to stand.
"Don't over think it. He's just going to be glad to hear your voice. You're not going to have to talk about the heavy stuff today. Just get a foot in the door."
She'd studied his easy face for a moment and considered his words, knowing he was right, and looked briefly at the phone, then back to him.
"Do you have a good relationship with your dad?"
She still knew so little about him. Hardly a thing about Sarah, and Ruth considered her a friend. One who didn't visit, or call, evidently. Sam didn't offer much of himself. She didn't pry, but she couldn't always check her curiosity.
"No. He wasn't a good guy anyway. We're past the point of talking." He said vaguely, turning to look out at the lawn rather than her. "You love your dad, Andy. You know you do. That's what's important."
If it weren't for Ruth moving inside the house, floor boards creaking close by, she may have lingered on the topic, but suddenly the phone weighed more in her hands, and her fingers moved over her home number.
"Sweetheart, it's so good to hear your voice. I- I miss you."
You didn't have to - is the thing she almost said, but it wasn't the time for that. She didn't even feel sorry for herself like she did when she got there. He inadvertently gave her something invaluable. It felt like she was getting back a part of herself that had been missing too long.
"I miss you too, Dad. I've - I've been meaning to call you."
"Liar." He laughed, and she smiled from her end. Terrible liar, through and through.
"Not about missing you." She insisted. "I'm not mad at you anymore."
She was wondering up and down the porch, speaking quietly enough that Sam couldn't make out her words, only her tone. He plucked at the strings of his guitar, tuning them without his tuner which he'd lost who knows when. He played a chord that wasn't quite right and she look over her shoulder and poke out her tongue, and he'd smile and go back to tuning.
"That's good to hear. I'm glad." Tommy said, so softly and warmly she could hear his smile.
Her father wasn't a cold man. He smiled wide and laughed with his whole body, but as she grew older, she knew that he was that way with very few people. Some colleagues, old friends, and sometimes a nice stranger on the right day. But they were less frequent in the last couple of years. And she knew it had to do with her.
"How's your grandmother?"
"Gran's great."
"Gran? Your done with that Ruth nonsense?" Tommy chuckled, making Andy feel foolish.
"Yeah Dad, she's my Gran. I only have the one."
"That's what I was trying to tell you." He said lightly.
Too lightly. It struck something, just as Sam played a perfect G-chord.
She wanted to ask him if he believed that, why he kept them apart. But she couldn't. Sam was right, she only had to start tonight. She needed to keep her head about her.
Sam played a perfect chord progression and she looked back to him just in time to see a satisfied look on his face, like the notes just filled a missing piece of a puzzle.
She looked at him, and - the missing pieces also kind of, fall into place. Without this summer, she wouldn't know Sam.
Her whole life she'd liked stories about time travel. The kind where the character can go forward and backward but the present stays the same, the ones where the slightest change shifts the world. She was never offended by the holes in the theory, or cared for the fanatics who picked the problems to death. She loved the idea that the future is delicate, and also set in stone. That just the right events take you to where you're meant to go.
Maybe things went just the way they were meant to go. Like the universe had followed some pre-destined plan.
Maybe if anything had been different, she wouldn't know Sam. Maybe he would've been there just the same.
In this case, she chose the former. Because while he sat there, slowly beginning to play 'Wonderwall', she needed to believe it was the only way she could have had him. And she knew, even then, she'd take him however she could.
"Six, count them, six minutes. Ha!" She said as she fell back onto the swing next to him, smiling her dazzling smile, feeling quite triumphant.
"And my guitar is finally playable."
"Good. I'm glad." She said, removing a stray dog hair from Sam's black tee shirt.
It didn't matter whether Boo was with them or not, somehow everything either of them had was covered in dog hair. Like an inside joke, they mindlessly removed it from each other's clothing every time they sat down together.
"Yep. We took some dusty things off the shelf and tuned them up."
Andy snorted, not expecting that level of cheese to come out of his mouth, and Sam was laughing before the sentence was even finished. She brought her forehead down to rest on his shoulder, and he leaned back into the chair, pulling her with him.
"You're such a dork." She laughed.
She relaxed into him easily and it was obvious to him that she felt better than she had all day. That this big obstacle was out of the way, and then, tomorrow, they'd be free to go off together, nothing holding them back. It gave him a little anxiety - knowing that they'd been building up to this for a while. He wasn't used to it. But there was still an excitement to it.
"Sometimes. I like to think I have a way with words."
"Oh really?" She asked suggestively, moving in to kiss him just once, maybe to pull some nicely strung words out of him.
"Yeah, I've got a few for you, but it's something that my own grandmother would have put soap in my mouth for saying so."
Andy laughed again, and brought one hand up to slap him gently on the chest, trying to be irritated, or offended. But she still kinda wanted to hear them.
"Maybe you could just save them for while we're away."
With a raised eyebrow, and her bottom lip being dragged under her teeth he groaned and shook his head at her. In twenty four hours they'd be alone, and they wouldn't have to tease each other anymore.