Lost Souls (Completed)

Lost Souls - Chapter Thirteen

     “Are you staying here tonight?” Nana asked as I sat down on the sofa after spending the evening at the hospital with Casey and Lola.

     I nodded

     “Yeah. Casey’s at the hospital with Lola tonight, and I can’t stay.” I paused for a moment, pondering on Nana’s question. This wasn’t fair on them. I was waltzing in and out of here to see Casey all the time.

     “Nana?” I asked. “Where’s Granddad?”

     She looked at me worriedly for a second before answering me.

     “He’s in the bath, love. He’ll be down soon”

     I nodded again.

     “Okay”

     “Is there something wrong, love?”

     “I just have something to tell you. It can keep until Granddad gets downstairs

     She continued to look at me over her glasses until Granddad came down the stairs. I could see the cogs turning in her head going ten to the dozen trying to figure out what was going on.

     “Dylan’s got something he wants to tell us, Bob” Nana said before Granddad had even made himself comfortable.

     “Is that right?” He asked, giving me the same look that Nana gave me just moments earlier. “Go on then, Son.” He gestured for me to tell them what was on my mind.

     They probably weren’t going to like this. I’d promised them 2 months and it had already been 6 weeks since I left the hospital, but I could tell they liked having me around. I braced myself for the barrage of questions that would follow.

     “Before I start, I know you wanted me to stay here for a while until I was back on my feet.”

     Granddad nodded. Nana looked at me as if she could see where this was going already

     “But, I think I’m going to move out.”

     Nana pulled herself up out of her chair and started to protest when Granddad stopped her

     “Lillian!” he warned. She sat back down.

     Granddad gave me a look of understanding and I continued.

     “I’ve got this job at the school and things are going great with Casey. I think I’ll rent a place first and then hopefully…” I trailed off. I could only hope that Casey would want to move in with me in a couple of months. I didn’t want to say it and jinx it.

     “Is that what you really want, Dylan?” I could see he already knew the answer to that. Granddad always knew what I was thinking.

     I nodded.

     “Yes, it is.”

     Granddad got up out of his chair and walked towards me, throwing his arms around me, pulling me into a hug.

     “Congratulations, son”

     Nana still didn’t look too sure about me leaving, but she soon softened towards the idea when I told her I would check in with them regularly. She worries too much.

     I sat talking to them for another 30 minutes before heading upstairs. I wanted to read some more of Casey’s letters. I’d only read a couple so far and wanted to catch up on what happened while I was away. It made me sad that she still didn’t seem to trust me enough to tell me anything yet, so this was the only way I felt I could get closer to her. Reading all these letters would possibly help me understand why she gave Lola up. That was the main thing bugging me, lately. She perfected the maternal instinct that a mother should have. Flicking through the collection of letters, I still had about 2700 letters left to read in the box and the last letter I’d read was of her telling me that she’d felt the baby kicking for the first time that day.