The Will

When better judgement fails, dominoes collide..

You insisted on coming. A choir of weeping voices in my head told me I was a disgrace to my family.

I brought you here despite my better judgement.

You threatened to leave me and I couldn’t risk losing my Alec. There is something quite potent between us. I squeeze your hand. The sweat on your hand glides onto mine. You give me a cheeky smile. What would my dear grandfather think of you? You are everything he hoped I would avoid. As his favourite grandchild, he wished for a reliable suitor with an abundance of money and charisma. You are still trying to find yourself and you take me on an unimaginable journey every night under the bedspread and on the jumping castle that is our relationship.

As he lay decomposing in his fancy teak casket, my wise old grandfather was not here to fight for me or to break your spell. What did he know about the importance of mind-blowing sex in a relationship?

My grandmother sits in front of us. She peers behind and looks you up and down. With a look of pure distaste, she turns to the front and pretends to listen to the minister. She didn’t want to be here but as the recently elected executor of Grandfather’s will, I insisted we do things the holy way. She would have preferred to throw my grandfather off the White Cliffs of Dover. “Let him swim with the sharks!” She had said. “He should end up with his own kind.”

Walking out of Our Lady of Dolores Church, my family and I assembled in silence to watch the hearse drive my grandfather to the crematorium to which we were soon headed. On the steps of the church, my relatives were on the set of a silent movie. Tears fell, tissues dabbed tear-stained faces and others just stood frozen with vacant expressions.

Except for my mother who appears and looks directly at you with an expression of outrage.

“How dare you show your face here! Clarisse, he is trespassing on our family!”

“Time and place mother!” I said under my breath.

“It is time for the envelope?”

Dragging my mother, I walked over to the sea of mourners. They were starting to say their goodbyes.

“Wait!” I called out.

My relatives stared at me.

“Grandfather requested that his final testament be read in the eyes of God.”

Clutching the last words of my grandfather, I cut open the envelope with the pocketknife he had asked me to use.

He hadn’t written much at all.

“I bequeath my entire estate to Alec Bourrigaud.”

Smugness and satisfaction ooze out of you.

“I bet the old man that I could steal his precious granddaughter’s virtue. He didn’t believe I had the looks or the smarts for the job. In his drunken stupor, he bet me everything he had!”

“What?” My mother and I cried in unison.

You came over, kissed me. “Goodbye sweetheart.”