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Chapter 12 - Flashback: Grandpa

Grandpa wasn't always the wrinkly party goer he is today. He finished work at the station at eight o'clock and he would be home by half past in time for a bedtime story.

I'd sit on his lap and he'd rock on his chair. He stopped reading to me when Grandma became ill.

I overheard Kathleen and Granddad talking about putting her in a home for the last days of her life. I'd never seen him so angry.

I never saw Grandma as much as Grandpa, but I still cried when she died. A part of Grandpa's soul went with her.

Sarah, the cute little girl with blonde pigtails liv3d next door. She came up to me one day when I was on the swings.

"Cheer up, at least your granny is with your mum and dad."

"I know, but I don't want anyone else in my family to die."

"But people have to die to make way for people to be born."

It's hard to believe that there was a time that I wanted to avoid death. I might have been just a child, but all I knew what that my life sucked.

"We should get married," Sarah said to me. "It will be great."

"But we're too young."

"I don't mean now, I mean when we grow up."

"Don't you have to like each other first? And I want to become a priest and I don't think we're allowed to get married."

"Times are changing. I'm sure if you ask the Pope or the Archbishop of Canterbury very nicely, I'm sure they will let us get married. And we do like each other don't we?"

"I guess."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes."

"Prove it!"

That was my first kiss. I don't remember much of it now. There might have been a feeling of love, but all I really remember is the taste of cold baked beans on her lips.