Letters to Audrine

19- I Miss Him So Much

"Only once," she says with a laugh. "Charlie pretended to be a lost tourist who didn't speak French, and the owner just shooed us away."

"I could never see my grandpa trespassing like this," I tell her, smiling at the thought of my grandpa doing something so reckless and then lying his way out of getting in trouble. I place my hands on the rough stones that make up the roof and I imagine my grandpa sitting in this exact spot, with this exact person. Watching the sun set over the entire world.

"I always imagined this would be where he'd propose," she said in a small voice. "Saying it now, it sounds ridiculous to have a proposal planned out after only knowing him for three months. But I had it all planned out in my head."

"It's not stupid," I assure her quickly. "It's romantic."

"Sometimes, stupidity and romanticism are the same thing," she laughs, running her fingers through her graying hair. "He loved to talk about his dreams up here."

"Like what?"

"The family he wanted," Audrine answers, looking out at the sun setting over the hills and painting them in colors of yellow and pink. "He only wanted two kids, but I wanted a big family, so we agreed on three and maybe four, depending on how things went. He wanted to open a studio where he would teach art to children in the summers. And he wanted a dog."

"He always wanted a German Shepherd," I recall from my own memory, because that's always what he'd told us. However, my grandma was allergic and by the time that they divorced, he didn't think that he had enough energy to keep up with a dog.

"And he wanted to name it Gemma," she says with a loud laugh. "How stupid is that? Gemma the German Shepherd."

I laugh too, "That is pretty stupid."

"I don't let myself get carried away in the what-ifs of the past, because it's painful," Audrine tells me. "Especially now, finding out that he'd written to me for so long. That we both spent so much time thinking that the other wasn't interested in reconnecting. But it's hard not to think about what if."

"I know," I sympathize with her, because I've been thinking about all of the what ifs too.

"Seeing you with Silas, and how happy you make each other, makes me wonder if the relationship I had with your grandpa was never meant to last, but to lead to this. To you and Silas," she admits to me. "I'm not saying that to pressure you into anything, but it makes me feel better about the situation. Like all of the pain in the past was worth it, because it brought you two together."

I'm not exactly sure how to respond to that, so I take a moment to think before I eventually say, "He does make me happy. I just wish you and my grandpa didn't have to go through so much pain and wondering for it to happen."

"Well, we're here now. It's too late for me and Charlie, but that's okay. At least we got answers, that's all I really needed. I've spent so long wondering why he never wrote to me and why he never came back for me. I'm glad he realized that the letters weren't being sent, so he knew that I never ignored him and that I would have written back in a heartbeat."

"I wish he would have sent them earlier," I tell her. "I'm sorry that you had to wonder for so long. I get why he waited, but he could have done it sooner so that you two could have talked."

"I'm at peace with what's happened," she assures me. "Like I said, running through all of the what ifs is so painful, and it doesn't help anybody."

"You're right," I agree with her.

"I hope that history doesn't repeat itself," Audrine surprises me when she says this. "I didn't bring you up here to talk about Silas, but I just really hope that you don't leave here with the mountain of what ifs that Charlie and I left each other."

I'm at a complete loss for words.

"We've both lived very happy lives," she continues, changing the subject back to talking about her and my grandpa. "And at least we have the memories."

"What did he look like when he was younger?" I ask her curiously. "I mean, I've seen some pictures, but they're all so grainy."

"Oh, he was so handsome," Audrine smiles. "The second I saw him, he took my breath away. I was working at the time, so I didn't make a move, but I wanted to. I was so happy, but so nervous, when he asked me out a few days later. He was absolutely beautiful."

"Well, now I know where I got my looks from," I say jokingly.

"And he was always dressed so well," she continues. "Tailored suits and fine colognes. I'd worked at the hotel for a while, so I was used to working for sophisticated people, but I'd never seen them up close. At first, I was so intimidated. It took me a few dates to realize that he wasn't really like a lot of the people that came through those doors. Up close, he was just a lost boy who felt trapped in that world. And the closer I looked, the more that I learned about him, and the more that I loved about him."

I can see how my grandpa would have been a handsome guy when he was younger. He always had the brightest eyes, the widest smile. In the pictures I've seen of him, he was tall with thick brown hair. Even in his last days, his cologne habits remained. I'll always associate the smell of the slightly floral scent of Tom Ford cologne with my grandpa.

"I miss him so much," I hear myself saying before I even realize it. I can imagine him sitting exactly where I'm sitting, smelling like a mix of flowers and chemicals, dreaming about the future. I can hear his laugh in my head, I can feel his soft hand on mine, and I can imagine him talking about how he feels like the king of the world up here.

"I know you do," Audrine says in a small voice.

I start to say something else, but I choke on the words and tears start to blur the hills together into one glob of green. Before I can stop it from happening, I'm crying.

Audrine lets me cry, putting her arm around my shoulders to comfort me. She waits until I've gotten it out of my system before she talks again.

"You remind me so much of him," she says. "And he was so lucky to have you as a granddaughter. I know that he was so, so proud of the strong young woman you've become."

"You remind me of him too," I sniffle, wiping the last of my tears off of my face with the tips of my fingers. "I wish I could talk to him just one more time."

"Me too," Audrine sighs and then adds, "there was a lot left unsaid."

"But I know that I was lucky to have him too," I finish cleaning up my soggy face.

"I'm glad that I brought you here," she says. "When I was thinking about where I could take you to understand what your grandpa was like when I knew him, this place immediately came to mind. He loved how peaceful everything was up here."

Before I can say anything, I hear a dog barking loudly below us and it makes me jump out of my skin. Suddenly, Audrine shoots up to her feet.

"I think we should go," she decides quickly and then starts heading over to the ladder. My heart starts beating quickly in my chest as I follow her back into the grass. The barking dog is behind a chain link fence, pawing at the metal.

"Who's there?" we hear a man yell, in French, from inside just before busting out of the door beside the ladder that we just got down.

The burly man is staring angrily at us, looking like he's ready to beat the crap out of us for trespassing on his land. I wonder if he saw us on the roof and if so, he must be pretty confused.

Trying to think on my toes, I remember what Audrine told me about what my grandpa did when this happened to him. "I'm sorry," I say to him in the friendliest voice I can muster. "We're lost. I thought this was my hotel. We are just very dumb Americans. Do you know where my hotel is?"

He says something in French, very quickly and angrily, and then gestures toward the street.

"He's letting us go," Audrine whispers to me as she grabs my arm and drags me off of the man's property.

After he's out of earshot, we both start erupting in laughter.

Audrine rests her head on my shoulder and says, "Just like your grandfather."