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One morning, the kitchen was filled with the smell of boiled potatoes, but the steam was thick with something else— fear. He tried to stand, his knees buckling, and I caught him before he hit the floor. “It’s okay,” I whispered, though I didn’t know what to say. He forced a smile, the one that never reached his eyes, and said, “Just a little cold, that’s all.”
He started taking more pills than I could count, their colors spilling across the nightstand like a rainbow of regret. The house grew quieter, the rain outside now a distant memory. My phone, the cracked relic, buzzed less often, its battery dying faster than my hope.
When he finally died, the world stopped completely. The house felt hollow, the stairs empty, the kitchen cold. I stopped eating, my stomach churned at the thought of food. Sleep became a stranger; I lay awake, listening to the silence, counting the seconds until the next breath of wind rattled the window.
Days blended into one another, a grey blur. I didn’t even notice the calendar flipping months. The only thing that changed was the phone— a dead weight on my nightstand, its screen black as the void inside me.
Then, one afternoon, a vibration broke the stillness. The screen lit up with an unknown number. My heart jumped, a startled bird. I answered, my voice hoarse.
“Your grandfather wasn’t who you think he was. We need to talk.”
The voice on the other end was flat, almost mechanical, but there was an edge that cut through me like a knife.
“Who is this?” I asked, my throat dry.
“You’ll understand when we meet. Bring the old photo album.”
The line went dead. I stared at the phone, the words looping in my head. The old photo album— the one I’d kept tucked in the attic, the one with pictures of Grandpa smiling, of me as a baby, of a man I thought I knew.