Julia walked into the kitchen, fished the flyers out of the recycling bin, and smoothed them on the counter.
Meredith raised her eyebrows at her mother. “I thought making ceramic gnomes was undignified and small?”
“Right, small. So I was thinking elves.” Julia managed a little smile to accompany her little joke.
“You’re keeping flyers for sentimental value?” Meredith wondered.
“Nagging from the great beyond,” said Julia. “Best kind.”
On Thursday, everyone needed a break. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Maddie took Kyle and Julia for a fancy lunch at their fancy hotel. Dash and Meredith—secretly, guiltily thrilled—went through Livvie’s jewelry.
“Grandma would say toss it all,” declared Meredith giddily from the center of the bed surrounded by piles of pearls, gold chains, pewter charms, fake and real diamond necklaces, jade bracelets, and giant rings. Some of it was valuable. Most of it was not. Some of it was gorgeous. Most of it was not. She was wearing three strands of pearls (white, pink, and mother-of), two gold necklaces (one with a locket that wouldn’t open, one with a poodle charm from when Livvie’d owned a dog—before Meredith’s time), a newly paired pair of earrings (one dangly silver hoop, one blue stud), and four rings which ranged from Livvie’s wedding band to a red-and-purple plastic one Meredith had won for her at a fair in sixth grade. Dash had on one very fake diamond tiara, a macaroni necklace he had made himself, rings on every single finger (few of them even as elegant as the red-and-purple plastic one), and, over his heart, competing ivory brooches.
“Give me one of those,” said Meredith.
“They’re a matched set,” Dash protested.
“One’s a dragon and one’s a tiger.”
“Exactly. They’re going to duke it out. We have to see who wins.”
He looped a charm bracelet around his ankle. It dangled four gold pendants with silhouettes of Jeff, Julia, Dash, and Meredith as babies.
“You’re taking all the good stuff,” Meredith whined.
“Girl, I am rocking this family anklet. You could not pull this off.”
“At least give me the tiara.”
“Okay look, four piles,” said Dash. “One for your mom, one for you, one for me, and one for OLSA.”
“OLSA?”
“Old Ladies’ Salvation Army.”
“Even they wouldn’t want some of this.”
“Grandma would want me to have these,” said Dash, holding up clip-on coral sun and moon earrings.
“Grandma would have said those earrings are hideous,” said Meredith.
“They’re hers.”
“And I’m sure they were very stylish when she bought them in 1947, but they are not now.”
“I will rock these earrings,” said Dash, clipping them on.
“Do her proud,” said Meredith.
On Friday, they were down to what was left. It was a lot, and it wasn’t much. Her telephone, her knitting supplies, her junk drawer full of what everyone’s junk drawer is full of—Scotch tape and extra scissors and delivery menus and expired coupons and rubber bands and paper clips and empty key chains. They found M&M’s she’d hidden for Meredith and Dash one afternoon when they were five and bored (they had found most of them but not all, apparently) and VCR tapes that had fallen behind the TV and unused coloring books either forgotten from when she had small grandchildren or maybe just in case any little kids stopped by. And all her furniture. They’d called the actual Salvation Army and were waiting for them to come by, and Uncle Jeff was on the phone with a real estate agent—it got that far—before Meredith said:
“I’m moving in.”
“Where?” said her mother absently.
“Here. Grandma’s house. I want to move in.”
“It’s an old-lady apartment,” said Uncle Jeff.
“Grandma lived here when she was a newlywed,” said Meredith. “She had little kids here. She had teenagers here.”
“Lot of history,” said Dash. “Lot of memories.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“Might be hard. Might be too heavy.”
“Grandma would want me to live here,” said Meredith.
“Lot of ugly furniture,” added Dash. It was true. Some of the furniture was ugly enough to resist even nostalgia.
“I’d get rid of my place and pay you guys rent,” Meredith said to her mother and uncle.
“Don’t be silly,” said Uncle Jeff. “You’re family. It’s yours as much as anyone’s. It’s not about the money.”
“Grandma would want you to live here,” her mother acknowledged, “if that’s what you want. But not if it’s going to make you sad and depressed and mopey. Not if it’s just because you can’t let go.”
“I can’t let go,” said Meredith. “But that’s not why I want to stay.”
Later that night, Jeff and Maddie went back to their hotel, and Kyle and Julia went back to Meredith’s, and Dash stayed at Sam’s, while Sam himself began unwrapping all of the carefully wrapped plates and cups and glasses and bowls and putting them back on the shelves where he found them. Meredith’s feeling was that her postcollege, mismatched, thrift-store china had nothing on her grandmother’s. Meredith’s feeling was that they belonged in these cabinets. Meredith’s feeling was, “That’s what my grandmother would say I should do.”
“You always know what your grandmother would say,” said Sam.
“I’ve known her all my life.”
“But what about what you want?”
“I want what she wants. Wanted. She wants what’s best for me, and that’s what I want as well.”
“Me too,” said Sam. “How about I finish unpacking plates and stuff here, and you go home and pack up your stuff.”
“I can start that tomorrow.”
“Last night with Dash and your folks? Your aunt and uncle? Maybe you’d like to spend tonight with your family.”
“I think you are my family,” Meredith said. And then she said, “You need to go home and pack too.”
“Why?”
“Move in here with me.”
“What?”
“Move in here with me.”
“Oh, Merde, it’s way too soon.”
“You wanted to move in before you left for London.”
“I was kidding.”
“You were not.”
“I was … delirious with happiness.”
“Emphasis on the happiness.”
“Emphasis on the delirious.”
“Your place is too small. My place is too … mine. This place is just right,” Meredith said. “Besides, my grandmother would say that you should stay.”
“You think?”
“I’m sure.”
“Would she have liked me?”
“Are you kidding? She would have loved you.”
“What makes you think so?”
“You’re smart. You’re funny. You’re a baseball fan. You make good popcorn. But mostly, you’re awfully kind to her granddaughter.”