Maybe the number will be out of service. Maybe it’ll be another Nielsen who doesn’t recognize my name. Or maybe it’ll be my mother’s parents, who’ve been waiting and waiting and wishing for me.
I shut my eyes for a moment, square my shoulders. Stop stalling, I tell myself. Do what you’re here to do. Life with Mom will always be this way, and you have a shot at something else.
But I can still hear her as I reach for the phone, as I lift it off the hook. Nobody but you and me. Nobody, nobody, nobody.
The phone feels too heavy in my hands, and I clutch it tightly, feel the slip of sweat against the plastic. The quarter I swiped from Redman in my pocket. My family waiting for me to find them. Now, Margot. It has to be now, before Mom comes back, before the door you managed to push open slams shut.
I drop the quarter into the slot and dial the number. Take a deep breath and wait for the line to connect.
For a moment it doesn’t. Worry rippling through me—the number’s too old, it’s out of date, and I’ll never find my family, not ever—but it fades as the line clicks on and starts to ring. Once. Again. Again, and again, until finally.
Quiet. What sounds like the slow draw of breath. Then, a woman’s voice. Real, and in my ear. “Nielsen residence, Vera speaking.”
I open my mouth. Wait for the words to come out of me, but they don’t. I should’ve practiced, I should’ve planned what to say, but how could I have prepared for this? For another Nielsen on the phone, for the answer I’ve been looking for since I was ten years old?
“Hello?” But I can’t answer, and in the silence that follows, the woman on the other end of the line—Vera, her name is Vera—says, “Josephine? Is that you?”
My heart drops. Will I ever be somewhere my mother hasn’t been first?
“No,” I say. I stand up straight, try to wrestle back some composure. “This is—”
“Who is this? If you’re one of those telemarketers, I’m sorry, but I won’t be buying anything you have to sell.” Impatience and urgency in a low voice, roughened with age. Like my mother’s, but with a core of iron running through it that Mom’s never had. It has to be her. The woman who wrote that dedication, who left Mom her phone number—my grandmother.
And I should just tell her, just say my own name. But I want my grandmother to know me already, to recognize my voice. I want to have mattered enough to my mother that she told people about me. Even people she’s spent my whole life keeping me from.
“It’s me” is all I can give her. Please, please, let her know. Please.
“Oh.” I hear a staggering sigh. Don’t know if it’s mine or hers. “Margot. You’re Margot.”
Something hooks itself behind my chest. Tugs hard enough that I feel it in my whole body. This is what it feels like to get what you want. “Yeah,” and I’m embarrassed by how close to crying I sound, after barely any words between us. I squeeze my eyes shut, try to picture the woman on the other end of the phone. All I can conjure up is my mother’s face. “That’s me.”
“That’s you,” she says, and I’d bet all the money still under my mattress that she’s as close to tears as I am. “That’s my little girl. That’s my granddaughter. God, it’s good to hear your voice, honey.”
A strangled laugh lurches into my throat, and I swipe at the fresh sting of tears. She sounds like she means it. “You too.”
“I’ve been hoping I would,” she says. A pause, one I recognize in my bones, one you take when you’re weighing the risk of what to say next. Is that where Mom learned it? Is it part of our line, like our gray hair? “Your mother keeps you to herself,” she goes on finally. “But I’ve been thinking all about you.”
“So have I,” I say, and it’s eager, embarrassing, but none of that matters. My grandmother. My family. Somebody who isn’t Mom.
“Where are you these days? Are you well?”
How much does she know? About how we live, Mom and me? “We’re fine,” I say, a touch of annoyance sneaking into my voice. We’re fine, and even when we aren’t, that’s our problem.
“All right,” my grandmother says gently. “I’m glad.”
None of my searching ever turned up even the outline of this woman, the empty space she left behind. It certainly never taught me how familiar I should be. “Do I…” I clear my throat. “Do I call you Vera, or…?”
She laughs, sharp and clear. Immediately I think I’ve ruined it, made a fool of myself.
“I get to pick,” she says, “don’t I?”
Oh. “Yeah.” It’s just something funny. She’s laughing and it’s not at me, and it’s not because I said something I shouldn’t have. It’s just something funny.
This might be the nicest conversation I’ve ever had.
“I never liked Granny,” she says. I hear something in the background, like the creak of floorboards. “And I’m much too sensible for something long like Grandmother.”
It’s real. It’s real because she said it. Proof, I think, and I want to write it down in my notebook.
“What about Gram?” she says.
Maybe it would be more polite to just call her by her first name for a while. But if she’s opening a door, I’m going through it full speed. “I like that.”
“So do I,” Gram says. It’s easy to start thinking of her that way. I’ve been wanting this my whole life, after all. “Listen, Margot, I’m glad you called.”
I can feel my cheeks fill with heat, a silly smile tugging at my mouth. “Really?”
“Of course. I’ve been hoping to meet you for a long time, but, well. You know your mother.”
“How about now, then?” I’m being too eager, I know it, but I will never get this chance again. “I’ll come see you. I’ll stay the summer.”
“As much as I would love that,” Gram says, “it wouldn’t feel right to steal you away from Josephine. The two of you should visit together.”
I barely hold back a laugh. Me and Mom, dropping by Gram’s house like a regular family. “I don’t know,” I start, but Gram’s determined.
“It’s been too long,” she says. “Bring her home to Phalene; there’s a good girl.”
Phalene. That must be where Fairhaven is. That’s where I need to go.
“I’ll try,” I say, and it’s half true. I’m about to ask for something more, for a promise that Gram will be there waiting, when I hear the squeal of brakes behind me and the slam of a car door. Engine still running, the smell of leaking oil trailing toward me.