Katy’s jaw twitches, but she closes the gap between her knees. “Sorry.”
“Why aren’t you in school?” Gram asks her.
“It doesn’t start until next week.”
Gram turns toward me, head tilted. “What month is it?”
“Late August,” I reply.
She assesses Katy again. “You look like your father. Where’s he?”
I’m not surprised that Gram remembers Richard. He makes quite an impression, and he’d charmed Gram with his big dreams. She’d get a twinkle in her eye and smile at me. “Annie, this one will be an adventure. A good match.” She’d had it half-right.
“At work.” Katy turns stone-faced at the mention of Richard.
“Richard and I are divorcing, remember?” I say, pulling Gram’s attention back to me.
“Divorce? Well, that’s a shame. When you lose the one you love, a piece of your soul dies if you’re not careful. Then nothing is ever quite right . . .” Gram’s eyes cloud with sorrow.
It’s sweet how she clings to Grandpa’s memory. And if losing a husband of seventeen years is hard on me, I can’t imagine how it feels to outlive a husband of forty-five years.
Gram clucks before asking me, “Do you still love him?”
Katy studies me, unblinking. Does she hope I say yes, or no? When I recall how he used to look at me and make me laugh, my eyes sting. But the past few years have seen more arguments than affection. He went from being someone who built me up to being someone whose waning attention filled me with self-doubt. I love our child. I respect his intellect. But in truth, we’d grown apart once I gave up fighting for his time, so my heart is less battered than my ego. Figuring out who I am now that he’s no longer at my side is the most daunting aspect of our breakup.
“A part of me will always love Richard, but I’ll be okay without him.” Honest, if not direct. “That’s why I’ve moved here. A clean slate . . . and now we can keep you company.”
Gram frowns, eyes narrowed. “Why would you move here when you can go anywhere?”
“Good question,” Katy pipes up.
“It’s always peaceful here, Gram.”
Gram’s hands fidget with the arms of her lounger. “Call a spade a spade. It’s dull . . .”
She falls silent and stares off, clearly lost in a memory, leaving me flabbergasted yet again. I set the recipe box on my knee, curious to see her response. “Gram, do you recognize this?”
Gram cranes her neck for a closer look, so I lean forward and place it in her lap.
She turns the box over for a moment, her hands gripping it tightly before shakily setting it on the oval table beside her and staring elsewhere again. I retrieve it and open the lid, displaying its contents one by one, beginning with the rusty nail. “I can’t imagine why anyone would save this, but there must be a story behind it.”
Gram doesn’t answer. Her gaze shifts toward the table but at the same time is unfocused. I try the handkerchief. “How about this? Does ‘W. T.’ mean anything to you?”
It’s possible these items belonged to her mother. My great-grandfather’s initials were not W. T., though. I’ve been assuming all the items were related, but it occurs to me now that they could be random memories, like a time capsule.
When I get to the photograph, I hold it up. “Do you recognize this man? Grandpa didn’t have that dimpled chin, but maybe this was someone you knew before you met Grandpa.”
Her nostrils flare briefly, but her otherwise inscrutable expression tells me nothing.
I set the items aside and rest my hand on her knee. “The contractor found this box when he broke through the master closet. I thought it’d be fun for you to go back in time and share your memories.”
“Fun?” The word flies from her lips, landing with an angry thud. “Are you trying to be hurtful?”
More questions crowd my thoughts, but Katy shakes her head at me in a silent appeal to drop the whole thing. She needn’t be worried. It isn’t my nature to torment people.
“Sorry,” I say, although I have many more questions than I did when we arrived. Gram might not remember everything, but something in that box triggered her.
I stuff the items back in the box and squeeze it in my hands. If these items are painful reminders, why keep them at all?
Her eyes are as misty as when we first arrived. “I’m tired.”
Katy hops off the mattress, eager to flee.
“Okay.” Guilt trickles through me for foisting memories on her without warning. I set the box on the table and stand to help her out of her chair. “How about if I come back next time with that pudding?”
“My head hurts.” She presses her fingertips to her forehead as I seat her on her bed. “No more about Billy.”
Billy again. Not Bobby. Is he the man in the photograph? Does the W on the handkerchief stand for William?
“We’ll let you rest. I’ll see you next week.” I bend to kiss her forehead and then pull the pink-and-red-and-white afghan folded on the side of her bed up to her waist.
“See you later, Grammy.” Katy pats her shin.
I nod toward the door, giving my daughter permission to bolt.
Gram rolls onto her side, facing the wall. On my way out, I gather the tin box and then turn off the light and close her door.
Katy is waiting in the hallway.
“You were sweet to relate to Gram with photography. Thank you.”
She shrugs. “Mom, please tell me you don’t ever want to live like this. I mean, it’s really sad. Cooped up in a little room. Unable to remember stuff. Not even hungry.”
I throw my arm around her shoulder. “It’s very sad. Scary, even. But I want to live long enough to see the amazing woman you become, and to meet my someday grandkids, even if I’m stuck in a bed and can only visit you on FaceTime.”
Katy snickers. “Who says I’ll get married and have kids? You heard Gram. Love kills your soul.” She makes her hands into claws and fake swipes at my face.
I bat them away, chuckling yet preoccupied with Gram’s paradoxes. “Not always.”
We exit the building to walk beneath a sunny summer sky dotted with cotton ball clouds. The hint of saltwater tang floating on the breeze loosens the tightness in my shoulders, as always.
“I guess not if you’re a guy.” Katy ties her hair into a ponytail high on her head.
I slow to a halt. “Why do you say that?”
“Because most men are cheaters, and even when they’re not, women get stuck doing everything. Why should I slave all day at work and then cook, do laundry, help with homework, and pick up after my husband, too?”
“Not all men cheat.” Her cynicism is worrisome. “And some couples split household work evenly. I did everything because I didn’t have a day job.”
“All my friends’ dads breeze in and out and play golf. And look at Pop-Pop. You always tell me about how, when you were my age, you were doing your own laundry and cooking for you and him.”
Mistrusting men had not been the goal of those “responsibility” talks. Do all teens misinterpret their parents’ life lessons, or just mine?
“Your dad and I married too young. But marriage can work if you know yourself well before you choose a partner. Either way, falling in love—being in love—is magical. I want that magic in your life.”