Pregnant by my Grandmother's Man

Here I am, packing my bag for Oxford University, the culmination of a dream that feels both impossibly real and achingly incomplete. A dream my mom should be here to see. She died before I even got the acceptance letter, cancer taking her when I was fifteen and leaving a silence in our house that I’m still learning to live around. But Suzanne is here, folding my clothes with the same careful, practiced hands she’s used since I was eleven. Her hands are slower now, the joints a little stiffer, the pace measured since Grandpa Edmond died last year. Cancer. It took him in just six months, fast and brutal, and it hollowed out something in both of us. “Load up your suitcase in the boot,” she says, snapping the lid shut on my second case. “I don’t want you to be late.” Suzanne has always been my role model. She’s sharp in the way people are when they’ve had to be, a master of time-management who runs her jewelry shop down on Market Lane like a Swiss watch. She taught me how to set alarms, how to make lists, how to show up early and stay late if it matters. She taught me that, too. If it matters, you make time. On our way to Oxford, the car hums down the A44 with the windows down and the smell of cut grass drifting in. “Do you remember this song?” she asks, grinning before I can even answer. “Yes,” I say, and she turns the volume up until the speakers rattle with Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” This was Suzanne’s favorite song. Every Sunday without fail, on our way to the food market, we’d blast it and dance in the aisle between the car seats at red lights, laughing until we were out of breath. The people in the cars next to us would stare, and we’d stare right back, grinning like we owned the morning. “Baby,” she says, pulling over by the check-in gate for the housing dorm, her voice soft in a way it only gets when it’s important. “I just want you to know how proud I am of the young lady you have become. You remind me of her.” She cries then, quiet tears that she wipes away with the back of her hand like she’s annoyed at them for showing up. “I know you will make her proud.” “Yes, Granny, I will,” I promise. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small velvet box. “Here is a necklace I made for you, just as I did for your mother when she left for college.” I opened it. It’s the most beautiful rose gold key pendant necklace I’ve ever seen, with a heart-cut teal blue gem at the center and clear stone accents catching the light on a delicate box chain. It’s delicate and strong at the same time, just like her. “Thank you, Granny,” I say, and I hug her before she can pull away. “Okay, now get going before I start crying again,” she says, trying sternly and failing. “Go. Be brilliant. Call me when you’re settled.” I take my bags from the boot and wave goodbye as she pulls away, her hand out the window in that little wave she’s used since I started school. Walking to the gate with my heavy suitcases is less glamorous than I imagined. The wheels keep catching on the pavement cracks, jerking my arm and making me look like I’m fighting the luggage. Before I can say no, a handsome light-brown skinned man with curly black hair steps in. He looks like he’s in his mid-twenties, tall, with a calm smile and cologne that smells like fresh mint and cedar. He lifts my suitcase like it’s empty. “You didn’t have to,” I say, flustered. “Why would I let a beautiful lady like you struggle?” he says, looking at me with warm, easy eyes. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him if I tried. “By the way, my name’s James. And who are you?” “Tammy.” “Oh, I like your key necklace.” “My grandmother gifted it to me,” I say, touching it instinctively. “Wow,” he says, genuine. “I’m sure it’s quite expensive.” “She owns a jewelry shop, so I don’t think it cost her an arm and a leg,” I laugh. “Can I be her grandson?” he asks, grinning. We both laughed, and the tension I didn’t know I was carrying eases. James walks me to my assigned room in St. Catherine’s Hall, carrying both cases without breaking a sweat. He sets my suitcase down and dusts his hands off. “When you’ve settled in, give me a call so I can show you around,” he says, handing me a scrap of paper with a number scribbled on it. “Okay,” I say, surprised at how easy it feels to say yes. “And off he walks, hands in his pockets, whistling something under his breath. I stood in the doorway of my new room, the necklace cool against my skin, and for the first time since I got the letter, Oxford doesn’t feel lonely. It feels like the start of something.