She spun around and buried her face into his chest. Her sobbing wracked her body. It was then that I knew that something truly terrible had happened. Grandma never cried. The policemen left. Their terrible duty was done. Now my grandparents had their own terrible duty to do.
Grandpa helped Grandma into a chair and came over to me. He knelt in front of me and clasped my hands in his large, worn ones. His eyes looked into mine. He was trying not to cry.
“Jane, there’s. . .there’s been an accident,” he told me. I nodded. I knew about those, but why was he crying? “Your parents. . .your parents’ car rolled over. They didn’t make it.”
“Make it to dinner?” I remember asking him. I didn’t want to face the truth. Why would I?
He shook his head. “No. They’re. . .they’re dead, pumpkin, but don’t you worry. Grandma and I will take care of you.”
He had more words of comfort to give to me, but I didn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear them. My parents. Dead. I was just old enough to understand what that meant. It meant they weren’t coming back. No more of Mom’s smiles. No more of Dad’s piggy-back rides. Gone. Fleeting innocence vanished in a single instance.
Tears welled up in my eyes. Grandma wiped her own and joined Grandpa in front of me. She opened her arms. I fell into them, balling my eyes out.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered to me through her own tears. She couldn’t stop them coming any more than I could stop mine. “We’re going to take good care of you for them.”
Grandpa wrapped his arms around us, and for a long time we sat on the floor joined in our grief.
Maybe that’s why I’m so close to them, and why it was so shocking to find out just how little I knew about them.