Let me tell you a great story

I used to think that Grandpa Jack was an odd man. He had a beard but no moustache, he ate with a spoon and fork and he never wore shoes, not even to church.

He was a writer, mum told me. But it had been a long time since he wrote any books. It was my Grandma Allie who painted for a living.

She was a wonderful painter. She painted the boats of the sea, the night sky, the long grass and precarious houses on edges of clifftops.

“I paint memories,” she said. And she would sit outside all day and paint, while me and my Grandpa Jack played chess under the hanging vines.

I had never seen my Grandma Allie play chess. Except for this time when I asked my Grandpa about it, and he called her over and she said, “One game, Jack.” 
And she won that game.

But when Grandpa Jack was putting away the pieces and grandma had gone back to her easel, he turned to wink at me and said, “Sometimes to win someone’s love you have to lose.” 
Which was funny, because I had always thought all these years, that love was always winning; winning her smile, her attention, her affections.

During the days when we had hours of sunshine left after dinner, I would help my Grandpa Jack set up the model train for Christmas.

“What’s that, grandpa?” I asked, noticing a black mark on the side of his thumb.

“This?” He asked. “You mean my tattoo?”

It was so small and hidden in his wrinkles that I didn’t recognise it as a tattoo. When he showed it to me, I saw a black outline of a circle and lines inside it, connected.

“Wow it’s the world… Why do you have that?”

Grandma Allie who was within earshot turned and gave grandpa a look.

“It’s a sign of promise,” Grandpa Jack said, “And a symbol of unity.”

“Who did you promise to?”

He sighed before pausing to put down his tools. “Let me tell you a great story... Pull up that chair, Dylan.”

And he proceeded to tell me a story of two people who fell in love quickly, who promised everything and trusted wholeheartedly. She didn’t believe in conventional ways, so they agreed he would get the outline of the world and she, the colors that filled it.

He told me of the years following it; that mistakes were made and words unspoken until they exploded. She had walked away until she couldn’t hear him calling out to her anymore.

“I love her dearly,” Grandpa Jack said wistfully.

“What happened to her, grandpa?”

“Why! She’s your grandmother Allie.”

I turned to look at her humming away, washing brushes. I had always thought they were paint splotches. But on second glance it was the land and the sea in a circle, in a place that when they hold hands, the colors would fill the outline. They had the world between them.

“Dylan, when you want to win someone’s love, you have to lose. Lose your pride, your assumptions and your doubts. And then chase after her. If it’s meant to be, you’ll find that she’s been running towards you too.”