Ada rested her hand on his. “We need to talk, Wayne.”
Wayne stared at his wife’s hand. This was not like his Ada. She’d always known when to let him be. They had their understandings. He didn’t touch a kitchen appliance except to repair it. Never complained about any meal she cooked or budget decision she made. In return, she stayed away from the toolshed, left the driving to him, and trusted Wayne to pick their programs on the radio. Not once had she ever so much as suggested he adjust the volume.
“Thought we’d listen to a little Gunsmoke.” He locked eyes with his wife and saw a stranger looking back at him. He turned off the radio. “Go on,” he said. “Say your bit.”
“She’s still a child, Wayne. A sweet girl. You act as if she’s suddenly this sinister creature trying to betray us. Like she’s—”
“Grandpa!” Ellie yelled. “Please let me come downstairs!”
Wayne pointed to the ceiling. “Remember how much I didn’t want her livin’ with us nine years ago? This is what I worried about. It wasn’t that I didn’t want that little girl in our house.” He pointed to the ceiling again. “I didn’t want this.”
Ada pulled a hankie from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “This isn’t like you, Wayne. Do you ever look at Ellie’s face, see how hard she’s always trying to please us. She’s spent the last nine years afraid you’d kick her out, Wayne. Our own granddaughter.”
Wayne leaned forward. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen you cry, Ada. You know I’d never do that to her. Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?”
Ada pulled off her horn-rimmed glasses and wiped them with the hem of her apron. She laid them on her lap and looked up at her husband. “I guess a little part of me is afraid you’re going to kick her out, too. I couldn’t bear it, Wayne. I couldn’t bear to lose her.”
They heard Ellie wailing again. “Please, Grandpa!”
They looked up at the ceiling. “She was kissing that McGinty boy, Ada. A McGinty.”
“She’s a teenager, and she’s in love. Don’t you remember us at that age?”
“I never touched anything but your face and your hands before we were married,” he said. “Maybe once or twice I wrapped my arm around your shoulder, but I knew what was expected of me. I’m not saying that was easy. You walk the fields alone till midnight, if you have to. Go swim in the ice pond. Drive your gas tank empty.” He winked at her. “Whittle a whole set of dolls for your girlfriend’s sister.”
Ada smiled. “Nessa still has those dolls, you know. Keeps ’em in her breakfront in the dining room.”
Wayne shook his head, but he was smiling now, too. “Women. You girls are all crazy.”
“Times are changing, Wayne. You see how the kids are dressing these days. How they dance when we chaperone. But not our Ellie. She’s still a good girl. Her skirts are the longest in the class.”
“Not that cheerleading thing she wears,” Wayne said. “That’s why I don’t go to her games. Can’t stand the way boys look at her.”
“Oh, Wayne. She’s got no control over that. She still goes to church on Sundays, and in the summer she still likes to walk to the church with me every Thursday for quilting bee.”
Wayne looked up at her. “Quilting bee. She goes for the gossip, just like her grandma.”
“She’s a good girl, Wayne. And she’d give anything to make you proud. She’d do anything just to make you like her.”
“Dammit, stop that, Ada. I love that child. I love her as much as I’ve loved anyone but you.”
Ada grabbed his hand and pressed it against her heart. “Then you have to stop hiding it. You have to stop being afraid she’ll hurt you.”
“Hurt me? I’m not afraid of anyone or anything.”
Ada patted his hand. “Of course not, honey. Please, Wayne. You have to let her know you trust her. That she matters to you. It breaks my heart to say this: She’s Larry’s daughter, but you’re the only father she’ll ever have.”
Wayne studied his wife for a moment. She was not one to show physical affection outside the bedroom, certainly not in front of their living room window. But there she was, holding his hand against her bosom. Overhead, he could still hear his granddaughter’s sobs. Under his hand, he felt his wife’s heartbeat. “I’m seventy, Ada. I’m an old man. I can’t change my ways now.”
Ada patted his hand again before releasing it. “I’m not asking you to change. I’m just asking you not to hide the best parts of you.” She looked up at the ceiling. Ellie’s cries had softened to whimpers. “She’s exhausted. She needs to eat something.” Ada shook her head. “Isn’t it time you two stopped being so afraid of each other?”
Wayne sat in silence as Ada stood up and walked into the kitchen. Then he joined her. She pulled out of the icebox the bowl of leftover wilted lettuce with bacon, his favorite, and set it on the counter. She walked to the stove, and he took the box of matches from her. “I got this,” he said, striking a match to light the burner under the pot of beef stew. Ada lifted the lid and started stirring with the wooden spoon Wayne had made for her ten Christmases ago. He stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her, breathing in the scent of lilac powder, her one indulgence. “This will be warm in a few minutes,” she said. “How about you go fetch our Ellie?”
He kissed the top of her head. “You’re a good woman, Ada.” She leaned into him ever so slightly and closed her eyes, the thickness of his chest warming her back. “Go talk to her, honey,” she said.
Wayne headed for the stairs. He could hear the sound of Ellie’s whimpers. “Goddammit,” he whispered, and plodded up the steps. Sheba was lying in the hallway, wedged against Ellie’s door.
Wayne touched the cross of Irish peat hanging on the wall next to the doorframe. His mother had mailed it to him from Ireland after his first son was born. For more than forty years it had rested against the framed picture of his mother on top of his chest of drawers. Ellie had loved the cross from the first time she saw it. “Tell me about them, Grandpa,” she said, caressing the cross in her hands. “Why did your parents stay in Ireland but send you away?”
Ellie was the first person besides Ada to show an interest in his parents. They were too Irish, they’d told him, too set in their ways. But they wanted a better life, an American life, for their children. “I was twelve, the oldest,” Wayne told Ellie, “so I was the first to go. I lived with my uncle, who had already settled in Ohio.”