The Height Of Happiness

“I’m sorry to worry you, Grandpa.”

He patted her feet near where he sat, and finally asked her, “Why don’t you let me make you some hot chocolate?”

It was trick he’d used when Serena was a little girl. Whenever she was crying, pouting, or hurt, he would put a cup of thick dark hot chocolate in front of her with a handful of miniature marshmallows floating in the top. It always did the trick, but it didn’t seem to have the same effect when he set a teacup with little marshmallows inside in front of her that afternoon.

Serena looked outside where it was drizzling. The worst of winter was over, but the icy feeling still remained. There wasn’t much to do on the property, so she remained stuck inside in the very chair where she now sat. After wanting so desperately to go home, Serena now wondered if anywhere else would be better than this drafty and empty house.

Her grandfather sat across from her at the long dining table. His hands worn, Serena often forgot that those same hands had brought this house to life. They built this very table where they now sat, and the beams felt longer and wider than ever before. Even in comparison to when Serena was a tiny child, the quiet and sobering feel to the room made her feel awfully small.

“What’s wrong, Serena?” her grandfather finally asked.

She wasn’t really surprised, he was never one to mince words with her or anyone else.

“Edward and I… had an issue. It wasn’t a fight, but I just became very embarrassed. I just had to leave.”

“Are you regretting how you left it?”

Serena nodded, “Yes sir.”

He sat back in his chair. He held a cup of cocoa in his own hands as he mulled over his words before continuing their conversation.

“You don’t have to tell me what happened. You are grown now. I always want to respect that, but you’re still my little girl. I held you when you were just a few hours old and your parents were too tired to stay awake any longer. I taught you to drive, and now I’m going to tell you a bit about regret. Serena, you are too young to agonize over life like you do. You should be happy and enjoying everything the world has to offer you.”

“I know, Grandpa.”

“And I take some blame for that.”

“Grandpa, no,” Serena began, but he held up his hand to stop her.

“There is no other way to say it, so I’m just going to tell you straight out. I have prostate cancer, Serena.”

She sat there numb to the news. It took her a long minute to take it in. Never one to panic, she just began asking him questions.

“Is it fatal?”

“No.”

“Have you known for a while?”

“Just a few weeks. I went to the doctor for a usual check up when you were away on the west coast.”

“Why bring it up now?” Serena finally asked after her mind went through a million questions in a minute like an old-fashioned rolodex.

He sighed, “I’m reaching the end of my days, and this cancer has me reflecting on my life. It won’t kill me, but it isn’t doing me any favors. I was at risk for something like this long ago. They… the doctors at my usual office… they wanted me to slow down, but I didn’t know how to. I knew you were in your last semester of school. I was just figuring out how to be a widow, and then the doctors told me to slow down and I got the idea of giving you the winery.”

Serena began to understand as she said, “You wanted it in good hands.”

He nodded, “You always did love the place. Even when you were a toddler, you would taste grapes, help me check the soil, and do math for my expense reports.”

Serena smiled, “It was all wrong. I am the worst at math.”

“But I liked the company,” Grandpa leaned back into his chair as he looked at the wedding picture of him and Serena’s grandmother in the gallery of old photographs on the dining room wall. “I wanted it to be a gift, and not a burden. You’re my princess. You deserve a kingdom to call your own, but I don’t want you to be like I was.”

Confused by his words, Serena asked for clarity with, “Like you were?”

Looking back at her, Grandpa responded, “I didn’t give it over because some young hot shot doctor told me to! I did it because every day working those vines I would only think about what I was going home to at night. All my love and joy from my family kept me going each day, but with my son grown and my wife in heaven it was getting harder and harder to see the reason of why in God’s name I was getting up before the damn sun!”

Serena laughed, but she felt tears streaking down her face. She remembered Grandpa’s agony when his Clarabelle had left him. After months of treatments, she’d said her goodbyes and refused further medical assistance. In their room in this house, she died in her sleep, and the next morning Serena saw her grandfather walk like a broken man with soulless eyes. His heart had left him, and in some ways it had never returned.

“And yet you’re still here!” Serena tried to say in jest as Grandpa handed her a tissue.

“I am because I want to watch you do wonderful things with this little slice of earth I found for this family. And you are! You have the orchard next door, and you’re going to make brandy and preserves and all those wonderful things I cannot wait to try! But at night you come up to this big empty house where a cat waits for you to give him dinner. That’s not the life I wanted for you, and I fear if you keep your head buried in the business that you’ll never find what really matters.”