The Loose Ends List(79)

The whole family comes running. Bob steps out of Jeb’s room. “Come on, Astrid.” He picks her up. “Show them what got your panties in a bunch,” Bob says.

“Jebby,” Gram sobs. “My genius, Jebby.”

I haven’t ventured into Jeb’s cabin since the first day. I figured it was just a trash heap of masturbation tissues and empty pizza boxes.

“Oh my God, Jeb.” Wes freezes as he walks into Jeb’s room. The rest of us are stuck behind him. He moves and we see. My stupid, gross brother is a genius. Gram made his walls out of canvas in case he was inspired to paint, and I guess he was inspired to paint.

Snow globes.

He painted our entire journey in snow globes on the wall. There’s Jamaica on the beach with Tits and Mama and the bat cave and us on top of Corcovado Mountain and the Rio waterfall. There’s Dad hang gliding and us in the Blue Lagoon and standing inside the lava tube surrounded by a rainbow of elves and Jules Verne himself. He painted Mom in a gondola and Dad with the telescope and Gram and Aunt Rose in front of the forever tree with the castle in the background. There’s the Colosseum filled with cats and Celia Hobbes on stage and a snow globe for each of our Wishwell friends. Heinz is inside a bottle, and Dave is hugging his mom, and Gloria’s wearing a chef’s hat and purple lipstick. Aunt Rose is smiling in a tangle of roses. Vito is an elf grinning near the tree, and Mark’s on a surfboard, and Holly is in plié pose. Paige’s family is waving from Wishwell Island, and Enzo and I are waving from a kayak surrounded by bioluminescence. And the one in the middle is of Gram and Bob holding baby Tessa’s ultrasound. The one of Camilla in the Grotto is such a flattering likeness, it hits me just now that my brother is in love.

Jeb filled his room with snow globe moments for Gram. For us. He must have spent every free second he had to give Gram the gift of memories. He’s sitting on his bed, limp and teary-eyed as we study each snow globe. The moment is so ugly and distorted and full of primal sounds and deep pain. Yet it’s the most beautiful moment my family has ever shared.



I am a pumpkin. A metal scoop is digging out my insides. Soon there will be nothing left but dangles of slime and rotting flesh.



Gram blows her nose. “I need a macaroon,” she says, struggling to get up from her chair.

“The canvases on those walls are going home with us,” Dad says. “I’ll be damned if I leave the artwork on the Titanic.”

Bob brings in a case of macaroons and rips it open. They stuff their faces. I can’t even think about eating.

“It’s going to go like this, kids.” Gram talks with her mouth full. “I’m going to have a bath and a champagne. Then we’ll text you, and you can sit with me if you want. If you don’t, that’s okay. And that’s it.”

“Wait, Gram. Don’t you want to spend time with each of us? To say good-bye?” I’m panicking.

“Maddie, that’s what this trip was all about. We’ve had our time, honey. I’m feeling too rotten now. We need to rip off the Band-Aid. I used to tell your parents to drop you at preschool and run.” She waves her half-eaten macaroon toward Mom and Dad. “But no, you two had to stick around and hang all over the kids and drag them into your anxious frenzy. The one day you had the strength to drop Maddie and run out without looking back was the day she didn’t cry.”

“We’re still going to cry,” Janie says.

“Yes, I imagine. You are a bunch of criers. How did I end up with all the crybabies? Ruth’s kids were troupers.”

“We just love you,” Wes says.

“Okay, I’m pulling off the Band-Aid. Billy, help me up. I might vomit the macaroons. Wow. That was a binge.” She leaves, and I get a text. Wear the blue dress.

“She wants us all in blue,” Mom says, looking at my bee. “She ‘doesn’t want to die surrounded by mismatched ragamuffins.’ That’s more unsettling than the prospect of no longer living.”

Mom talks Janie and me into spending the afternoon at the spa getting manicures, pedicures, facials, blowouts, and makeup. She wants us to be our most beautiful selves for Gram.

We get the text just before sunset.

It’s time, my babies.

Mom lets out a shaky breath and puts her arms around us. “Come, girls, let’s go see our old gal off.”



Gram is tucked into her bed on her favorite pillow. She’s wearing a blue satin robe with one sleeve rolled up, and she’s holding a tiny drawstring bag with her marble-shaped husband inside; the IV port is already nestled into her wrinkled stick arm. Wisps of white hair frame her face. She’s barely there, a ghost of a woman. She doesn’t look like the Gram I’ve always known. But her eyes are every bit as blue.

She smiles up at all of us hunched over her like children studying an injured mouse. “Come sit.” She pats the bed. The nurses and doctor busy themselves with the business of death.

Mom climbs up next to Gram. I want to fight her for the good spot, but it’s only right for the daughter to sit next to her mother. We look like idiots, dressed in shades of Bermuda morning blue. But she wanted it this way, and today is her day. The last light of afternoon bathes the room, the purples of the sunset filter in through the open balcony door, and the filmy white curtains move to the swish of the waves.