My mother often told me, “Don’t sit on Grandpa’s lap.” I never understood why. One day, I didn’t listen to her and sat down anyway. Grandpa smiled, leaned close to my ear, and whispered, “Can you come sleep beside me tonight?”

“But why did it have to be a secret?” I asked.

Grandpa sat down.

“Because your mother wouldn’t have allowed it.”

That was when Mom finally told me what they had been hiding for months.

Grandpa was going to the hospital the next morning.

He needed serious heart surgery.

That was also why Mom had constantly told me not to sit on his lap. A few months earlier, Grandpa had undergone surgery on his leg too, and the doctors had warned him not to put unnecessary pressure on himself.

Telescopes

 

I looked at Mom.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”