Life Through a Lense

Chapter Thirty-Two

Grandma's funeral was just like my mom's funeral. Sure, different people, different setting, but the same premise; a bunch of people that you've never met in your life (but claimed to have seen you when you were 'this big'...whatever that means) telling you how sorry and if there was anything they could do help, don't hesitate to call (even though you don't have their phone number and they don't give it to you). Thank god it wasn't an open casket, I didn't need my grandmother looking like a creepy wax figure from a museum to give me nightmares for the rest of the year. The average age of the funeral attendees was probably at least 70 (and that was with Ivy and I's age added in there). I'm pretty sure Ivy was allergic to whatever flowers they put up because she was sneezing the entire time and was rubbing her eyes nonstop. 

It couldn't end soon enough. 

A man, probably in his late seventies, lingered in the back. He wasn't anyone that I recognized, but something told me that he had known grandma very well- at least a long time ago.

While Ivy was stuck talking to Mrs. Liberwitz, grandma's next door neighbor in that prison they called a nursing home, I wondered over to the man, was reading through the program. When I was approaching him, he looked up at me. Why did this man seem so familiar? 

"I don't think I got a chance to meet you," I said. "I'm Danielle, Betty's granddaughter." 

"Of course you're her granddaughter, you look just like she did when she was your age," he remarked. "I'm Dean Highwater." 

"Did you know her well?" I asked, growing more curious by the second.

"Of course, I went to high school with Betty," he answered, a nostalgic smile spreading across his face. "Then I was the best man at her wedding." 

I still felt like there was more to the story, but I wasn't going to push him anymore. 

"Well, it was nice to meet you. Thanks for coming," I told him. 

'Thanks for coming'...like it's some sort of party. It was always strange to say that at a funeral, but what else were we supposed to say? 

Before I could pivot to leave, he speaks up again. 

"Your grandmother and I were together...about a year before your grandfather and her started going out," he said. 

  That's why he looked so familiar. He was in grandma's wedding pictures. I always thought it was strange how she had pictures of the wedding party and not just of her and grandpa. Maybe it was because grandpa wasn't the only one she loved in those pictures.   

"That's..." I trailed off, not sure how to respond to this new tidbit of information. 

"She got pregnant," he said. "She went away for a while and she wasn't pregnant anymore." 

My grandma? Pregnant out of a wedlock? That wasn't the Betty Montgomery that I had known my entire life. 

"Wait...are you saying your my- 

"No-," he interrupted me, already knowing what I was going to say. "Your mother was definitely Barry's." 

That's true, my mom definitely had my grandfather's  extremely blue eyes, a trait that had been passed on to both Ivy and I as well. Dean had brown eyes and my grandma had hazel  =so the genetic probability of my mom, me, and my sister all getting blue eyes if Dean was our grandfather was next to none (everyone on my dad's side of the family also had brown eyes as far as I knew). 

"Mr. Highwater, I'm not sure what you're trying to say," I stated. 

 "I don't think I was ever supposed to say anything about this, I don't know if she even knew that I knew," he said. "But I know that you girls are alone in this world." 

"How-

"Your grandmother and I stayed in touch over the years," He said. "I heard about your mother from one of the nursing home nurses, but I always heard about all the troubles with your dad while your grandma was still...in the right mind."

Tristan shot me a look form the back of the church. I gave him a thumbs up to let him know that everything was fine. 

"I guess I'm getting off track," he apologized. "All I know is that she kept some pictures of him somewhere in her room. I found them accidentally once, but I can't remember quite where." 

"Why are you telling me this?" 

"Because I already have a family, but maybe you can have one again." 

*** 

"Are you sure this man isn't crazy?" Tristan asked. "Maybe he's just confused. He looked fairly old." 

"No," I denied. "I know confused. He may have been old, but he was definitely all there." 

We'd been through every drawer, box, nook, and cranny in my grandma's nursing home apartment. If she kept anything in here, we definitely weren't finding it. Maybe Tristan was right, maybe the old man really was crazy. Or maybe my grandma got rid of all the evidence once and for all. Or, most likely, my grandma lost it. We Montgomery's seem to have a knack for losing things. 

A big bang scared the shit out of me. 

"Owww, fuck," Tristan groaned, rubbing his head. 

"What are you doing under the desk?" I asked. 

"Looking for a secret department?" 

"What is this, National Treasure?" I quipped. "Or a Nancy Drew book?" 

Right as I'm about to tell him to give up, he starts feeling around the desk again. 

"It sounds hollow," he commented, knocking on the underbelly of the desk. 

After some more poking around, a pile of papers fell to the ground and a wooden door hung upside down, hitting Tristan in the head again. Guess this really was a Nancy Drew book. Tristan handed me the papers. A birth certificate, pictures, articles. All of them had one name in common: David Johnson., born July 21st, 1968. So it really was true. My grandmother had kept her son hidden for all these years. My uncle, my mom's brother. 

I guess we didn't know my grandma as well as we thought.