All Over Again

| Chapter Twelve |

Oklahoma, 2018 (Past)

Ruth's fingers spread out long and wide, her arms flung out as if she were on the Titanic and Jack Dawson stood holding her waist behind her instead of one of her cousin's. She closed her eyes dreamily and released a dramatic sigh as the wind ruffled her hair, bringing about an image of someone she loved in Oklahoma, who was no longer there.

An image of a russet-skinned Choctaw man with shoulder-length grey hair and kind brown eyes flashed behind her vision.

The same shimmer of brown as her father's eyes. Her beloved Amafo. Her grandfather.

She didn't remember much about him, but she remembered how his almond eyes would squint whenever he smiled, just as hers did, and that wide smile of glee. She remembered the love he'd radiate about his body whenever he caught sight of his granddaughter, pride being the first emotion that would register in that loving expression. He was the only person in the family to study their language and sing beautiful Choctaw songs in a voice deeper than the Atlantic ocean.

Ruth remembered her dad called him the Indian Elvis, because he sang deep and low. He didn't care if his voice was graced by angels or scraped by grovel. He loved to sing, and that was what made him so beautiful to Ruth. His love for his culture, his love for his family, and his love for singing.

And whenever the breeze would pick up at random times on a sunny day, she swore she heard him singing away in the wind.

With her chest squeezing and her tender throat thickening like a balloon with emotion, she opened her eyes.

She thought bringing her cousins along with her to see her grandfather's grave would help, and maybe using their humor could help distract her. She lost him right before she came out for college, and so off and on, the exposed wound still felt fresh. So, in not wanting to be alone when she came to bring him fresh flowers, she took them along with her.

But it didn't make Ruth feel any less melancholy.

And it didn't ease the pain of missing someone she almost got to see again. Someone she didn't think about until she came back from California, and seeing as how she hasn't seen his grave since she first left, it was easy to toss out her grieving heart for just a little while.

Ruth moved herself away from Jana to sit in front of her grandfather's tombstone, sitting beside Terry who fussed over the weeds. They had each planted a flower in his memory around the grave, and Terry didn't want anything she deemed ugly around it.

"Damn weeds," she grumbled, then went to work on dusting off his tombstone after. Ruth imagined he was laughing at her fussing, but appreciated his great niece's gesture all the same.

I'd give anything to see you again, Grampa, Ruth quietly thought to herself, using the nickname he used to want her to call him as a child. Not grandpa, but grampa.

The wind ruffled Ruth's curls again.

"So, now that y'all are done acting like two of the most basic characters in cinematic history, does one of you want to sponge down the stone?" Terry questioned, raising a plucked brow at the two girls.

"I'll do it," Ruth spoke up. She grabbed the thick sponge from the small pale of water she brought from the house and began doing exactly that, pushing down the lump in the base of her throat while doing so.

The girls worked in silence for a little while. Grave days were always hard on them, but especially for Ruth, and they respected that. Ruth was his granddaughter, and spent the least amount of time with him because of Koi and Shantelle's big move when she was younger. She spoke to him off and on throughout the years, but what hurt her the most, was that she couldn't make up for the lost time like what they were planning to do before her move back to Oklahoma. To Ruth, she was robbed of the thing she wanted most. She almost had it too.

But it was like what Ariana Grande had said in one of her most underrated songs.

Almost is never enough.

Ruth's glossy eyes looked away from the top of the large tombstone to gaze across the quiet cemetery, lost in thought. While Jana and Terry bickered, as they usually do, Ruth spotted someone climbing into an older blue truck that looked similar to hers across the way, a bundle of dead flowers in his hand. She couldn't see his face, but she noticed the way her broad shoulders seemed to expand as he tossed them into the bed before making his way to the driver's side. His long, silky hair was pulled hastily into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and though she didn't know why he was there, she had a feeling she knew exactly who it was.

He never turned around for her to be sure that it was, in fact, Raffo Leflore, but Ruth swore her mind knew what it was talking about. Though she hadn't talked to him in a week since she embarrassed the hell out of herself, there was no mistaking that mystery of a man.

And Ruth nearly called attention to his presence.

She even went as far as opening her lips to stop the girls from arguing long enough to point Raffo out, her tongue even beginning to move towards the roof of her mouth, when she stopped herself. She didn't know if she wanted to out his business like that and draw unnecessary scrutiny to his retreating form. Knowing Jana, she would have tried to speak to him despite him being here to grieve his own person.

And Ruth didn't want to do that to him. Despite him possibly being upset with her, she couldn't put him in that situation.

So, instead, she shut her mouth and watched him drive away, the wind nudging at her curls once again. She glanced up at the sky's clear blue stretch, no other gust of wind or cloud in sight. She closed her eyes, wondering what her Grampa was trying his hardest to tell her. 

If only the spirit world wasn't so far away.

The three girls didn't stay too much longer, just enough to say their goodbyes and pretty up the grave before setting out to their uncle's. Jana and Terry didn't comment on Ruth's sudden quietness and allowed her some time to keep to herself, pressed up against Terry's car window with her cheek resting on the hilt of her palm. She didn't feel the need to talk just yet. She just wanted some peace and silence until they get to Uncle Rickey's.

And as soon as they arrived, she was the last to get out of the car and trudge up the familiar driveway.

"Hey Honey-Bee," Uncle Rickey greeted as his three favorite nieces came barreling through the door. "Jana, Terry."

"Hey Uncle," Jana saluted, walking passed him and into the kitchen for a nice cup of sun tea. Terry was right behind her, but spared her uncle a kind smile as she does so.

Ruth was the only one who took her time to really greet Uncle Rickey by giving him a long hug and wanting to be in his presence longer than just a few seconds. Though it hasn't been too long since she last saw him, she recognized he was the closest figure to her that was a combination of her father and Grampa, both of whom she was missing deeply.

Uncle Rickey didn't mind the extra long squeeze and patted Ruth's head affectionately. "Hey, girl. What's going on?"

She pulled away with a half-hearted shrug. "We just came back from the grave, so I guess nothing new."

"Ah," he murmured, understanding touching his old gaze. He nudged her towards the kitchen then. "Go pour yourself some sun tea with the girls. I got some pizza coming for y'all, so that should fix you right up."

"Thank you, Uncle," Ruth offered him the best smile she could muster and he took it, never expecting her to put more of herself out there than she could.

And as she drunk down two glasses of sun tea and ate three slices of cheese pizza, laughing and talking with her Okie family, it took no time at all for her to feel much better than she did before. Moving to Oklahoma a year ago was the best decision she could have ever made for herself, and her loved ones proved it.

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notes: translation (from choctaw to english)

♡ amafo - grandfather

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