My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(41)

“She didn’t leave me. You mustn’t hate your granny, darling.”

And when Elsa doesn’t answer, Mum puts her hand against Elsa’s cheek and whispers, “All daughters are angry with their mothers about something. But she was a good grandmother, Elsa. She was the most fantastic grandmother anyone could imagine.”

Elsa defiantly pulls at the rubber seal.

“But she left you by yourself. All those times she went off, she left you on your own, didn’t she?”

“I had your grandfather when I was small.”

“Yeah, until he died!”

“When he died I had the neighbors.”

“What neighbors?” Elsa wants to know.

The car behind beeps its horn. Mum makes an apologetic gesture at the back window and Kia rolls forward.

“Britt-Marie,” says Mum at last.

Elsa stops fiddling with the rubber seal in the door.

“What do you mean, Britt-Marie?”

“She took care of me.”

Elsa’s eyebrows sink into a scowling V-shape.

“So why is she such a nightmare to you now, then?”

“Don’t say that, Elsa.”

“But she is!”

Mum sighs through her nose.

“Britt-Marie wasn’t always like that. She’s just . . . lonely.”

“She’s got Kent!”

Mum blinks so slowly that her eyes are closed.

“There are many ways of being alone, darling.”

Elsa goes back to fiddling with the rubber seal on the door.

“She’s still an idiot.”

“People can turn into idiots if they’re alone for long enough,” agrees Mum.

The car behind them beeps its horn again.

“Is that why Granny isn’t in any of the old photos at home?” asks Elsa.

“What?”

“Granny isn’t in any of the photos from before I was born. When I was small I thought it was because she was a vampire, because they can’t be seen in photos, and they can smoke as much as they want without getting a sore throat. But she wasn’t a vampire, was she? She was just never at home.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Yes, until someone explains it to you! But when I asked Granny about it, she always changed the subject. And when I ask Dad, he says, ‘Eh . . . eh . . . what do you want? You want an ice cream? You can have an ice cream!’?”

Mum suddenly laughs explosively. Elsa does a mean impersonation of her dad.

“Your dad doesn’t exactly like conflict.” Mum giggles.

“Was Granny a vampire or not?”

“Your granny traveled around the world saving children’s lives, darling. She was a . . .”

Mum looks as if she’s looking for the right word. And once she finds it, she brightens and smiles radiantly.

“A superhero! Your granny was a superhero!”

Elsa stares down into the cavity in the door.

“Superheroes don’t leave their own children.”

Mum is silent.

“All superheroes have to make sacrifices, darling,” she tries at last.

But both she and Elsa know she doesn’t mean it.

The car behind them beeps its horn again. Mum’s hand shoots up apologetically towards the back window, and Kia rolls forward a few yards. Elsa realizes that she’s sitting there hoping Mum will start yelling. Or crying. Or anything. She just wants to see her feel something.

Elsa can’t understand how anyone can be in such a hurry to move five yards in a traffic jam. She looks in the rearview mirror at the man in the car behind them. He seems to think the traffic jam is being caused by Elsa’s mum. Elsa wishes with every fiber of her being that Mum would do what she did when she was pregnant with Elsa, and get out of the car and roar at the guy and tell him enough’s bloody enough.

Elsa’s father told that story. He almost never tells stories, but one Midsummer Eve—at the time when Mum was looking sadder and sadder and going to bed earlier and earlier and Dad sat on his own in the kitchen at night and reorganized the icons on Mum’s computer screen and cried—they were at a party together, all three of them. And then Dad drank three beers and told a story about how Mum, while heavily pregnant with Elsa, got out of the car and went up to a man in a silver car and threatened to “give birth here and now on his sodding hood if he honked at her again!” Everyone laughed a lot at that story. Not Dad, of course, because he’s not a big fan of laughing. But Elsa saw that even he found it funny. He danced with Mum that Midsummer. That was the last time Elsa saw them dancing together. Dad is spectacularly bad at dancing; he looks like a very large bear that has just got up and realizes its foot has gone to sleep. Elsa misses it.

And she misses someone who gets out and shouts at men in silver-colored cars.

The man in the silver-colored car behind them beeps again. Elsa picks up her backpack from the floor, gets out the heaviest book she can find, throws the door open, and jumps out onto the highway. She hears Mum shouting for her to come back, but without turning around she runs towards the silver car and slams the book as hard as she can into its hood. It leaves a big dent. Elsa’s hands are shaking.

The man in the silver car stares at her as if he can’t quite believe what just happened.

“ENOUGH, you muppet!”