Grandfathered: The Ties That Bind

Seasons Change

Gerald was walking by the kitchen one late summer day, watching the pale September sun stream through his window. He looked downward to follow the path the light was taking, but his eyes widened at the sight of something he didn't quite expect to see. 

He crept over to the garbage can and stuck his hand in, pulling out none other than the little baby doll he had given to Edie just a couple days ago. He raised an eyebrow suspiciously. Edie wouldn't have just dropped her doll in there by accident. 

He went on over to Edie's room and found his young daughter sprawled out on the floor playing with some stuffed animals. "Hey, Edie," Gerald said, kneeling down to just slightly above the toddler's level. "I found your buddy Big Bird in the garbage can just now. How'd he get there?"

"I don't know!" Edie shrugged.

"Well, I'm sure he didn't just get in there by himself," Gerald replied. "He's just a baby. He couldn't have gotten in there without any help. Edie, why'd you throw Big Bird in the garbage?" Gerald shook his head. "Big siblings don't throw little siblings in the garbage."

"I don't want Big Bird," Edie said. "I don't want another sibling."

Gerald's brows furrowed and he placed his hands gently on his daughter's shoulders. "How come?"

Edie just looked down and shrugged. Her emotions were complex and being so young still, she wasn't sure how to put her thoughts into words. 

"Listen, I know change can be hard," Gerald explained gently, "but some change can be good, sweetie. It'll be fun having a sibling around. Just you wait and see."

----

Edie wasn't too fond of change, but she was soon to learn that change is inevitable. And as summer turned to fall in Los Angeles, she wasn't the only one in the Martino-Kingsley family going through changes.

Vanessa was going on five months pregnant, and the little baby inside of her was beginning to grow more and more every day. And soon enough one day, her and Gerald's little one made their first kick. Gerald laughed with joy at the feeling of his little one kicking for the first time, and he immediately called up his father to have him come over and feel the kicks himself. 

Jimmy was there in the blink of an eye. He had not been there to witness Edie as a baby, so he didn't want to miss out on his next grandkid's babyhood. He cupped a hand over Vanessa's stomach in hopes that he would feel a kick, but no such feeling came. Of course, his grandkid had to stop kicking once he came by. But then all of a sudden, a fluttering sensation tickled Jimmy's hands and he knew it was his new grandson or granddaughter coming to say hello for the first time. Jimmy rose up after that, and there was a look of sheer joy in his eyes that Gerald had never seen before.

Meanwhile, Sara was going through some changes of her own. Working at Eagle Rock with Brian was turning out to be a blast. They would often go out for coffee whenever they didn't have shifts, and spent some time chatting with each other on breaks.  She never imagined she would ever reconnect with him after they had gone separate ways once he went off to college, but here they were, talking again as though they hadn't spent the last thirty years apart.

Sara appreciated Brian a lot. He was calm and cool-headed, just like she was. And they had quite a lot in common too, perhaps even more so now that they were no longer teens and had both gone through the rollercoasters of parenthood in their own ways. It felt nice to know there was someone else who had such a similar line of thinking to her. As much as Sara loved her own boyfriend, even Jimmy didn't have that one aspect about him, as he was always much more jittery than Sara and thus looked at things a bit differently than she did.

Whenever Jimmy would hear about Sara and Brian hanging out together, he'd get slightly perturbed, but as time went on he became more accepting of it. There was nothing wrong with Sara having a male friend, especially one as nice as Brian. Besides, there wasn't much room for Jimmy to worry anyway, for his restaurant was keeping him on his feet. 

One day, in the middle of the afternoon, Ravi scurried into the restaurant, panting as he held an envelope to Jimmy. "Jimmy, look who we just got a letter from!"

Jimmy took the envelope from his head chef and his eyes bugged out when he read the inscription on the bottom of the envelope. "The California Culinary Association!?" Sucking in a short breath, Jimmy ripped open the envelope. By now, all the chefs in the kitchen were surrounding their boss, bunched together in anticipation. 

With trembling hands, Jimmy pulled out the letter and began reading. "Dear Mr. Martino, We are pleased to announce that Jimmy's has been selected as 2018 Restaurant of the Year..." His voice then drifted off as his eyes darted across the paper, not really reading anything as he tried his best to process the information he had just been given. Jimmy slowly looked up and saw all his chefs cheering and clapping, but he couldn't hear anything. He just felt like he was floating. 

"Ravi, could you come into the back room with me please?" Jimmy requested.

"Of course, sir," Ravi replied, following Jimmy as they headed into the room behind the kitchen. 

Jimmy gingerly shut the door behind him, and then turned back to Ravi. He stared at his head chef for a brief second, and then all of a sudden, the two men simultaneously started jumping up and down three feet into the air and yelling like a bunch of kids. 

The camaraderie then subsided and the two men silently rushed back into the kitchen, where the chefs were still celebrating amongst each other. 

"This is amazing, Jimmy!" exclaimed Ian. 

"We're so gonna be on the map now," added Cindy. 

"Guys, we've been working to get Restaurant of the Year since we first opened up," Jimmy exclaimed, "and we finally did it!!" He held up the letter in his hand and shook it triumphantly as his chefs hollered victoriously. 

Jimmy then put the letter down and looked at it again, his face forming a gigantic grin. He had been working for this title for as long as his restaurant had been standing, and this was a moment he'd never forget. Especially, when his restaurant would become even more hectic than it already was, tenfold.