Don't Let Go(62)

“Hey,” I said, my sneakers sinking into her soft, plush lawn. Mine was never that good. My house, either. Then again, I didn’t have three yard guys and a maid service on my payroll.
Nana Mae turned slowly from her crouching position in the dirt and smiled.
“Hey there, sweet pea!” She backed out on all fours. “Hang on a second and I can look at you face-to-face.”
“What are you doing?”
“Well, I planted this little cactus garden over there.” She pointed with an elbow as I grabbed the other one to help her up. “Then I saw a couple of weeds sprouting up, and, you know.”
“It’s January, Nana Mae.”
“It’s cactus, Julianna, it doesn’t care,” she said, grunting to her feet.
“You pay people for this,” I pointed out. “So you don’t have to crawl around on your knees anymore.”
“I like crawling around,” she fussed. “And if I wait on them, it all goes to hell.”
“You’re hopeless,” I said, giving her shoulders a squeeze.
“Yeah, well, I’m breathing,” she said, brushing off her pants and rubbing her hands together to knock some of the dirt loose. “What’s up?” she said, gesturing at the envelope in my hand.
I felt the smile leave my face and then tried to pull it back. I had pictures of him, finally. Something to show for the child I gave birth to, for the years of wondering. I should be happy. But all the crap surrounding them just felt life-sucking.
“Let’s go in so you can clean up,” I said, holding up the envelope.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “What did I do?”
I laughed. “Nothing you’ve been busted for yet. Come on.”
When she’d washed up and settled onto the couch next to Maddy—who glared at me for interfering once again—I opened the envelope and laid everything out on the coffee table. Nana Mae frowned and pulled her readers from the top of her head, peering through them.
“What is this?” she asked. “Cute little—” She stopped and gasped, looking up at me over the glasses. When I didn’t say anything, she narrowed her gaze over them again, looking closer at one of them as she picked it up. One that looked very much like Noah. “It’s the same boy, here as a man. Oh, honey, is this—?”
“Seth,” I said, clearing my throat of the lump that had risen there. “I found out that his name is Seth.”
“Oh,” she exclaimed, her voice soft as she ran fingers over each of them, very much as I had. “What a beautiful boy.” She shook her head as her eyes filled with emotion. “So much like Becca when she was little. How did you get these?”
I bit down on my lip. She was my mother’s mother. But she looked up at me with true questions in her eyes and I couldn’t lie to her.
“Mom had them hidden away,” I said. “In a carved-out book.”
I watched the words hit her with surprise, then make her sit back a fraction as she thought it through. Slowly, she shook her head, not wanting to believe what I might be saying, even before I’d said much of anything.
“There’s more than this,” I said. “Letters and drawings and stuff.”
“Why?” she said, the word barely making sound. “Why?”
I swallowed. “Evidently she set up money for him in exchange for updates and stuff.”
Nana Mae blinked rapidly. “But—okay, but what about—how did you find out about it?” She stared down at all the captured moments of his life, held forever on photo paper and Polaroids. “Did you just—I mean, why was it hidden?”
Her rapid-fire randomness was exactly how I felt.
“She didn’t think I could handle it, so she decided—”
“Oh, my God,” she mumbled, putting a hand over her eyes.
I took a deep breath and continued. “To keep it under wraps.”
“How do you know this?”
“Johnny Mack.”
Her eyebrows shot up and she shoved her glasses back up on top of her head. “Say what?”
“Noah had pictures all along, sent from his dad, who got them from Mom.”
She narrowed her eyes as if I’d spoken Russian. “What the hell?”
“Shayna told me that Noah had pictures.”
“And who is Shayna?” she asked.
“Noah’s—fiancée.” I licked my lips and swallowed hard at the word.
Nana Mae sighed and sat back on the couch, studying me in that way of hers that always rattled me. “Of course. And she’s talking to you why?”
“Because I’m her—only friend here, I guess. I don’t know. Anyway, she told me that and I went to ask him—”
“To ask Noah?”
“Yes. And he said that his dad sent them, so we went to the diner—”
“Just you and him?”
“Yes! Will you quit?” I said, getting flustered. “And Johnny Mack told me the rest. Mom gave him copies and swore him to secrecy. So we went back to my house—”
“Just you and him.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. “Are you really doing this right now?”
She scoffed. “Are you really getting all pinked up and bothered that I’m pointing it out?”
I felt the damning heat on my chest and neck. “This is about what Mom did,” I said.
“Yes, it is,” she said. “And that’ll come back around to play. But first, I want to know why you’re hanging out so much with the very people you need to avoid.”