“Yeah, I—I agree,” Sage says. Then he walks over, bends down, and hugs the old man tight.
He’s always been an affectionate kid, something neither of us were used to and were probably not great at giving, but for him, we tried.
Pops wraps his old wrinkly arms around him and squeezes him back. He whispers something I can’t hear, and when Sage pulls back from the hug, he’s as content as I’ve ever seen him.
Somehow in the last five minutes, Pops has managed to break down walls we didn’t know existed.
“Well, fuck me,” Grey mutters the second he gets a look at Sage.
The change in his posture is immediate. Whatever Pops said to him had more of an impact than anything either of us has probably ever said to him.
When Pops finds us staring at him in varying degrees of disbelief, he chuckles. “What’s got y’all tongue-tied? I’ve got a rainbow flag out there so folks of all flavors know they’re welcome here. We don’t discriminate, and I think kids should be who they’re meant to be.”
“This is not the South I thought we were getting involved with,” Grey says to my back.
“Nope, this here is Happiness, Georgia. The Heart of Joy lives in Happiness, didn’t y’all see the sign on your way into town?” He chuckles to himself, then whistles to the sky as though he didn’t just rip open our world and heal it in the same damn sentence.
When I finally turn to Madison, her face is shining with emotion. “He may get into trouble more than his fair share, but he loves, and he loves hard.”
“Nothing is more valuable than love from someone who cares. I’ve been telling her that since she was knee-high,” Pops agrees.
Grey clears his throat, then tugs at the collar of his button-down—yes, he’s still dressed for the office even climbing ladders. He’s never been great with his emotions, but by the pale shade of his face, I’m guessing this has more than quadrupled his limit for the day.
“I’m going to finish hanging these shutters so I can get back to work. Have fun with Madi, Sage. Call if you need anything.”
“Two weeks, Grey,” Madison calls to his back. His shoulders lift infinitesimally.
“Two weeks what?” he asks, not quite turning around.
“It took two weeks for Pops to rope you in. I told you it would happen, it always does.” She laughs, but she’s not laughing at Grey, or even this situation. I think she’s laughing because she’s finally accepted that Pops gets what Pops wants, and right now, he wants me and Grey doing manual labor.
“It’s not my fault. The old man talks me in circles until my head’s spinning.” Grey does the most un-Grey thing then—he smiles at Pops. “You would’ve made a great lawyer.”
Pops shoos him toward the ladder. “Nah, too much school. The words never did work right for me.”
“Pops is dyslexic,” Madison explains.
“I didn’t know that.” It feels like something I should’ve known.
The old man simply rocks his head side to side. “We all have obstacles that test us. That was one of mine. Now get to work. Daylight’s running short.”
“It’s eight in the morning,” I remind him.
“Lots to do, my boy. Lots to do.”
Madison giggles, and my chest dances to the sound. I watch as she and Sage pile into her car and back out of the driveway.
It’s then that my chest pinches as though someone’s squeezing my heart in their fist.
I peer up at Grey on the ladder. “Have we sheltered him too much?”
He’s nodding his head. Does he have the same fears that I do? Did we unknowingly install our hang-ups on our nephew in the name of keeping him safe?
“Give him time,” Pops says. “He’s still got a long time to find himself.”
“He’s the real-life version of Bert from Mary Poppins,” Grey says, hitching his thumb in Pops’ direction.
It was Sage’s favorite story for three years straight—Mary Poppins and the Match-Man.
