Just when things were looking perfect, around mid-October, Gideon got a call from Oregon. “My father’s father,” he relayed. “That was the social worker at his nursing home. There’s been a ‘heart episode.’ That’s what they’re calling it. He’s asking to see me.”
“Your grandfather…Grampa Star?”
“He was never that.”
“Oh. Are you going to go?”
“I’m tempted, for sure. He’s the only family I have left,” Gideon said. “By blood, even though he separated himself from the rest of us even before my dad died. I only met him a handful of times when I was really little. He didn’t even come to the funeral. I can’t imagine I’d recognize him anymore, but…”
“I’ll come with you, if you want,” Rudy said. “If that will help.”
He held Gideon’s hand the whole time, on the train, and even tighter in the hosp
