Read Online If You Could See What I See by Cathy Lamb - Free Book Online Page B

irritating me.”
    I stopped drumming my fingers. “I don’t want to irritate you, Grandma. With that fiery temper of yours, no telling what you’ll do.”
    “Your clothes are irritating me, too. I can hardly think through your decrepit fashion sense.”
    I was in a white T-shirt and jeans. The jeans had holes in the knees.
    “I sent you new clothes.” She sipped her whiskey. “Yet you persist in looking like a hobo.”
    I leaned forward and told her, so gently, my idea.
    She said, “Hell, no, what the hell are you thinking, you hellish granddaughter?”
    “Your story is important, your history is important. You’re inspiring, Grandma, you’ve overcome so much.”
    “I’ve overcome far more than you could ever guess at.” She blinked, and I could tell she was surprised she’d said that. I was surprised, too.
    We sat in silence as she puffed on her cigar, took another sip of whiskey. She never throws it back, says it’s a waste of whiskey.
    “I can’t speak of it.” Her luminescent eyes filled with tears. “And I won’t.”
    “Why?”
    We sat in silence again. It thrummed with her agitation, the cigar smoke floating off into the wind.
    “You remember the story I told you about Ireland, sliding down the curve of the rainbow with the dancing leprechaun and then coming to America on the back of an owl?”
    “Yes.”
    She dropped her shot glass down with too much force, then pierced me with those green eyes of hers, so sharp, so tough. “The rainbow was a slide into despair and death. The leprechaun was a dangerous and evil man who left scars on me for life, and the owl represents how I wanted to fly away from the cataclysmic disaster that came next.”
    I nodded and tried to control my shock.
    “Do you want me to tell that story, Meggie? What about the fire, should I include that, too?” She leaned forward, her brogue so thick. “Do you think you could handle that part?”
    I thought of all she’d accomplished. I thought of where she’d come from. I thought of what she’d hidden, how she’d made a life for herself here through grit, determination, and sheer will. She built a company from nothing. She built it out of desperation and fear. She was an inspiration. Her past would inspire others to overcome their own rainbows, leprechauns, and owls.
    “Yes, Grandma, I do.”
    She slammed her whiskey shot glass down and actually threw her cigar, from Cuba no less, over the railing.
    She glared at me. “Hellish granddaughter.”
     
    My mother calls Lacey’s father “Sperm Donor Number One.”
    She calls my father “Sperm Donor Number Two.”
    She decided in her early twenties she wanted children but no husband. “Why have a man hanging around your whole life? What if you want a new one? What if you get sick of him? What if he tries to tell you what to do? What if he’s mean? What if you make a mistake but can’t divorce because of the kids? You’re stuck. All problems.
    “I like a man who acts like a man. Strong. Chivalrous. Protective. I like the testosterone and the machismo. But basically I like them for entertainment and amusement only. I do not like them to be involved in my real life. That, I can handle on my own and I do not need, or want, their input.”
    We have never met our fathers.
    They don’t even know they have daughters. They were one-night stands, carefully calculated to match my mother’s ovulation cycle. She says she knows nothing about them beyond that. All she will say about them is that they were chosen for their handsomeness, their kindness, their intellect, and humor. How she figured all that out in one night is beyond me.
    Did I miss having a dad, off and on? Yes. But I had The Irishman. He was my dad. So there were Sperm Donors Number One and Two out there somewhere in the world. So what?
    I had a dad. I had The Irishman.
    I still missed him.
    I didn’t need to know more, did I?
    Did I?
     
    “I’m glad you’re back, Meggie.”
    “Me too, Lacey.”
    Lacey and I