My mother often said to me, “Don’t sit on Grandpa’s lap.” I never understood why. One day I ignored him and sat down anyway. Grandpa smiled, walked up to my ear and whispered, “Can you come to sleep next to me tonight? simo”

Mom turned around, as if she didn’t want me to see the tears in her eyes.

“But why did it have to be a secret?” he asked.

Grandpa sat down.

“Because your mother wouldn’t have allowed it.”

That’s when Mom finally told me what they had been hiding for months.

Grandpa was going to the hospital the next morning.

I needed a serious heart operation.

That was also the reason Mom was constantly telling me not to sit on her lap. A few months earlier, Grandpa had also been operated on a leg and doctors had warned him not to undergo unnecessary efforts.

I looked at Mom.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I didn’t want you to be afraid.”

Grandpa took my hand.

“And I didn’t want to go to the hospital before I kept our promise.”

“What promise?”