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“It all started when I was working at the diner to pay my way through college,” Grandma Marilyn continued. “Jimmy, the owner, was a good enough guy, but he was also a cheapskate.” She glanced at me over the edge of her glasses, and I laughed. “He wanted to fix every last little thing himself. Said repair shops were all a scam to bilk the working man out of his hard-earned money.

“So when the power cord to our industrial sized coffee maker got frayed, Jimmy fixed it. It didn’t work that well, but cheap was better than good, if you asked him. As for me, I ended up taking quite a shock. When I woke up, I found the world a lot noisier than it had been.”

“Me, too!” I squealed, standing up and jabbing my thumb into my chest. “Oh my gosh, it was the exact same!”

Grandma Marilyn laughed.“Yes, Every animal was talking and the problem was that only I could understand what they were saying. I tried to keep it secret for as long as I could, but when animals know you can talk to them, they won’t leave you alone. I’m sure you understand that.

“William tried to be understanding. After all, we’d been together a short time and he thought maybe it was just overwork or some sort of ‘female thing’ that was causing me to think I could understand animals. And the doctors, they agreed with him. Claimed it was some sort of pregnancy-induced hysteria. Times were different back then. I didn’t have many rights as a young, unwed mother-to-be. William had done right by me and proposed. Our wedding wasn’t far off, either, until I started talking to cats and dogs. Then he found one reason after another to delay. And then with the doctors involved, I wound up on bed rest and drugged out of my mind on who knows what kind of drugs.

“I barely remember giving birth to Laura. In fact, for a time, William convinced me that I’d never been pregnant in the first place. I can’t really be mad at him. He thought he was helping me. If he didn’t really love me, I’m sure he would’ve just had me committed and taken off. But, though we never did make it official via marriage, he stuck with me through it all. Trying to fix me. Trying to get rid of the voices in my head.”

I squeezed Charles’s hand under the table.

My Grandma continued on, her eyes dry. As tragic as this tale was, she’d lived it. She’d already come to terms with how her life had turned out.

“For ten years I was in and out of institutions. Bouncing from one diagnosis to another. Schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, psychosis, detachment from reality. They threw everything at the wall to see what stuck.

“We ended up out in California of all places when I managed to talk to a desert cottontail. He was very different from any of the animals I’d spoken to before, and it sort of clicked in my mind that I wasn’t crazy, no matter how long doctors and my beau had been trying to convince me otherwise.

“I broke out of the hospital and went on the run. It was much easier in those days. No cell phones, no electronic credit card monitoring. It took actual phone calls and detective work to track down someone that didn’t want to be found.

“Sure, I hit a few speed bumps along the way, a couple of arrests and some close calls with my abilities, but I learned how to hide it from everyone, and I tried to appear normal for a time. Not much of a life, I know, but I was at least out of the hospitals.

“Of course, old William felt guilty and eventually tracked me down to a small town near the Florida-Georgia border. Gave me this picture of Laura, thanked me for letting him go so that he could find someone else. He said he still loved me, but that we weren’t any good for each other.

“I never saw him again after that. But knowing that your mother was out there, I had at last found a purpose. I drifted from town to town, doing whatever work I could find and making friends with any animals that might be able to help me track down my daughter.

“That’s actually why I’ve got such a large collection of flamingos out front. Each one represents a close friend I’ve made along the way. Of course, wild flamingos only live to be about twenty, so sadly, that display is more like a memorial.”

She leaned forward and steepled her fingers.“Angela. I don’t know how to tell you this, but having this gift is a lonely life. Sure, you can talk to all the animals, but you really miss out on the human connections that give life meaning. And that’s why I was so worried you would reject me. No one wants a crazy old woman in their family tree.”

“I do,” I said, unshed tears blurring my vision. “I want it more than anything.”

“I do, too, sweetie. When Octavius here told me you and I shared more than just a passing genetic resemblance, I thought maybe, just maybe I’d found my family again.”

I offered her a smile that started small but then grew to take up a huge portion of my face. I’d sat transfixed for her entire story, and now I just couldn’t help it—I threw my arms around her and gave my grandmother a hug.

The first of what I hoped would be many.