Chapter 7 #3
Grandma Mae’s building sat on a narrow street lined with old brick row houses, small trees in iron squares, and cars parked too close together.
The front steps were chipped at one corner.
The buzzer had always stuck in cold weather.
A corner store glowed at the end of the block, its sign flickering between letters.
Sophie looked up through the windshield. “This is smaller.”
“Yes.”
“Where’s the gate?”
“There isn’t one.”
“Can people just come to the door?”
“They can come to the building door. Not inside without a key.”
She absorbed that with moderate suspicion.
I parked behind the building in the space Mae had fought for during a winter when snowplows turned the alley into a wall.
The suitcase wheels clattered over uneven pavement.
Sophie carried Bluebell and her backpack.
I carried the rest, making two trips because the file box was heavier than grief had any right to be.
The apartment was on the third floor.
By the second landing, Sophie was breathing hard.
“Grandma Mae had too many stairs,” she announced.
“She said they kept her honest.”
“What does that mean?”
“I never found out.”
The key stuck once, then turned.
The apartment opened with the smell of old radiator heat, dust, and the faint lemon cleaner the building superintendent used in the hallway. I stepped inside and turned on the light.
Small.
I had known that. Still, after Vale House, the size met the body first. Narrow entry.
Kitchen to the left with yellowed cabinets and a table tucked beneath the window.
Living room straight ahead, one worn sofa, two mismatched chairs, bookshelves holding Mae’s art books and a ceramic bowl full of keys to doors that no longer existed.
The radiator knocked twice as if clearing its throat.
Sophie stood in the doorway.
“Where do I sleep?”
I set her suitcase down. “You can have Grandma Mae’s bedroom.”
“Where will you sleep?”
“On the sofa.”
“It’s little.”
“I’m little when I’m tired.”
She gave me a look. “No, you’re not.”
That was the closest she had come to laughing all day.
I showed her the bedroom. The bed was full-sized, covered with the quilt Mae had made from fabric scraps because buying a new one offended her. I opened the drawer that still held a few of my mother’s scarves and moved them gently to the top shelf of the closet.
Sophie placed Bluebell in the center of the bed.
“She looks okay here,” Sophie said.
“She does.”
I unpacked her pajamas, school clothes for the next day, toothbrush, hairbrush, and the purple pillowcase I had remembered after all, folded in the bottom of the suitcase beneath her rain boots. Sophie’s shoulders dropped when she saw it.
“You packed it.”
“Yes.”
She held it against her chest for a second before putting it over Mae’s pillow.
The grocery delivery arrived just after six.
I made pasta in the narrow kitchen while Sophie sat at the old table with her watercolor set.
The table rocked slightly if she leaned too hard on one elbow.
She noticed immediately and folded a napkin under the short leg with the seriousness of an engineer.
“Grandma Mae’s table is wobbly,” she said.
“It has opinions.”
“About what?”
“Mostly about elbows.”
She painted a purple sun over the back of an old envelope.
The radiator knocked again. A neighbor’s television murmured through the wall. A siren passed somewhere far enough away to be part of the city and not our room. The apartment did not hush itself. It let every sound arrive.
After dinner, I washed two bowls by hand because the dishwasher was me.
Sophie brushed her teeth in the small bathroom and complained about the faucet being too squeaky.
I found extra blankets in the linen closet, shook dust from one near the window, and made the sofa into something almost sleepable.
At eight, Sophie stood in the bedroom doorway wearing pajamas with moons on them.
“Can I call Daddy?”
The question came carefully.
I dried my hands on a towel.
“Not tonight,” I said. “Tomorrow we’ll decide a good time.”
“Will he be mad?”
“He may have feelings. They are for him to handle.”
She repeated the sentence softly, not to me. “For him to handle.”
I hated that she needed it. I was grateful she had it.
I tucked her into Mae’s bed. Bluebell under her chin. Purple pillowcase beneath her cheek. I left the door open halfway and the hall light on.
When her breathing evened out, I sat at the kitchen table with my phone.
There were five missed calls from Grayson.
Two texts.
Where are you?
Nora, answer me.
I placed the phone flat on the table and typed with my thumbs because my hands shook too much to hold it one-handed.
Sophie and I are safe. Do not come here tonight.
I read it once.
No extra sentence. No apology. No explanation he could argue with before Sophie slept through her first night in Mae’s room.
I sent it.
The message marked delivered.
I turned the phone face down.
The radiator knocked in the wall. Sophie’s suitcase lay open near the bedroom door, one sleeve of her cardigan spilling over the side. Her watercolor page dried on the kitchen counter, purple sun curling at the edges.
I sat at Mae’s old table, one hand resting on the back of a mismatched wooden chair, while the small apartment held its noise around us.