At three, my grandfather asked me to sit on his lap. His voice was tainted by his years of smoking cigars, rough like sandpaper, but as smooth as the jazz music he played in the living room. As I complied and wrapped my scrawny arms around his neck, I breathed in his scent and wondered if he’d always love me the way he did then — "unconditionally," he always told me. 

"Grandpa, do you love me more than God?" I once asked, and he nodded his head, his glasses askew at the tip of his nose. 

"Of course," he said. "More than all the stars in the great big sky."

At six, I started to grow wary of my grandfather’s lap. His touch didn’t feel gentle anymore — it was the edge of a razor blade, tracing lightly over my skin until pale became red, and love became pain. I recoiled at the word unconditional, and wished for all of the stars to disappear.

At seven, I stopped wanting to sit on his lap. He would frown and beckon me over with
a crook of his finger, but I always refused. My mom chastised me for being rude — Why won’t you let him hold you? I just shook my head and tried to count all the reasons why I loved him, so that I could diminish the reasons I feared him. I wondered if love and fear were supposed to bleed into each other the way they did whenever he was around. 

At nine, my grandfather died. There wasn’t a dry eye at his funeral — nobody knew him like I did. I sat in the second pew and listened to the eulogies about the great, big life he lived and the people who loved him. The sky that night was clear and shining with stars; I waited for them to all fall down on my head and crush me completely. 

At 14, I thought I saw my grandfather. I recognized his eyes as they passed me in the hallway of the psych ward; I saw all the history on his face, open and oozing like an untreated wound. I saw my grandfather, but his body was shorter and his beer belly was replaced with skin and bones. Even though my grandfather was dead, and this man was alive, I screamed until my throat was raw and my voice was gone. That night, I couldn’t see the stars, but I felt their stifling presence wrap around me like a noose. 

At 16, I discovered what betrayal felt like. It arrived in the soft shape of my grandfather’s stuffed bunny and a note that read, "I’m sorry." I never glanced into the sky anymore because I knew it would rain shame onto my aching body, drowning me with the guilt that came with hating someone you’re supposed to love and sleeping through star showers. 

At 16 and a half, I told my mom what my grandfather did to me on his lap. She cried and burrowed me into her chest; I could feel her heart breaking against my cheek, pounding faster with every muffled sob. That night, we sat in our rocking chair and watched the stars. I counted them and numbered them with all the reasons I was still standing beneath them. Number one: my mother loves me. Number two: it wasn’t my fault. 

At 17, I told my therapist. She nodded her head at all the right times and handed me a crumpled up tissue. "I don’t need it," I told her and she just smiled.

The stars weren’t out that night, but I counted them anyway. 

 At 18, I confronted my grandfather. I wrote a letter to him in my journal, and then I tore it up. I threw the shredded pieces of paper into the air, and watched them flutter down like confetti, celebrating the feeling of release and the swift relief that followed. I let my eyes fall closed and my head grow quiet, until I felt nothing but the light of the moon shine down on my body. 

Today, I stargazed for the first time in 10 years. As I let the sky blanket me and the wind wrap me in its embrace, I thought of my grandfather. "I forgive you," I whispered into the winter air; his answer came in the form of a shooting star.