by Eli Lang
Okay. Well, that gave her the option to let me down gently—take my number, make like she was going to call me, and then conveniently forget. But at least neither of us would be as embarrassed as if she said no right here. I took the phone from her and opened the contacts. For a second, I thought about not putting anything but my name, a way to tell her later, if she bothered to check, that I got it. But that was petty and bitter and childish, and I ended up putting my number in.
She took the phone back and messed with it, and a second later, my own phone buzzed in my bag, against my leg. “There,” she said. “Now we have each other’s numbers.”
I knew my mouth was probably hanging open again, but I was surprised and . . . so absolutely fucking delighted, I couldn’t do anything about it. “You . . . you really want . . .” Maybe I was too tired for this. I couldn’t form proper sentences. Maybe I’d fallen asleep in the club and I was dreaming.
Zevi grabbed me by the elbow. “Okay, good. Time to go.” He gave me a sharp look, and I shut my mouth. He turned to Cara. “It was nice to meet you.”
She nodded and turned to me.
“I’ll call you,” I said, still a little dazed by how lucky I was tonight. I hadn’t kissed her, hadn’t gotten the promise of a date from her, but I’d run into her again, and she’d been interested enough in me, so that was how I felt. Bellamy would call me fortunate, because he loved words like that. Fortunate and a little bit special.
Her lips moved into that soft smile again. “Yeah. Do.”
“Tell your brother I thought his band was really good.” Zevi was tugging me toward the door, and I had to look over my shoulder to talk to her as I stepped away. She was already disappearing, the crowd closing in on the tiny space we’d left between us.
“He’ll love that, coming from you!” she called. I waved and she waved back, and then I turned and followed Zevi out of the club.
“Sorry,” he said when we got out the door. “I know you. Didn’t want you to put your foot in your mouth any more.”
I shook my head. I almost said I’d been tired and not thinking clearly when I first met Cara, and had probably already made a fool of myself in front of her. I was tired all of a sudden—exhausted, like my last reserves had left me in the club, in those few minutes with Cara, and now I was running on fumes. I needed to get back to my parents’ house and get some rest.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” Zevi asked, walking backward as we each headed to our cars.
I nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
He waved and turned around, and I made my way to my car, and then to my parents’ house. It was dark when I got there, only the porch light on for me, and I remembered the thoughts I’d had this morning, about sneaking in and out. I used my key and let myself in, and went up to my room without any sneaking at all.
I woke up closer to noon than morning the next day, the flight and the whole day before finally catching up with me. When I came downstairs, my mom was standing by the coffee maker. She had mugs and spoons lined out just so, and she handed me one when I came to stand next to her. She gave me a once-over, eyeing the ratty band T-shirt I’d worn to bed, the circles under my eyes, my chipped nail polish. I wanted to drop my head and slink away, tuck my nails into my palms. I hated that she could still do that to me, even after all this time, without saying anything at all. Make me feel lacking, make me want to promise to do better when I actually didn’t feel like I needed to change anything about me.
I made myself simply stare back at her. For a second, neither of us said anything, and I wondered, for that moment, what would happen if I outright asked her why she was always so disappointed by who I was, why she always wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. Would she even admit it? I doubted it, and I didn’t want to find out. She sighed, and I turned to the coffee maker, and nothing happened.
“Are you going to Grandma’s today?” she asked while I stirred sugar into my coffee.
I nodded. “You?”
She brushed her hair back from her face, a quick, careful flick of her fingers. The kitchen was so bright, even though it was cloudy outside. The gray of the day seemed to magnify the light, make it feel like it was surrounding us. My mother seemed to be basking in it. I tried to remember what she’d looked like sitting at the table in the house where I’d grown up. In the shade of the trees, the light completely different. I couldn’t picture it anymore.
“Later. Dad’s picking up some furniture, and then he’s going to come back and get me, and we’ll bring it to her new place.”
I nodded and then . . . I just stood there. I didn’t know what else to do, or say, and it didn’t seem like my mom did either. I held my coffee cup in front of me with both hands like it would protect me from how awkward this situation was. When had this happened to us? My mom and I had never been super close, but she was still my mom, and I was still her kid. She’d been the person who knew me better than anyone, who knew everything about me. But somewhere between my teenage years and where we were now, it was as if we’d forgotten how to talk to each other. How to be with each other. It made me feel . . . sad and distant in a way I couldn’t really explain.
I gestured up toward the stairs. “I’m going to go get ready.”
She nodded, and looked almost relieved. I left her twirling her mug around on the table.
By the time I got to my grandmother’s house, Zevi’s car was already in her driveway. I parked next to him and let myself in the back door without knocking. I wasn’t sure if anyone would hear me.
The house was quiet around me, but not quite still. I could feel that it wasn’t empty, that people were here, but it seemed like the wood and cloth, the old carpets and thick cotton curtains and soft edges of the place, were soaking up all the sound and light. It had always been like that in this house, no matter how many people were here. Close and cavernous at the same time, suffocating instead of cozy, unless it was winter, and then it was comfortable and snug. With the summer heat pouring in now, though, it felt sticky and smothering.
I moved from the kitchen at the back of the house into the main part, searching for my grandmother or Zevi. I came around a corner and ran almost smack into my gran. I gasped, and she took a step back, the soles of her shoes scuffing on the carpet, the noise just a whisper before the house sucked it in like every other sound.
“You scared the crap out of me.” I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to slow my heart. “Jesus.”
She shrugged. “Don’t sneak around, then.”
“I wasn’t . . .” I started, but she was already brushing past me. She moved slowly—she had arthritis in her hips and knees, and that was the biggest reason why she couldn’t stay in her house anymore—but she was still graceful. Careful, each movement precise. I wasn’t sure, honestly, if that was because of the pain or if she’d always moved that way. She walked into the kitchen, and I turned to follow her.
“Hey,” I said, but I was mostly talking to her back, the long silver braid hanging down her light-blue shirt. “That’s it?”
She glanced at me over her shoulder, then gestured at the juice she was getting out of the refrigerator. “Would you like some?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t surprised, exactly. My grandma had always done things her way, a way that wasn’t always what everyone else wanted. And if my mother and I had never been close, my grandmother and I had been downright distant. But it stung a little bit.
“I just flew all the way across the country to help you move.” I watched as she took a step toward the fridge, then back to the counter. Conservation of movements and energy, like she had everything calculated to what would be the exact, most efficient thing to do.
She didn’t even glance back at me. “You mean you just flew all the way across the country to stuff me somewhere out of the way, without asking me first if I even wanted you here.”
Ouch. “Well, I’m glad to see your brain and speech aren’t failing,” I said dryly.
She set her glass on
the counter and turned to face me. She gave me the same look, up and down, that my mother had that morning. It felt completely different, though. Less like she was getting ready to criticize me, or size me up, and more like she wanted to see me. It was better, but not any more comfortable. I wanted to squirm or duck my head, but I made myself hold still.
She sighed. “You look like you walked all the way across the country instead of flying.”
“God. Can everyone stop commenting on how awful I look?” I had peeked in the mirror this morning—fleetingly, sure, but I hadn’t thought it was quite that bad. Apparently I couldn’t see what everyone else did.
She turned to the cabinet and pulled out a second glass, then went back to the fridge for the juice. “I didn’t say you looked terrible. I said you looked tired.” She poured the juice, then turned to face me again, handing me the glass. “Do you even want to be here?”
I took a sip of juice so I wouldn’t have to answer right away. It was fruit punch, something Zevi and I had always asked for whenever we’d been here to visit.
“I wanted to be here for you,” I said, hedging.
She hesitated, then nodded. “Thank you, then. I’m not unhappy you’re here, Ava.”
I took another sip of my juice, and she sipped at hers. I thought, somewhere in the muffling effect of the house, I could hear Zevi moving something heavy, but neither my grandmother nor I made any move to go help him. We just stood together. It was odd, to be here after so much time and be doing this, which amounted to basically nothing. But it wasn’t as awkward as I would have thought, and I liked it more than the banal pleasantries people usually expected you to exchange. It wasn’t easier, exactly, but it was real.
“Do you not want to go?” I asked after a minute. It was what I’d been wondering yesterday, but I hadn’t expected to be faced with it right off the bat in quite that way.
She shook her head, but it wasn’t to say no, I didn’t think. “I have to go.”
“You don’t have to,” I started, because, really, who wanted to be told they had to leave their house and go live somewhere else, and had no choice in it? But I was a little worried she was going to agree with me, and then what was I going to do? I couldn’t exactly tell my parents that Gran wasn’t leaving her house and that was that, sorry.
But she was already shaking her head again. “I do.” She gestured at her knees. “I can’t do this anymore. No one’s wrong about that, and I know it. But I don’t like it.”
“I get that.”
“I can’t even help you move my stuff.” She actually looked pouty, which might have been funny to see on a woman pushing ninety, but it wasn’t at all. I’d have felt terrible if people were poking around in my house, my things, telling me what I had to do, where I had to go. If I had to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. It was a nightmare. And I’d never really thought about it before, because moving an elderly relative out of their home seemed so commonplace, somehow. It was commonplace. But that didn’t make it any less horrifying.
I started to apologize, to say something that might make this better, although what I could possibly come up with that would even come close was beyond me. But my grandma waved a hand in front of her, dismissing me and the situation. “Don’t.”
“Okay.” I had this image in my head that grandmothers were supposed to be cuddly and bake you cookies and, I don’t know, knit scarves or something. My dad’s mother had been like that—a terrible baker, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen her knit, but she’d been old-fashioned and into doing crafts and making puzzles and being . . . grandmotherly. She’d babied me and cooed over all my kindergarten drawings and had been so confused when I’d taken up drumming, but I’d kind of understood because it was so far outside what she knew. She’d been sweet, really, was the best way to describe her. My grandmother here, my mother’s mother, wasn’t sweet. She was straightforward and blunt and she didn’t try to coddle me simply because I was her grandchild. It had made her seem almost rough, cold and hard nearly, but not quite. Just close enough that she didn’t feel like a grandmother was supposed to. As a kid, that had freaked me out, even when I hadn’t really known how to put what was bothering me into words. But as an adult, I almost liked it. It was simpler. And I’d gotten tired a long time ago of things being the way everyone else thought they were supposed to be.
“I can show you everything we do. I can bring stuff downstairs for you to go through.” She couldn’t go up and down the stairs easily anymore—hadn’t been able to for a while.
She shook her head. “No, I trust you two. I’ve got my own stuff to sort through. Come get me when you get bored, though. There’s something I want your help with.”
I nodded, and that was that. She went back to her juice, and I turned and headed up to the second floor to find Zevi. My grandmother and I hadn’t said hello, hadn’t hugged or exchanged any niceties. But I wasn’t sure I was upset about it, wasn’t sure it stung as much as it first had when I’d walked in. It was, at the very least, real. Honest.
Zevi was sitting in one of the bedrooms upstairs, surrounded by boxes filled with pictures and papers and what appeared to be a whole lot of junk. He looked up when I stepped into the room, and watched while I picked my way through, shoving a couple of things aside so I could sit down, lean my back against the bed.
“You see Gran?” he asked.
I nodded and picked up a handful of pictures. “She’s pissed.”
He shrugged, but the movement was tight and uncomfortable, and he kept his eyes on the papers he was sorting. “She can’t do it here anymore. It’s too much. And she’d gonna fall and get herself killed.”
“I know. She knows. I just . . .” I glanced around at the room, filled with lifetimes of things. My grandparents’ things, my mom’s and my aunt’s things. Maybe even stuff that went back further than Gran, maybe stuff from her parents, or older relatives, or friends. How much of this stuff had been completely forgotten? Did she even remember what was up here? Or did she remember it all? Maybe it was almost a relief, to have it all sorted through and gone. Or maybe it was like throwing out pieces of herself. I wanted to ask, but I knew I wouldn’t. Even if I hadn’t been too nervous to, it would have been cruel.
“I kind of hate this,” I said without thinking.
Zevi did look up at me then. “Yeah. Me too.”
We worked together for a couple of hours, poking through stuff. Zevi had started by going through every single thing, but after a while, it seemed pretty obvious that we would both be as old as our grandmother if we kept that up. We flipped through piles of papers and boxed them, and stacked them near the door so we could bring them to Gran later, to double-check there wasn’t anything important. I somehow ended up on the tiny-items-that-seem-to-have-no-place-or-use detail. There were piles of knickknacks, picture frames, costume jewelry, key chains, chunks of wood that might be decorative, if you were into that. I didn’t know what to do with all of it. I didn’t want it. Zevi didn’t want it. My mom would flip if I tried to bring any of it back to her house. But it was someone’s life, or it had been, even if it was only junk now. Maybe it had been loved. Maybe it had decorated someone’s windowsill or bookcase. Maybe someone had run their fingers over it every day. Maybe it had reminded someone of something, a memory or a person or something good.
I felt terrible throwing it out, but I didn’t know what else to do. I boxed everything up and set it by the same pile Zevi was building, and figured that was pretty much all I could do.
Zevi and I stopped for a late lunch, snacking on whatever Gran had in her fridge. After, Zevi went back upstairs, and I wandered to the other end of the house, where Gran had her bedroom.
Gran’s bedroom had been the best room in the house, the one that was awesome, when I was a kid. She had one of those huge canopy beds, the kind that looked slightly intimidating instead of comfy, especially to a little kid. But it wasn’t what dominated the room. Neither was her dark wood furniture, glossy and sleek even
while it was clunky. No, the things that had always drawn my eye were the books. Giant bookshelves ringed the room, and continued right out the door, down a tiny hallway and into the connecting study, which was really more of a library. Books and books and more books. The shelves held tons, but she had them stacked sometimes three or four deep, books carefully piled behind books, on top of books, books stacked on the floor in graceful tiers. Books piled on top of the bookcases themselves, books on her nightstand and on the desk in the study. Covers in all colors, with more fonts than I’d ever imagined. Hardcover and paperback, and all different sizes. When I was little, I’d tried to count them, over and over. It had been the most surefire way to get me to stay relatively still for a little while, quell some of that energy that I could never seem to burn off. Put me in the room with the books.
It still looked the same, although I could see that Gran had gotten someone to take down the books from all the higher shelves, and she’d been sorting through them, the same way Zevi and I were sorting upstairs.
She was sitting on a chair in the middle of it all now, books in her arms. She held them carefully and gently, as if they were living things, her fingers tucked around their edges, her palm flat against the spines. It was the same way I held my snare drum, when I had to move it, or my favorite crash cymbal. The way you held something when you absolutely didn’t want anything to happen to it.
I rapped my knuckles against the doorframe, and she jerked her head up, startled. She recovered quickly, though, giving her head a tiny shake and setting the books in her lap. She flicked her fingers at me, gesturing me in, and I stepped around the piles of books on the floor. When I got closer, I could see that she’d labeled them with sticky notes, dividing them into categories that weren’t quite like any I’d seen in a library. Creature novels was the closest pile. It sat next to a stack labeled Pirates and buccaneers. Off to my side, there was Space opera and Fae/fey/fairies. I couldn’t see the rest of the sticky notes, but I wanted to wander around the room and just read them, see how she’d labeled everything else. I had thought my grandmother would be more logical, with a genre system. But maybe this was more logical than the way libraries and bookstores did it, in a way.