Being the janitor’s granddaughter made me an easy target at school, and I spent years wishing people would see my grandfather the way I did. Then, one unexpected speech changed everything.
The apartment was always quiet in the mornings, and it almost always smelled like instant coffee and toast. I was 17, almost done with high school, and that small kitchen was still the safest place I knew.
My grandpa, Walter, hummed something old while he packed my lunch into a brown paper bag.
“Peanut butter again, kiddo,” he said, folding the top of the bag neatly. “Don’t tell anyone I’m a fancy chef.”
“Your secret’s safe, Grandpa.”
My grandpa, Walter, hummed.
***
My grandpa raised me by himself, pretty much, since I was a baby. My dad died before I could walk, and my mom ran off with some guy a few months later, refusing to do the parenting thing alone.
Grandpa Walter never once acted as if I were a burden.
His job as a janitor at my high school paid the rent on our tiny apartment, kept the lights on, and put food on our table. It wasn’t much, but it was ours.
My mom ran off with some guy.
Every morning, my grandpa walked me to the bus stop in his gray uniform, kissed the top of my head, and waved me off. Then he waited for the regular bus, rode to school, and slipped into the building through the side entrance so we wouldn’t be seen together.
That part was my idea, not his. I hated myself a little every time he agreed to it.
“You sure you don’t want me to walk in the front today?” he asked once, half joking.
“Grandpa, please.”
“Okay, okay. Side door it is.”
The truth was, I loved him more than anything. The other truth was, school made loving him feel like a crime.
Then he waited for the regular bus.
***
My classmates had a whole library of jokes about me.
“Emily smells like a dirty mop!”
“Don’t worry, janitors always succeed at mopping floors!”
I’d heard every version a hundred times.
And then there was Brittany. The school’s so-called “queen,” the girl every other girl wanted to orbit, except me. She was the most popular girl in school and also the loudest.
She made my life at school even more miserable.
I’d heard every version a hundred times.
***
