This Lifetime. | Edward Heffron

XIX.

"Why are you telling me this?" Amelia asked, eyes filled with tears. She looked up to her grandmother, who was holding the last letter from Babe in her hands. She had kept it, and all the other letters previous.

"I want you to understand, Amelia," the old woman replied, stroking her granddaughter's hair gently, "That I loved your grandfather, and this lifetime was meant to be spent with him. And no matter how much my heart wanted Babe, it was never going to be us for a reason."

That was terrible news, Amelia thought to herself, To love someone and let go of a chance to be with them.

"We all stayed in that house that felt wrong until your grandfather passed away," her grandmother continued, placing Babe's letter in Amelia's hands gently, "We then moved back into this house with my mother, and we've all stayed here ever since."

Her grandmother trembled as she stood, wobbling to the kitchen window that faced the wide horizon, "I often stared out of this window my mother used to watch out of, realizing she must've seen Babe and I all afternoon."

"Wait," Amelia perked up, her eyes twinkling, "You see us?" Her grandmother responded with a coy smile.

Staring out the window, she continued, her voice sad, "I always hoped he would return at my doorstep with a basket of eggs like I had done for him so many times, but he never did."

"Where is he now, Nana?" Amelia asked, still seated on the floor, "Surely you can go see him now."

"Oh," her grandmother waved off the idea with a hand, "He moved back to South Philadelphia to work at that distillery he got a job in, but I heard his family moved back into town after he passed."

Nodding absentmindedly, Amelia thought deeply about her grandmother's first love. "Do you see any of them around?"

"I do," the old woman replied, turning to lean on the kitchen counter, "In fact, I see his grandson almost all the time. The first time I saw him, I knew exactly who he was. He also has striking red hair."

Amelia paused, realizing just exactly what her grandmother had been telling her the whole time. Red hair.

"Nana," she breathed heavily, standing up slowly and walking to the older woman, "What's Babe's name?"

Her grandmother gripped her hand tightly. "Edward James Heffron," she whispered, a knowing smile on her face, and Amelia's world tilted over.

"James is the striking image of his grandfather. Go."