Odd Girl Out

Grandpa was eighty-nine years old, so I tried to give him some latitude. He was from a different generation, and terminology had changed a lot. He spent a lot of time complaining about hippies, though hippies haven’t been a thing since well before my time.
          Unlike a lot of people his age, he didn’t mind talking about the war. At first I thought he was exaggerating, or even lying, with his stories about, you know, single-handedly taking out a German tank one day and a German pillbox the next, and getting bayoneted in the side, but then I looked up his service record, and would you believe it, it was all true! A Silver Star and three Purple Hearts: a bona fide Audie Murphy.
          Toward the end I don’t think he really knew who I was, but I think he still liked talking to me. He’d repeat himself a lot, and my older sister Linda (she’s 25 years older than me) would say, Grandpa! You’re repeating yourself again, and he’d smile like that was the point.
          I’m adopted, this is why there’s so many years between Linda and me. It’s a whole thing. My folks (my adopted dad is grandpa’s son) took me in when their friends (my birth parents) died in a car accident. They were thick as thieves, said grandpa, thieves. They went everywhere together, they were in business together.
          What sort of business, grandpa?
          Oh everything, he said. Cars, banking, they dealt in rare books for a while.
          Linda didn’t have time for this. She took care of him but didn’t really listen to what he had to say.
          You look so much like her, said grandpa, but whether he meant my birth mother, or my adopted mom, or even Linda, I’m not sure.
          They were sort of a bad influence, he said on another occasion.
          Who, I asked?
          He seemed to think about it. The Germans, he answered. They got everybody riled up. Look at the Israelis now.
          We watched TV for a while. A courtroom show came on.
          That reminds me, he said.
          A few minutes later he said it again, so I asked what he meant.
          Just early days, he said.
          A few days later we were watching an old movie. James Mason was shot and was dying but couldn’t find anyone to help him. That man needs help, said grandpa. You can’t just abandon people, especially when they have people who depend on them.
          In the movie James Mason has a girlfriend, but I told grandpa I thought she could take care of herself.
          No she can’t! he almost shouted. She’s just a little thing, just a tiny girl.
          Later I asked Linda about it. She didn’t know. I asked her if maybe she knew where some of our folks’ old photo albums were, or even letters or stuff.
          That all got burned up, she said. In the fire.
          No one ever liked to talk about the fire, so I let it drop.
          The next day I made sure to put on the channel that showed reality stuff about 911 responders. Cops, EMTs, firefighters. They showed a lot of fires, all day long, but it didn’t seem to bother grandpa at all.
          Soon after that grandpa died in his sleep. After the funeral I asked Linda, what happened to my birth parents?
          She said, you know all this.
          I asked, what happened to my adopted father?
          She said, you know about the fire.
          At the funeral, people kept commenting on how Linda and I had such a strong family resemblance. I didn’t tell them I was adopted.
💀