Kirby, the youngest of my grandchildren, lay on the picnic blanket beside me, her chin resting in her hands and her feet swinging in the air.

“Grandad, tell us the one about your first car”, she chirped, looking up at me with those wide glassy eyes. I grinned, ready to answer her when the middle one spoke up.

August, with his mop of reddish brown hair and wide circle lenses perched on his nose, looked like an ancient philosopher trapped in the body of a twelve year old boy. He paused momentarily from the sketch in the notepad on his lap and rolled his eyes.

“Kirbs, you ask for that story every time. How about a new one. Any ideas Lyn?”, he said ruefully, but I could see a smile peeping from the corners of his mouth.

Further away, not even seated on the picnic blanket, but sitting on a nearby bench with his eyes glued to the phone in his hand, was Lyndon.

He was so busy on that phone of his, that he missed his brothers question completely. At fifteen years old he was the spitting image of his father at that age, right down to the angsty, moody personality.

I raised my eyebrows and cleared my throat.

“Lyndon. Your brother is talking to you”, I snapped, slightly irritated. It was one of those rare occasions where my son Andrew managed to get enough time off work to make the drive to visit me. Spending time with my grandchildren was all I wanted to do today while Andrew and his wife explored the city, but it was becoming increasingly difficult with Lyndon’s poor attitude.

Lyndon looked up for a brief second and rolled his eyes.

“You pick, Gust. I don’t really care for stories right now”

August sighed and pondered the question, tapping his pencil on his notebook.

Finally, his eyes brightened, and he looked up with a sly smile.

“Tell us about the first time you met Gracie”, he crooned teasingly.

I couldn’t help but let out a bark of laughter, the name bringing back a bout of memories with it.

Gracie, my ex wife, was- and still is- a firecracker of a woman. Even now, at almost 70 years old, she lives on a houseboat off the coast, the perfect place for her to unleash her adventurous and creative personality in peace. Though we had split more than a two decades ago, the sound of her name still pulled at a sentimental string in my chest.

Kirby let out a giggle and swung her feet back and forth excitedly. With that whimsical laugh of hers and tongue- in- cheek grin, she was Gracie in every sense.

“Ooohh yes grandad. Tell us about how you fell in looooove”, she cooed, batting her eyes playfully.

I shoved her lightly and her laugher only increased.

“Oh you little trickster”, I joked.

“Okay. Do y’all want to hear that story? How I met Gracie?”, I prodded.

Both August and Kirby nodded bashfully, their eyes shining and their attention fully turned to me. I snuck a glance at Lyndon.

“You too, Lyn?”, I asked.

He glanced up quickly and sighed.

“Whatever”, he said flatly.

But I noticed the way his fingers froze over the screen, staying still until the phone screen turned black. Though he didn’t like to show it, his attention was now fully turned to me. I smiled softly at this.

Lyndon was always the one Gracie got along with the best out of all the grandkids. Though she was a bursting ray of sunshine and he was the little storm cloud, together they seemed to compliment each other perfectly. She was the one who would go with him for those long walks in the forest, him with his expensive camera in hand, and her with her watercolor paints.

I sighed and took a deep breath, pushing my memory of the event from the deep recesses of my mind to the tip of my tongue.

“Well, as you all know, your Grandma Gracie is quite the artist. In fact, when she was twenty-two years old, our local gallery chose her specifically as the feature artist of the month. It just so happened that on one fine summer day, when me and my best friend Marco went to the gallery to check out the new exhibit, low and behold there were her creations……and by god they were the ugliest things I had ever seen”, I said, the day still fresh in my mind.

Augusts lips pulled into a smile and Kirby hid a giggle behind her tiny hand.

I looked up to see Lyndon peering at me with a raised eyebrow, his phone now laying abandoned facedown on the bench.

“Grandad, according to her, you just have bad taste in art”, Lyndon clipped with a smirk. As he spoke I could practically hear her voice filling his lips with those very words.

I grinned and shook my head, “no, trust me, her art was terrible. There’s a fine line between being an eccentric artist and being a terrible artist. And while I admire Gracie’s creativity and wit, the things she comes up with are downright atrocious”.

“I made it known, quite outwardly to Marcos just how ugly the whole exhibit was, right down to the font choice in the brochure about her exhibit that she made. Imagine my surprise when I turned around to find a short redhead in stained blue overalls and sky high curly hair glaring at me as if I were the most vile thing on the planet”, I continued. I took a quick sip of the glass of lemonade sitting beside the picnic basket to wet my throat and continued.

“She went off on me, telling me how terrible I was and how I must’ve been blind or stupid to not see what true art was. At the time I was torn between amusement and fear because this girl looked like she was ready to kill me right then and there with the paintbrush sticking out of her pocket. Shortly after the little argument we had, which mostly consisted of her yelling at me while I tried to defend myself, I left the gallery. For the rest of the month, every day until her exhibit was over, I came to the gallery to look at the art, trying to see everything through her eyes”.

Kirby held up her hand and I looked down at her. “Yes, Kirby?”

She pursed her lips and frowned, “and? Did you like the art eventually?”, she asked.

I laughed and shook my head, “no, I most definitely did not. But overtime I grew to like the artist more and more. She was the one piece of art that I came to see every day”.

Lyndon I wrinkled his nose and groaned.

“Cheeeeeesy”, he drawled, amusement dancing in his eyes.

August let out a laugh and nodded his head at his brothers words.

“I agree with Lyndon. Big time cheesy, grandad”, he added.

Kirby rolled her eyes and sat up so she was now sitting cross legged, her eyes gone starry and wide.

“I think it’s so romantic. They were in looooove”, she purred, clasping her chest like a wounded soldier. We all let out a giggle at her display, the sound of it wafting in the wind and filling the park with mirth.

Suddenly, August frowned. He pushed his glasses up his nose and cleared his throat awkwardly.

“So why did you guys break up then?”, he prodded, the question quiet and curious.

I felt the smile on my face waver and I swallowed the sudden dryness in my throat.

“That’s a story for another day. There’s too much to unpack there and y’all are not quite ready for that”, I said, trying to keep my voice light.

Kirby’s brows knitted together in confusion.

“You still love each other though, right?”, she asked innocently.

Lyndon tsked and shot her a pointed look.

“You can’t just ask people that. It’s a personal question, Kirbs”, he reprimanded, though his tone was not unkind.

I waved my hand in the air dismissively.

“No, no, it’s okay. Totally valid question. Yes, I do still love her. But it’s a different kind of love. Like…..”, I paused to think, trying to find a way to phrase it so they would understand. “I love her like she’s my bestest friend in the entire world, my other half, and everything I see as being light and warm and beautiful in this world. But we are not in love anymore. We just love each other”, I finish, hoping my answer was sufficient. They nod in understanding and eventually, the topic changes and morphs until it is something entirely different.

Later, when the kids are fighting over a ball in the field, playing a no-rules game of soccer, I pull out my wallet and reach for the back slot. There, I find the piece of paper folded neatly in square and open it. The faded paper features bright, colorful streaks of color and sculptures in the most peculiar of shapes. There, on the last page, is a picture of a young girl, her wild red curls held back with a paintbrush and her bright yellow sweater stained with a splat of green paint at the collar. Underneath her picture, in that horrible bubble font that I hate to this day, is her name: Gracie Welds.

I runny finger over the old, wrinkled paper, marveling at the way it withstood time all these years. I must’ve been to the gallery a hundred times that summer, taking a new brochure each day. But one had found it’s way into my wallet one day and it had been there ever since. I smile softly, the sounds of the childrens laughter filling my chest with warmth. I just the folded crease of the brochure- a habit I do far too often now and tuck it back into my wallet. There was so much I wished to fill the children on in the story of Gracie and I, but even after all these years, I still couldn’t speak about her for more than 10 minutes without wishing I could jump back into that story and fix everything before it fell apart.