Thank You for Listening(69)

“Blah?” Sewanee reached for her hand. “Everything’s fine. I’m here.”

Her grandmother’s eyes settled on Sewanee’s face and went wide. Sewanee smiled, trying to provide a hint of familiarity, of normalcy. But then Blah said, “Who are you?”

Sewanee squeezed her hand. “Sewanee.”

Blah pulled her hand back. “Get away from me.”

Sewanee took it again. “Blah, please, it’s Dollface–”

Blah yanked it back. “No!” Her voice was raw. “Don’t you touch me!” Frantic, too. Sewanee leaned in closer, which only made Blah retreat further, which made Sewanee say, desperately, “I’m Henry’s daughter, your granddaughter–”

“Help!” Blah screeched. “Somebody help me!”

Sewanee felt Carlos’s hand on her shoulder, urging her back. She threw it off. “BlahBlah!” Sewanee barked.

Blah thrashed, trying to get away, get up, get out. Gina grabbed her shoulder.

The older aide said, “We may have to call an ambulance.”

Sewanee changed tactics. She made shushing noises, and in her gentlest voice said, “You’re my grandmother and I love you and you’re safe and everything’s fine.”

“AAAHHHHHHH!” She’d reached banshee hysteria.

“Okay, Barbara, okay, easy,” Carlos murmured, grabbing her other shoulder.

Sewanee made one final attempt. She couldn’t help it. She took Blah’s face in her hands, looked in her eyes, trying to connect through force of will alone. “BlahBlah, listen to–”

Blah spit in her face.

Sewanee was so shocked, so utterly dumbfounded, that all she could do was nothing. She was paralyzed.

“You’re not my granddaughter! My granddaughter is beautiful!”

“Blah–” Sewanee choked.

“MONSTER!!!”

Sewanee didn’t remember leaving the room. She didn’t know how she ended up downstairs and outside, on her knees in the grass in the garden sobbing so hard she couldn’t breathe. She felt faint and nauseous and inflamed all at once. She felt as though she were on fire. The sounds coming from her were the primal keens of the mortally wounded. Her forehead dug into the muddy grass, she pulled clumps of it up by the handful. She cradled her head and burrowed the mud into her scalp. Her throat burned like a crematorium. Eventually the sounds subsided and what was left were residual heaves. And the hand on her back.

The hand. On her back. Not moving, not soothing, not petting. Resting. The full span of it nested between her shoulder blades.

WHEN SHE RESURFACED, she was surprised to find herself curled in Nick’s lap. That they were sitting on a bench in the garden, the one she’d sat on with Amanda. She opened her eye and, through the blur, could see that the chest of his tuxedo shirt was a mess. Wet and smeared with the remnants of her mascara, lipstick, and foundation. It looked like a crime scene. She couldn’t fathom what she must look like. She also couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m so sorry,” she choked out.

“Shhhh.” He brought his hand to the side of her head, guiding it to his shoulder, his jacket soft and dry.

“This was–” Then, to herself, “Oh God.” Back to Nick: “You don’t have to stay, I’m fine now–”

“Don’t be an arse,” he murmured, his tone soothing despite the playful admonishment, “I’m not going anywhere.”

So she let herself be cradled by him. In fact, she brought her arm up across his chest and around his other shoulder, snuggling closer. She let his fingers play at her hairline, took comfort in the steady beating of his heart.

After an epoch, when she felt she had returned to some reasonable baseline, she was left with the heady, slightly-stoned feeling extreme sobbing generates. She wanted to talk, but wasn’t sure she was capable of coherent speech. She took a breath and gave it a try, rhetorically murmuring, “June’s nephew. No wonder you were so good at the Romance version.”

She felt his chuckle like thunder in his chest. “I could have been a wee bit more honest, too.”

Sewanee paused. “Your name is Nick, right?”

“Yes, you see, I didn’t know we were making up names.” She heard the teasing in his voice. “But I shouldn’t have played it dumb.”

“Why did you? You didn’t have to. You had an opening. ‘I’m a Romance editor.’ ‘Oh, what a coincidence, my aunt basically built the entire category, perhaps you’ve heard of her?’”

“Right. That would have been a thing to say.” He paused. “What would you have said to that?”

Sewanee thought for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe I would have taken the opportunity to come clean. You wouldn’t have been some random guy in a bar anymore.”

“But I was a random guy in a bar.”

She dared to look up. He made a pouting smile, probably at the absolute disaster of her face. She started to go back into hiding, into the safety of his jacket. But he stopped her. Put his hand on her chin and kept her head up. He gazed at her. “I think we both wanted random,” he murmured. “That was the fantasy, no?”

The word “fantasy” sparked a dormant ember inside her.

Brock McNight.