Annaka

hand tightly. I was thankful she was giving me space.
I kept looking out the window and tried to focus on what was out there. The cars were driving in formation to the graveyard. It was a little ways outside of Yarmouth, and the clouds weren’t breaking away. Raindrops began to pelt against the window. I didn’t want to say goodbye to Grampy. Not in the rain. Not today.
We arrived. Walking the path to the gravesite was the hardest part. I read my grandfather’s name on the tombstone. Rudy Brooks. Beloved Husband, Father, Teacher, Leader, Grandfather. Everything about him reduced to a handful of words. But he was more than anything that could be written on a tombstone—he was the sky that held everything, and everyone, together.
Tia’s grandfather, Ben, carried the urn and placed it in front of the grave. He wiped the tears from his eyes. These two had been best friends. They talked daily, and I couldn’t even imagine how Mr. Evans felt having to carry his friend’s ashes.
“I’ll miss you, buddy.” He knelt down and placed his hand on the urn for a moment.
Everybody else did that too, as a way to say goodbye. I was hesitant at first. Something inside of me didn’t want to—I knew if I did then all of this would be real. I wanted to wake up from this bad dream and call him. But when I placed my hand on the urn again, it hit harder than before. This time it was all…real.
I took in a deep breath and started crying again.
“I miss you, I love you, and I’ll never forget you,” I whispered.
And then the floodgates opened. I couldn’t stop crying. He was the man who taught me how to read and write. The man who told me ghost stories when Mom warned him not to. The man who taught me to tie my shoes. The piggybacks, the long drives, they were all gone. My tears splashed on the urn as Mom came up and wrapped her arms around me. She was crying too.
“He’s gone, and I want him back,” I wept.
“Shh…it’s okay, hon.”
I cried and I cried hard. The worst part of it all was knowing my birthday was coming up, and I wasn’t going to receive that phone call.

Chapter 5
Mom knew I wasn’t in any shape to head back to Nan’s house for the reception. There would be lots of company who would ask me the same questions, tell me the same stories, and would want to know why I only wanted to be called Anna now. I was in no mood for exhausting questions while dealing with grief. So instead, Mom asked Tia if I could chill with her for a bit. So there we were, back in the basement. Eventually night took over the sky, but it was still cloudy. I was lying on the couch covered in a blanket with Taz lying on top of me. We hadn’t said anything since we got there, and I could tell Tia was feeling a bit awkward about it.
“Hey, Anna? If you need some space, that’s all good. Do you want me to leave for a bit? I could go for a drive or—”
“I don’t think I want to be alone right now.”
“I see. I see. Just not in a talking mood?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
Tia took a breath, got up, walked over to her ancient CD player, and put on something soothing. I could tell her life was somewhat of a playlist. She always had music for different moods and it was what I needed right then. I closed my eyes and I thought about Grampy.
“I just want to give him a hug,” I let out.
“Hey, hey.” Tia sat next to me. “I know.”
She got close and I rested my head in her lap and held on to Taz.
“It’s just weird that he’s gone. The last time I spoke to him was on my birthday. Almost a year ago. I’ve been meaning to call, but, but—”
“Life gets busy, Anna, it’s okay,” Tia cut in. “It’s easy to take in all the guilt of the world, but is that what he would want?”
“No,” I replied. She was right. He’d want to have a big cookout, a celebration of his life. “He’d want a parade in his honour.” I laughed through my tears.
Tia smiled and nodded. “Yup, that sounds like the Mr. Brooks I knew.”
We laid there for a while as music filled the air and Christmas lights lit up the room. I wanted to be in that moment forever. It was a comfort zone for me. Tia hummed with one arm around me as she checked emails on her phone.
“D’you think it’s weird that I kinda wanna meet my dad?” The thought had been swirling in my head since Mom told me we were coming back to Yarmouth, and it just kind of slipped out. I could never ask that kind of question around Mom, but I felt safe with Tia. A part of me wondered if he’d show up to Grampy’s funeral, but I wasn’t sure if Grampy even knew him. I sure didn’t—Mom never wanted to speak about him, so a lot of it was left up to my imagination.
“No,” Tia told me instantly. “I don’t think that’s weird at all.”
I knew that my father probably wasn’t a perfect man by any stretch of the imagination, but the what-ifs filled me. I always wondered what it’d be like to have a dad. Growing up and seeing Tia doing father–daughter stuff with Jonathan made me wish I had that, especially once we were in Halifax. With Mom being out most of the time, it would have been nice to have someone to be silly with, have someone to give me guidance, or someone to tell me that the world could be anything I wanted to make it. But the only man to tell me those things had been a world away in Yarmouth, and I only spoke to him once a