My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(40)

Mum turns to Elsa. Tries unsuccessfully to smile.

“Does it make me a terrible person that I’ve forgotten?”

Elsa shakes her head. She was going to say something about The Monster and the wurse, but she doesn’t because she’s worried Mum won’t let her see them anymore if she knows. Mums can have a lot of strange principles when it comes to social interaction between their children and monsters and wurses. Elsa understands that everyone is scared of them, and that it will take a long time to make them all understand that The Monster and the wurse—like the drunk—are not what they seem.

“How often did Granny go away?” she asks instead.

A silver-colored car behind them sounds its horn when she allows a space to develop between her and the car in front. Mum releases the brake and Kia slowly rolls forward.

“It varied. It depended on where she was needed, and for how long.”

“Was that what you meant that time Granny said you became an economist just to spite her?”

The car behind them sounds its horn again.

“What?”

Elsa fiddles with the rubber seal in the door.

“I heard you. Like a mega-long time ago. When Granny said you became an economist because you were in teenage rebellion. And you said, ‘How do you know? You were never here!’ That was what you meant, wasn’t it?”

“I was angry, Elsa. Sometimes it’s hard to control what you say, when you’re angry.”

“Not you. You never lose control.”

Mum tries to smile again.

“With your grandmother it was . . . more difficult.”

“How old were you when Grandfather died?”

“Twelve.”

“And Granny left you?”

“Your grandmother went where she was needed, darling.”

“Didn’t you need her though?”

“Others needed her more.”

“Is that why you were always arguing?”

Mum sighs deeply as only a parent who has just realized that she has strayed considerably further into a story than she was intending is capable of sighing.

“Yes. Yes, sometimes it was probably for that reason we were arguing. But sometimes it was about other things. Your grandmother and I were very . . . different.”

“No. You were just different in different ways.”

“Maybe.”

“What else did you argue about?”

The car behind Kia beeps its horn again. Mum closes her eyes and holds her breath. And only when she finally releases the hand brake and lets Kia roll forward does she release the word from her lips, as if it had to force its way through.

“You. We always argued about you, darling.”

“Why?”

“Because when you love someone very much, it’s difficult to learn to share her with someone else.”

“Like Jean Grey,” Elsa observes, as if it were absolutely obvious.

“Who?”

“A superhero. From X-Men. Wolverine and Cyclops both loved her. So they argued so much about her, it was totally insane.”

“I thought those X-Men were mutants, not superheroes. Isn’t that what you said last time we spoke about them?”

“It’s complicated,” says Elsa, even though it isn’t really, if one has read enough quality literature.

“So what kind of superpower does this Jean Grey have, then?”

“Telepathy.”

“Good superpower.”

“Insane.” Elsa nods in agreement.

She decides not to point out that Jean Grey can also do telekinesis, because she doesn’t want to make things more complicated than necessary for Mum right now. She is pregnant, after all.

So instead, Elsa pulls the rubber seal on the door. Peers down into the gap. She is incredibly tired, as tired as an almost-eight-year-old gets after staying up all night feeling angry. Elsa’s mum never had a mum of her own, because Granny was always somewhere else, to help someone else. Elsa has never thought of Granny in that way.

“Are you angry with me because Granny was so much with me and never with you?” she asks carefully.

Mum shakes her head so quickly and vehemently that Elsa immediately understands whatever she’s about to say will be a lie.

“No, my darling, darling girl. Never. Never!”

Elsa nods and looks down again into the gap in the door.

“I’m angry with her. For not telling the truth.”

“Everyone has secrets, darling.”

“Are you angry with me because Granny and I had secrets?” She thinks about the secret language, which they always spoke so Mum wouldn’t understand. She thinks about the Land-of-Almost-Awake, and wonders if Granny ever took Mum there.

“Never angry . . .” whispers Mum, and reaches across the seat before she adds, in a whisper: “Jealous.”

The feeling of guilt hits Elsa like cold water when you’re least expecting it.

“So that’s what Granny meant,” she states.

“What did she say?” Mum asks.

Elsa snorts.

“She said I’d hate her if I found out who she was before I was born. That’s what she meant. That I’d find out that she was a crappy mum who left her own child—”

Mum turns to her with eyes so shiny that Elsa can see her own reflection in them.