Before We Were Yours(94)

Elliot will agree, no matter how much he instinctively resists the idea of his mother or mine running our lives. If a garden wedding is really what I want, he’ll want it too.

In the morning, I drive to Magnolia Manor with a new agenda in mind. I’ll ask Grandma Judy for details about her special day. Maybe there are some favorite moments we can re-create.

As if she senses that I’ve come with important business this time, she greets me with a bright smile and a look of recognition.

“Oh, there you are! Sit right here next to me. I have something to tell you.” She tries to pull the other wing chair close but can’t. I drag it forward a bit, then perch on the edge, so our knees are touching.

Grabbing my hand, she looks at me so intensely I’m pinned to the spot. “I want you to destroy the contents of my office closet. The one at the Lagniappe house.” Her gaze strains into mine. “I don’t suppose I’m ever getting out of here to take care of it myself. I wouldn’t want people reading my daybooks after I’m gone.”

I steel myself against the inevitable sting of grief. “Don’t say that, Grandma Judy. I saw you in exercise class the other day. The instructor said you were doing great.” I play dumb about the daybooks. I can’t stand the idea. It’ll be like saying goodbye to the busy crusader she once was.

“There are names and phone numbers there. I can’t have them falling into the wrong hands. Start a fire in the backyard and burn them.”

Now I wonder if she has slipped away again, yet she seems lucid. Start a fire in the backyard…on a city street filled with meticulously preserved old homes? The neighbors would call the police in 2.5 seconds.

I can picture how that would look in the papers.

“They’ll only think you’re burning leaves.” She smiles and gives me a conspiratorial wink. “Don’t worry, Beth.”

It’s suddenly very clear that we’re not in the same place. I have no idea who Beth is. I’m almost relieved that Grandma Judy doesn’t know who she’s talking to. It gives me an excuse not to abide by her closet-clearing request.

“I’ll look into it, Grandma,” I say.

“Wonderful. You’ve always been so good to me.”

“That’s because I love you.”

“I know. Don’t open the boxes. Just burn them.”

“The boxes?”

“The ones with my old society columns. It won’t do for me to be remembered as Miss Chief, you know.” She covers her mouth and pretends to be embarrassed about her days as a gossip columnist, but really she’s not. That’s evident in her face.

“You never told me you wrote a society column.” I wag a finger, scolding.

She pretends to be innocent of keeping secrets. “Oh? Well, it was a long time ago.”

“You didn’t say anything in those columns that wasn’t true, did you?” I tease.

“Why, of course not. But people don’t always take well to the truth, do they?”

Just as quickly as we got on the track of Miss Chief, we’re off it again. She talks about people who have been dead for years, but in her mind, she’s just lunched with them yesterday.

I ask her about her wedding. In answer, she offers up a mishmash of memories from her wedding and others she has attended over the years, including those of my sisters. Grandma Judy loves weddings.

She won’t even remember mine.

The conversation leaves me sad and hollow. There are always just enough sparks of lucidity to get my hopes up, but the waves of dementia quickly sweep them out to sea.

We’re floating far from shore by the time I kiss her and tell her goodbye and that my father will be by today, hopefully.

“Oh, and who is your father?” she asks.

“Your son Wells.”

“I think you must be mistaken. I don’t have a son.”

As I walk out of the building, I desperately want to talk to someone and unload all of this. I pull up my favorites list, then stop with my finger over Elliot’s number. After what he said about Grandma Judy yesterday, it seems almost disloyal to tell him how much she’s slipping.

I don’t realize until my phone rings and I see the name on the screen that there is someone I can talk to. I think of the expression on his face when he spoke of those difficult last promises to his grandfather, the promises that kept May Crandall’s secrets and my grandmother’s, and instinctively I know he’ll understand.

Something in me rushes headlong across the distance, even though we haven’t spoken since that day at the nursing home several weeks ago. I told myself I wouldn’t get in touch with him again, that it was better to leave things be and move on.

As soon as I answer, he seems unsure of why he’s called. I wonder if he’s been thinking the same thing I have—there’s no place for a friendship between the two of us. Our parking lot encounter with Leslie proved that point. “I just…” he says finally. “I’ve seen some of the press about the nursing home exposé. You’ve been on my mind.”

A warm, pleasant sensation rushes through me. I’m completely unprepared for it. I will it not to show in my voice. “Ohhhh, don’t remind me. If this keeps up much longer, I’m liable to go all Ninja Turtle on someone.”

“No you aren’t.”