Maybe eight, ten dead turtles. All with a bullet hole in their shells.

Gramps was a sniper in the war.

[Shakes head]

Yes.

Just a nick.

But it hurt me, and it scared me.

[Expression turns faraway]

Yes.

Preacher understood that.

He understood Gramps.

[Expression gains focus]

Gramps might have died with the buzz cut that he retained since the war and Preacher’s hair might have been down to his shoulders.

But those men?

Two peas in a pod.

“Well, there you go,” Gram mumbled.

I was staring.

“Holy crap,” Sonia breathed.

We were all sitting at the dining room table, looking through the kitchen to the mudroom, which was what we called our living room.

And Gramps and Preacher were standing there with Tommy, and Gramps had just slapped Preacher on the shoulder in male camaraderie.

“You know, your grandfather told your mother the night before she married your father that he’d put her in his car and drive her to Florida, and the wedding, and that man, be damned.”

Slowly, I turned my head to look at her after hearing a story I’d never heard before and I felt Sonia had perked up to listen too.

“She picked that man,” Gram finished.

She then clicked her teeth and winked at me.

“You’ve always been a smart girl. Not that your mother wasn’t. That man even had me bamboozled. Gotta admit, that isn’t hard when it comes to me, but it was when it came to your mom. We all can learn at any time, and it doesn’t have to be us who’s the one who makes the mistake that teaches the lesson.”

“Lynie!” my grandfather called. “We gonna feed these kids or what?”

“Did your fingers stop working?” Gram asked.

“They’re gonna work enough for me to turn the key in the ignition in my truck to go get Kentucky Fried Chicken,” my grandfather told her.

“Yay! My favorite!” Sonia cried.

Gramps totally knew that, but he ignored her like he was adept at doing because it wouldn’t do for a man’s man to give it all up and show outright he doted on his girls, even if he caught absolutely everything.

And doted on his girls.

“I’m making my macaroni and cheese,” Gram declared.

On no, she wasn’t.

We were having Preacher’s favorite.

Hamburgers.

We were not having Gram’s macaroni and cheese.

And not because I didn’t know where Preacher stood on macaroni and cheese.

“Oh, lawd,” Jen mumbled.

She’d had occasion to force down Gram’s mac ’n’ cheese.

Obviously, I had too.

So, I winced.

“How about I fry up those burgers,” I suggested after recovering from my wince.

“I’m making my mac ’n’ cheese,” Gram decreed.

“Lynie, no you’re not,” Gramps denied.

“Lyla isn’t frying up hamburgers for famous rock stars,” Gram returned. “My mac ’n’ cheese is a delicacy.”