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He grinned.  “Oh, yeah.  She got a ribbon. 
Turns out she swims like a fish.”

“Uh huh.”  Brady sat back in the chair and eyed
his grandfather thoughtfully.  “Did you dive?”

“Liz wouldn’t let me.  But I wanted to.”

“I’ll have to thank Liz,” he muttered.

“I did, however, win the Rumba contest—well, Liz
and I both.”

“But you don’t like dancing, Granddad.”

“Turns out I do,” he said with a shrug and a
grin.  “Or maybe it’s Liz I like dancing with.”  His grandfather gave a
contented sigh.  “So, how have you been, son?  You’re in Cocoa Beach, away from
work…” he prompted.  “With a beautiful woman…”

“A sick beautiful woman,” he muttered, and then
roused himself.  “I’ll tell you how I’ve been, Granddad.  I’ve been worried
about you, that’s what I’ve been.  I can’t believe you just took off, without
telling anyone.” 

Ike narrowed his eyes.  “What’s it to ya?”

“What does that mean?” Brady bellowed.  “You’re
my granddad.  Your well-being matters to me—to all of us.”

“Yeah, I matter so much, half the time, you
won’t even answer my phone calls.”

Brady sighed.  “Granddad, I never meant to
neglect you.  I’ve been…”

“Busy.  I know.  I spent a lifetime being busy
myself.  And my own children barely know me.  Let that be a lesson to you,
son.”

“Hey, your kids love you.  I love you.”

“I know that,” he said softly.  “But son, I’ll
tell you what.  When you’re nearing the end of your life, you don’t want to
have regrets.  Well, I have a shipload of them.”

Brady watched him with concern.  It broke his
heart to think his granddad had regrets.  He was such a good man.  A man who
had worked hard his entire life, and had achieved success beyond anyone’s
expectations.

“Granddad, what do you regret?” he asked softly.

“I never slowed down long enough to smell the
roses.  I put work before my family.  My time was always at a premium, but
that’s no excuse for letting the opportunity to spend time with my family slip
by.”

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,”
Brady told him.  “You did right by them.  You did what needed to be done.  You
put food on the table and a roof over their heads.  You loved them and they
knew that.”

“But do they?” he asked.  “Do you know I didn’t
attend a single one of your father’s ball games or your aunt’s ballet
recitals?”

“No, Granddad, I didn’t know that.”

“It’s true.  I was always too busy.  Well, if I
could only go back in time…”

“Unfortunately, none of us can do that.”

His eyes clouded.  “I know, and now, when I
finally have to the time to spend with family…”  His words trailed off.

“What, Granddad?”

“Nobody wants to spend time with me.”  

“Granddad, I do too want to spend time with
you.  Heck, I followed you to Florida, didn’t I?”

“Well, that’s true,” he conceded.

“We’ll spend some time together now,” he assured
him.  “We’ll have a blast.”

“We will!” Ike said.  “We’ll have all sorts of
fun times together.  Starting … tomorrow.  Liz and I have dinner plans
tonight.”

“Can you believe those two?” Brady said
testily.  Once again, he was in Amada’s hotel room, sprawled out on the second
bed.  He’d been watching television, but couldn’t have told anyone what the
program was about.  He was too distracted, wondering what their grandparents
were up to.  It was ten o’clock.  Dinner was long over and he’d expected them
back.

Amanda turned his way and gave a shrug.   “What
do you do?  They obviously enjoy one another’s company.”

“Yeah, but what about … me?  Before they left
tonight, Granddad and I decided he and I would make up for lost time, and spend
some time together.”

She shrugged.  “Yeah?  So?”

“Well, he…  He went off and forgot about me!”

Amanda laughed.  “You’re jealous!  You’re
jealous of the time he’s spending with my grandmother.”

“I am not!”  He sat up on the bed and swung his
legs over the side.  “Well, maybe a little,” he admitted.  He was quiet for a
moment.  “Did Liz happen to tell you about the fun they had on the cruise?”

“She said she enjoyed it, but didn’t really go
into details.”

He nodded.  “She probably figured with you sick
and in pain, it wouldn’t be kind to rub your nose in it.  Turns out your
grandmother is a party animal.”

“Did you
really
just call my grandma a
party animal?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Take it back.”

“No can do.  By the way, she’s an adrenaline
junky too.”

“
What
are you talking about?”

“She apparently enjoys water slides, diving into
deep water for dive sticks, and, last but not least, dancing the rumba until
the wee hours, and winning prizes for her efforts.”

Amanda gave a burst of delighted laughter.  “Go,
Grandma.”

Brady chuckled then.  “Yeah, I have to admit,
I’m impressed.  Maybe I’ll ask her out.”

Amanda shot him a dirty look.  “You stay away
from my grandmother.”

“Hey, I’m a good guy,” he told her.  “Have I not
been a gentleman this entire trip?”

“Well, now that you mention it, yeah.”

He rose from the bed and stretched.  “Are you
feeling any better?”

She weighed the question with a side to side
tilt of her head.  “Yes.  I think the
antibiotics are starting to help.  I can’t wait to get outside tomorrow.  I’m
tired of being cooped up here.”

“If it’s windy outside, you aren’t going
anywhere.”

“As if you could stop me,” she laughed.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he said, laughing
lightly.  “Now, your grandmother on the other hand, terrifies me…”

“My sweet little grandma scares you.”

“Well, yeah.  Apparently,
she
isn’t
scared of anything.”

“Yes, well, raising two daughters on your own
isn’t for the faint of heart.”

He nodded.  “It couldn’t have been easy.”

To Amanda’s surprise, Brady dropped onto her bed
beside her.  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, giving him a
sidelong glance.

“Cuddling with you.”

“Why?”

“Why not?  I’m sure the grandparents are
enjoying themselves.  Why can’t we?”

“I can promise you the grandparents aren’t
currently in the horizontal position.”  She gave an alarmed glance.  “They’d
better not be anyway.”

Brady gave a humorless laugh.  “I have a new
appreciation for what my parents went through with me when I was a teenager,”
he said in measured tones.

“Were you a pill?” she asked.

“I had my moments.  You?”

“I was an angel.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“No, I was.  Very studious.  Serious.  Spent a
lot of time in the library.”

“Huh.”

She met his gaze.  “You know, I guess my
grandmother was my biggest influence.”  She cocked her head in thought.  “Yeah,
I guess she was.  She used to implore me to do well in school—to get a good
education, since she said if she’d had a college degree, she wouldn’t have had
to struggle so much to support herself and her girls.”

She smiled.  “Mom used to tell me about the many
times her mother worked all day, only to come home, help her and her sister
with their homework, fix dinner, and then leave again to work a late shift as a
waitress at a nearby diner.”  She sighed.  “It killed her leaving her girls,
since she worried about what could happen to them, being alone.  I guess she
called them on the telephone, on the hour.”

She leaned back against Brady’s arm, unaware she
was doing it.  “The apartment where they lived for many years had a no pet
policy, but she went out and got a big, older dog from the pound.  The poor
thing couldn’t bark, because its previous owner had had it debarked—my
grandmother thought it was an awful thing to do—but it did make it possible for
her to keep the dog, without the offsite landlord ever finding out.”

“But what good would a big dog do if it couldn’t
bark an alarm?” he asked. 

“He could still bare his teeth, which he did on
command.  He became very protective of her and the girls.  One time, a burglar
tried to get into their place—had climbed up the fire escape—and that dog saw
him, hit the glance so hard it shattered…  You can imagine how fast that
burglar got out of there.”

Brady was quiet for a moment or two.  “I’m glad
Liz is enjoying herself.  It sounds like she deserves a vacation.  I know
Granddad is having the time of his life.”

“Do you … think it’s more than friendship
between them?” she asked tentatively.

“Did you see the way they look at each other?”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“Yes.  I think there’s something going on.  It’s
… cute.”

“I don’t think they’d appreciate you defining
their feelings for one another as
cute
.”

“You’re probably right,” he acknowledged.  “And
I don’t mean to diminish what they’re feeling.  But I do wonder where they’re
headed…”

“Me too.”

*** 

“Where are we headed now, Ike?” Liz asked.

“Are you up for a walk?”

She was carrying a sack with a purchase they’d
made earlier, from a t-shirt shop.  Ike took the bag from her and held it in
one hand, while taking her hand in the other.

They strolled along, enjoying the slight breeze
coming off the ocean.  The sidewalk was well lit and they spotted other couples
enjoying leisurely walks along the main thoroughfare through town.

“Shall we walk down to the beach?” Ike asked.

Liz nodded and they veered right, and followed
the sidewalk to a beach access only a couple blocks away.  They walked down to
the sand, glad for the lights coming off street lamps and from the hotels above
them.  The ocean was calm, the waves washing gently on shore.

“It’s beautiful down here,” Liz commented. 
“It’s almost as if the ocean has gone to sleep, it’s so quiet.”

“I know what you mean,” he said, bringing them
to a stop. 

They turned to stare out at the water.  The soft
sounds of nature were all around them, and Liz gave a sigh of contentment.  “I
can’t get over how serene it seems out here.  I do love the Pacific, but it
seems almost angry by comparison.  I don’t know if I’ve ever been on the beach
back home when the ocean actually seemed to fall silent.”

Ike nodded.  “It’s true.  The Pacific is so
rugged, but then, the terrain along the shore is so different from here.”  

  “Yes,” Liz said with a sigh, leaning on Ike’s
shoulder.  “You’re right.”

***

“You know, I’ve been thinking…” Amanda began.

“What have you been thinking?” Brady asked, looking
into her face.  He was still lying on her bed with her, and she was presently
snuggled into the crook of his arm. 

“If the Atlantic Ocean, with its shoreline, were
a pizza, it would be a thin crust pizza, whereas, the Pacific Ocean and the
land around it is more like a thick-crust pizza—you know, multi-layered.”

Brady watched her, as if trying to determine
what made her tick.  “You need to get out of this hotel room,” he said,
chuckling ruefully.  “When you start comparing oceans to food…”

“What?”

“It’s sad.”

“Or, I’m hungry.”

“That could be it,” he said, nodding his head. 
“Didn’t we have dinner?”

“You don’t remember?”

“It didn’t make an impression,” he admitted.

“It was burgers, and you didn’t eat much.”

“I’m going to call in an order for a pizza,” he
announced.  “Atlantic or Pacific?” he inquired, smiling.

“You decide.”

“Pacific.”

“Okay.”

He rose to find the phone book beside the
television.  He searched the yellow pages for a moment, until Amanda reminded
him that the hotel provided a listing of nearby restaurants that delivered. 
“It’s right over there, on the table,” she directed.

“Thank you,” he said cheerfully and soon called
in an order. 

While they waited for their food, he
channel-surfed for awhile, and Amanda noted he checked his watch at least a
half a dozen times.

“I’m sure they’re fine,” she told him.

“Yeah, well, I’m grounding them when they get
back.  It’s almost midnight.  They should have at least called to tell us
they’re okay.”

“You’d think so,” she agreed, frowning.  “Do you
think we should go and look for them?  What if somebody mugged them?”