Bitter Sweets

always, she was taken aback by her grandmother’s insight and candor. “So?”

    Gran shook her head and sipped her tea. “Now, there’s an intelligent response. How can I possibly argue with that?”

    “Does that mean you don’t want the tea?”

    With a look of pure ecstasy, Gran took a long, deep smell of the steam that curled from the rim of the delicate china cup. Savoring the essence of the flowers, she said, “No. I’ll keep it. I can be bribed. Sit yourself down.”

    Gran pulled her legs up, and Savannah stretched out across the foot of the bed. Lying on her side, she propped up on one elbow.

    “What did the colonel have to say?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

    “Who’s asking? My granddaughter, whom I love and trust, or Savannah Reid, P.I.?”

    Savannah thought for a moment and decided to be honest. After all, her interest was more professional than personal. “The P.I., I suppose.”

    “Then, in that case, it’s none of your business. Colonel Neilson is my friend now, and I don’t tell tales on friends...unless they’re really good, juicy ones about sex,” she added. “Then I might tell Florence.”

    Florence and Gran had been next-door neighbors and best friends for thirty-five years.

    “I wouldn’t want you to betray a confidence, Gran, you know that.”

    “I don’t know that at all, so don’t be all sweet and lightness with me. I know more about you than you know about yourself, young lady. And the truth is, you’d do most anything to solve a case.”

    “Well... I...”

    “On the other hand, I understand how important it is to you to settle this one in particular. I know how bad you feel about your part in it, plus you’re worried sick about that little girl.”

    “That’s true, 1 am. And if the colonel were to mention anything to you that you thought might help me...”

    “I’d tell you. Okay?”

    Savannah relaxed, knowing she had no reason for concern. Gran was sensible, if nothing else.

    “Mostly, the poor man is just grieving over losing his daughter, and I know how he feels.” Gran’s eyes momentarily lost their luster as she looked into the past. “I thought it would just about kill me, too, when I lost your Uncle Henry, your father’s oldest brother. He died in the Korean War, you know.”

    “Yes, Gran, I know. Dad told me about it. I’m really sorry I never met Uncle Henry.”

    “I wish I never raised him in the first place. He was my first baby, you know, and real sickly. But I took good care of him and brought him up to be a fine young man. I remember askin’ myself, ‘What for?’ Just so he could step on a mine and get blown to kingdom come?”

    Savannah reached over and covered her grandmother’s hand with her own. “I’m sure Henry was a blessing to the world for the time he was here.”

    “He was; it’s true. But I know what the colonel is suffering. In some ways it’s even worse than losing your mate. I hated losing your grandfather, but at least he had led a long, fulfilled life.” Stroking Gran’s fingers, Savannah tried to return some of the support and comfort she had received over the years. It felt good to be on the giving end for a change.

    “My great-great-grandma, Granny Shaw .. . she came over here on the boat from Ireland, you know, during the Great Potato Famine,” Gran continued, “and she used to say, ‘It’s unnatural for the lamb’s fleece to hang from the rafter before the sheep’s.’ And that’s the way it feels when one of your own children goes before you. It’s not the way the good Lord intended it, and it hurts more. You ask any mother or father who’s lost a young’un.”

    “I’m sure that’s true, and I’m sure the colonel must be in terrible pain.”

    “He is, indeed. I have no doubt at all about that. Plus, his baby was taken away through an act of cruelty, not an accident, or illness, or war like my Henry. That has to be even worse.”

    “About the worst thing a person can endure, I have no doubt.”

    Gran set her romance novel aside and picked up her small, well-worn Bible from the nightstand. “We’ll have to remember Colonel Neilson in our prayers tonight, Savannah. He needs all the comfort he can get.”

Half an hour later, Savannah lay on her own bed, staring up at the antique ceiling fan she had installed last summer.

    She liked to think of herself as a spiritual person, if not particularly religious. But it had been longer than she cared to remember since