An Alpha's Inheritance

Pancakes on the Porch

I’m standing on grandpa’s front porch. I want to sit on the nice patio furniture grandma picked out, but I’m worried I’ll startle grandpa if he sees me through the window before I’m ready.

I’m not ready. I stare at the wood grain of the front door. I’m out of breath and one of my socks is bloody from a rock I stepped on half a mile back. It was stupid to run away from mom like that in the middle of a fight. It was stupider to run the 2 miles to grandpa’s in my socks. I just needed to get away. Immediately.

I can’t keep bleeding onto grandpa’s porch. It’ll stain the boards, and I think they’re newly replaced. I sit down on the stoop and lean back against the door. I put my bloody foot up, and it starts to throb now that I’ve taken my weight off it. I can’t hear anything inside so I think I’m still hidden. Grandpa usually doesn’t go out this early in the day. I take a few deep breaths and try to slow my breathing before I think about what to do next. I feel a small prick in the corner of my eyes and try to suppress it.

Suddenly, I fall back and realize the door was opened behind me. I look up from where I’m laying on my back on the floor of grandpa’s foyer into his eyes. I expect him to look angry, but he doesn’t even look surprised. 

He looks back and forth between my watery eyes and my bloody foot for a few seconds. “Do you want some pancakes? I was about to make some.”

I remain on the ground. “How did you know I was here?”

Grandpa sits down beside me, and brushes my hair out of my eyes. “Are you kidding? You sounded like a herd of elephants on my porch!” 

I smile at his joke. “Really? Come on! I used all the soft step stuff you taught me last summer!”

“Well obviously, I didn’t teach you too well!” He stands up and holds out a hand to me. “Come on, let's go clean up that foot of yours and make breakfast.”

I take grandpa’s hand, and he helps me up, then leads me to the cushioned seat on the porch. “You’re not tracking that,” he gestures broadly to my foot, “all over my carpet.” He leaves me alone on the porch for a minute then comes back with a little first aid kit and a bottle of water. He peels off my bloody sock and looks at my foot for a second before saying “What did you even do?”

I can’t make eye contact with him. “I had a fight with mom.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything.

“She didn’t spend the night at home last night.” I expect him to react strongly to this, but he doesn’t. He just pours some water on my foot and starts to wash away the blood. “How could she just leave me and Gracie alone like this? Is this why y’all started fighting?”

Grandpa sighs and finally says, “I meant what did you do to your foot?” 

We both laugh, and the tension between us eases.

Still laughing, I tell him, “We were arguing outside, and I got so mad at mom that I just ran here in my socks. I literally just left with what I had. I put the coffee cup I was holding on the table over there.” I point to the side table where I had put down my, now empty, coffee cup when I arrived. “I think I stepped on a pointy rock on the way here.”

“It must have been a really bad fight to run in this heat while holding a hot coffee.” Grandpa finishes wrapping up my foot in clean gauze, and picks up my coffee cup. “Come inside, I just made a fresh pot.”

I stand up and follow him inside. The blast of the air conditioner when I step inside is a huge relief. I quickly follow him through the living room to the kitchen in the back. I sit down on a stool at the counter and watch grandpa move around the kitchen collecting ingredients and supplies. He sets a fresh cup of coffee in front of me and, a few minutes later, he hands me a mixing bowl and tells me to stir until it starts to bubble.

I watch him put bacon on the stove, and I stir the pancake batter. The smell of the sugary pancake batter is quickly overpowered by the bacon wafting off the stove.

Grandpa puts a plate of bacon in front of me. "You're going to need some food after that run of yours."

As soon as he says it, I realize I'm ravenous. "Thanks, grandpa." I hand the batter back to him and dig in to the bacon. It's nice and crispy, just the way I like it, and I remember why this is the place that feels most like home.

"Okay, seriously." I say. "Do you know why we're not staying here? Mom won't even acknowledge it."

Grandpa puts the first pancake down on my plate and steals a piece of bacon. "Lays, you know things have been....difficult...between your mom and I for a while now. I understand why she'd want some space. Perhaps not want to share a roof."

I walked over to the fridge and pulled out the syrup. "But she didn't even spend the night with us. She vanished for some asshole she's known since high school."

Grandpa puts down another pancake and sits down beside me. "I won't speculate on what your mother was doing last night, or who it was with. But you're welcome to come here on nights she's out." He takes a bite of his own pancake. "Just promise me you won't leave Gracie home alone?"

"God no, I would never." I quickly reassure him. "I just don't get why we couldn't just stay here in the first place." I gestured around. "It's well furnished. You have plenty of guest bedrooms, and most importantly, you have central air conditioning!" I lean back in my chair, letting the vent blow in my face.

Grandpa gets up and flips another pancake onto my plate. "Yeah, that place was the best I could talk her into. I pulled some strings, but she wanted to be independent, and I'm just the town mayor."

We finished the pancakes and bacon, and I started to clean up the kitchen.

Grandpa stops me, and says, "Leave that for now. I have some other work for you to do around the house."

"Grandpa!" I complain. "I just got here!" I'm still smiling as I follow him into the back yard.