Who Loves You Best

Chapter 1

“I have an opportunity for you.”

“An opportunity?” I wondered what my daughter had in mind.

“Take care of Macallan while I’m out of town.”

Macallan was my only grandchild, named in honor of the scotch my daughter and son-in-law were enjoying the evening she was conceived.

“Yes! Definitely!” I shouted, pumping my cell phone in the air. I was thrilled to be asked to babysit my granddaughter—couldn’t have been happier if Lisa had offered me a trip around the world. First class and free.

“Wait, Mom. We haven’t discussed when. And what about work?”

I was a foot doctor. I chose podiatry because I loved feet. I fell for my husband when I saw his big toe. The sexiest. But no matter what I had scheduled at the office, I wasn’t about to forfeit the chance to spend time with Macallan. As for canceling social commitments, who cared? I lived on the southeastern coast of Florida, in Boca Raton, where grandchildren were a religion. My friends would cheer me on.

Lisa, who owned a restaurant, and her husband, Brian, a geography professor, resided in the Berkshires. The thought of time there with Macallan was delectable: waving goodbye to her as she boarded the school bus; greeting her with a hearty wave and cookies or a candy bar upon her return; reading together as we rocked on Lisa’s Victorian porch; shopping for the overpriced, unnecessary stuff only a grandmother would buy; hopping on rides at the country fair, where middle-aged couples in matching obnoxious T-shirts lined up at food trucks to order meat parfaits topped with a grape tomato instead of a cherry.

“I have a lot to do, and I’d like to handle it all at once.”

I appreciated Lisa’s work ethic. We were ambitious women. “I understand. No back-and-forth. Good use of time. How’s around Columbus Day?”

“Mom, it’s not called Columbus Day anymore. It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day.”

“How’s around Indigenous Peoples’ Day?” I said, revising my language, which, when you’re my age, sixty-seven, is imperative—unless you wish to appear as though you dwelled in a cave instead of a condominium.

Lisa paused. “Mmm. End of October would be better.”

“Halloween!” I said, unsurprised Lisa was willing to skip trick-or-treating with Macallan. We approached motherhood differently. But I’d already had my chance to raise children, and what she did was up to her.

“Could you stay for a while? I’m not sure how long, Mom. Might have to leave it open ended.”

Lisa, I have a practice, I thought but didn’t say. I need a time frame.

“Some things are going on. We’ll talk when you get here.”

Concerned about my daughter, wary of her tone, I didn’t respond immediately.

Lisa was not one to wait for answers. “Mom?”

“Is everything all right?” I asked.

“Tell you what. Don’t jump on it. Check your calendar. Let me know. Oh, and if you’re tied up, I have other options.”

“No way, Lisa. I’m good. I’m in! Dad and I were planning a trip to see your brother Michael in California, but I’ll come to you instead.”

“Michael might not appreciate a sudden change in plans.”

Nice that she was concerned about her brother. “It’s not sudden, and I can see Michael another time.”

Lisa rarely asked me to babysit. Sometimes I felt as though I had to stand in line to visit my own grandchild, as though I were in a crowded bakery and forced to take a number. Naturally, my husband and I were enraptured by our first and only grandchild. To my astonishment, I felt youthful when I spoke to her, spry in her presence. Macallan was my passport to the future. I was determined to live long enough to see her become an adult. To that end, I had taken up running to stay in shape. No—not marathons. I trotted around the complex where we lived.

“I’ll book a one-way flight tonight,” I promised.

“Oops, sorry. One more thing. You’ll need to reserve a rental car. I no longer trek to the airport, and Brian will be away.”

Hello? I was flying from Florida—for an unspecified amount of time—and my daughter wouldn’t meet me at arrivals or so much as pull up late to the Delta curb. Okay, I know it may be akin to I trudged miles to school in a blizzard , but if asked, I would’ve collected my own parents from Mount Everest. During an avalanche. No Sherpa in sight.

When I spoke to Lisa, I tried, struggled, not to compare what I would’ve done to what she was doing. She was smart. She had her own values. But what other frame of reference did I have?

“I’m sorry—I’m too busy to pick you up. The Farmer’s Daughter was featured in a popular culinary podcast, and it’s been nuts since then.”

Back when Lisa bought her restaurant, it was a lethargic, run-down café owned by a hard-faced woman in a hairnet. My husband and I helped with the down payment. Lisa gave it her all. She repaired, repainted, refurnished, renamed, and opened it to instant acclaim. The Greylock Grind , a free monthly paper, raved, “Finally. Food good enough to eat.”

So, I’d rent a car. “That’s fine, Lisa. I can’t wait to see Macallan.”

“She misses you. Last night, she asked why she doesn’t see you as much as her other grandmother.”

Pains in my chest. It was so acutely obvious I was on the away team that even the kid noticed. Lisa’s mother-in-law, Diandra, whom I hadn’t laid eyes on in years, had resettled in the Berkshires. You’d never know it—due to her aggressive personality—but Diandra hailed from one of those places in America where folks are chatty and charming and swallow their anger calmly instead of telling you off.

I’d be a liar if I didn’t acknowledge how envious I was of Diandra’s omnipresence. I had nightmares of her tucking Macallan into bed, repeating the same nighty night she had chanted to her sons. Diandra was Grandma the Great, and I was Nana What’s Her Name. Without question, I was sure she knew every person of importance in Macallan’s life. I imagined Macallan introducing me to a teacher or a friend: This is my other grandma, the one I hardly see.

“You’ll be on your own,” Lisa warned me as if I were incapable.

Did she not remember I was the mother of three grown children?

“Maybe Dad wants to come with you?”

Dad? No way. I was pleased to have a break from “Dad.” After spending far too much time with him during the pandemic, I’d be happy to just Zoom with Dad. And it was okay if he was on mute.

“Lisa, I did raise you. Also, you have two healthy brothers who made it to adulthood.”

“And as I recall, you fed me formula from a can.”

“It was soybean,” I said, defending myself.

I was surprised Lisa had to go back to infancy to come up with something she believed I had done wrong. Hadn’t I committed a more recent crime? I decided not to ask. I wasn’t naive. I knew for certain that one day she’d blow up at me for some unrelated reason, tell me whatever I had more recently done incorrectly. When in doubt, blame your mother.

“That formula you fed me is the reason I’m unable to drink whole milk now.”

“How do you know it was the formula? It could be you’re intolerant.”

“Mom, you forgot the word lactose before intolerant .”

“Did I?”

“Tell me the truth. Why didn’t you breastfeed?”

“Now don’t get me started. Everything we did in the past is shameful today. Back then, if I had insisted you wear a bicycle helmet, people would have asked, ‘What’s that funny thing on your daughter’s head?’”

“Oh, Mom, I wish you lived closer—but not close enough to drop in for a cup of coffee.” She zinged me for the entertainment of it, a revered family tradition.

“Maybe I’ll move next door.”

“That house will never be for sale.”

Lisa was clearly my offspring. But also, different. I was traditional, the product of a sheltered, xenophobic home. From birth to eight years of age, I lived on a rural poultry and egg farm in Colchester, Connecticut, where my parents had resettled from a tenement. My mission as the elder of two overly protected children was simple: keep the boat from rocking; cause no consternation. Whereas Lisa was born independent in New York City. If there was an umbilical cord, I never saw it. From third grade, she had insisted on walking to public school in Manhattan on her own. For the first few weeks I followed to make sure she was okay. One overcast morning she caught sight of me, and my career as a stalker was over.

Looking at the clock, I realized I had to hurry if I was going to make my first appointment on time. I said goodbye to Lisa from my recently renovated kitchen (I liked where I lived—and with the renovations I liked it even better).

I stepped out in raspberry open-toe sandals (I was a podiatrist—shoes first), loose linen pants, a sleeveless top. Monochromatic. No accessories. No jewelry. Both were bothersome when I treated patients. Even though I had chosen light, comfortable clothing, I was wilted, prickly, when I reached my Toyota, baking in the condominium lot. A heat wave—unusual for fall—had hit Boca Raton. I hadn’t gone running in days because it was too darn hot. I refused to drown in my own sweat.

In my car, I hit the air-conditioning and smiled at my reflection in the rearview mirror as I thought of spending a while in the hopefully chilly Berkshires taking care of my granddaughter.

Traffic en route to my office was at a standstill. I dropped the air-conditioning so low I half expected the GPS to speak with a shiver. In the years I’d lived in Florida, I’d never ridden with the windows open, except when my mother-in-law, Eileen, who dropped by way too much and hated me until she was eighty-five (then forgot who I was), died at ninety-three. I was stuck in the limousine behind the hearse, and my brother-in-law controlled the air temperature.

Taylor Swift was on the radio in my frosty Toyota. Jubilantly, I sang along. As I approached the gatehouse at the office park, I lowered the volume and waved to the security guard, a brittle man, the last person I’d count on to ward off intruders.

“I’m Taylor Swift,” I said jauntily. “Here to see Paul McCartney.”

The guard grinned, which emphasized his dentures. “Good morning, Dr. Wexler. Have a great day.”

When I hustled in, my expert office manager, Rizzo, waved from the steel gray reception area, an enclosed space with a sliding glass window, facing the entryway. Rizzo had worked for me in New York and joined me when I relocated and opened my practice in Florida. Rizzo was fond of warm weather. Also, she had an only son she needed out of the city. He had cut public school so often his buddies had nicknamed him Skipper.

“Butt Road Podiatry,” Rizzo rattled off as she answered the phone. She spoke roughly, rapidly, like the girl from the borough she was.

Okay, I know. Butt Road? The office is on Butt Road, and that was its name when I bought it. When you purchase an existing business, you don’t change the name. Butt Road it was. Butt Road it remained.

When Rizzo hung up the phone, I blurted out, “Lisa invited me to Massachusetts to take care of Macallan!”

She swayed her shoulders, dancing. “You go, girl!”

I beamed.

“For the weekend?”

Then I told her the part I knew she wouldn’t like. “For a week, maybe two, more? Don’t know. She wasn’t certain. For starters, let’s reschedule the end of October, first days of November.”

“Say again, because I’m sure you’re asking me for the impossible.” She started to sing “The Impossible Dream” from the Broadway show Man of La Mancha .

I had fibbed to Lisa about having time blocked out to see Michael, because I wanted to babysit—no matter what. Trip to see Michael? What trip to see Michael? “Don’t panic. We’ll figure it out.”

Rizzo pulled up the calendar on her computer to check those dates. “Three bunions Monday,” she reported, reaching for her glasses, which dangled from a chunky chain. Years ago, in the city, I once mentioned she’d look younger if she didn’t wear her specs as a necklace. She told me I’d appear younger if I didn’t tell her what to wear. We got along great.

“Whose bunions?” I asked.

“Does it matter? A bunion is a bunion is a bunion.”

“What about Slivovitz? Can he take them?”

Slivovitz was the thirty-six-year-old wunderkind I had hired in the hope I could eventually sell my practice to him. He was well educated—a phenomenal podiatrist, except for one thing: I prided myself on warm, friendly relationships, and Slivovitz was a touch short with the patients. Not enough good foot-side manner. He was working on that.

“He’s booked solid. I’m sorry, Jodi, but I don’t see how your plan will work.”

Typical Rizzo. I had expected flak. “Clear the deck. I’ll be with my granddaughter.”

“When you get back here, you’re going to be irritable.”

“So, I’ll be irritable.”

“Easy for you to say.”

Rizzo was right. I detested pileups in my office: patients aggravated by delays, inquiring again and again how long it would be, telling Rizzo the exact time they had arrived and how long they’d been waiting, as if that would push things along.

I girded myself against remorse. I was in charge at my practice—the only place I was still in control. When raising my children, I had been General Jodi, but once my kids were grown and had lives of their own, I’d been demoted to Private Jodi. No one had advised me of this change in rank, but my commands were now tolerated with respectful nodding and no visible action.

Doris Barkan, a patient since my first days on Butt Road, waited for me in an examination room. She wore orthopedic shoes, a hot-pink blouse with outdated shoulder pads, a cameo pin. A skinny gold belt sat below her large breasts. I greeted Doris with a hearty hello, gestured to the gurney covered with a white paper sheet.

“I’m eight decades in,” she said. “You expect me to hoist myself onto that? And Jodi dear, please order some different magazines for the waiting room. Believe me—your patients aren’t such fashion plates. We don’t care what the models wear.”

“What magazine do you like?”

“Whatever magazine you can get. I’m easy.”

She was a lot of things, but she wasn’t easy. And today, in addition to her foot problem, she was sporting a flame red eye. I asked her about it.

“I caught conjunctivitis at my niece’s fourth wedding. It was the souvenir, the memento. Everyone got it.”

“Conjunctivitis is highly contagious. Are you on medication?”

She waved my question away. “You know what they say—feet first.”

When she took off her shoes, I noticed ribbed crew socks—too large and loose—undoubtedly adding to any irritation when she walked. Doris had diabetic neuropathy, which, in her case, took the form of numbness in her feet. Since she didn’t feel the pain, she would keep going, oblivious when her toes were irritated. She would stroll in and out of stores in a mall, unaware of a problem. Once home, she’d take off her shoes, discover a barge of a blister she couldn’t feel.

“Doris, it’s important for your socks to fit correctly.”

“These socks belonged to my husband. I kept all his socks. Everything else went to the Vietnam veterans. I protested that war. Murray and I went to Washington, DC, on a bus. You would’ve liked our posters.”

Doris’s big toe was swollen. On the bottom, a ragged patch of skin had lifted. Sound like nothing? She was a type 2 diabetic. A minor injury could lead to infection, take forever to heal, evolve into a major predicament.

“I’ll order an antibiotic. You’ll need to wear a surgical sandal. I’m sure you have one at home. Please, please stay off your feet. And, Doris—since I know you can’t get enough of me—make an appointment to return in a week. But before you go, tell me—how did you get to my office?”

“In my spaceship with John Glenn. How did I get here? I walked.”

“I’m calling you a car,” I said.

“I’m not a rich woman.”

I swabbed the affected toe. “Of course you are. But I’ll pay for it anyway.”

“You think it’s easy to stay off my feet? My children don’t live in Florida—not that they would do anything for me. You know when my kids will show up? When my grandfather rides out of his grave on a motorcycle. My son is an accountant. He has a nice wife—a bit on the plain side. And they have five kids.”

Five kids? How plain could she be? I wondered.

“My daughter, the brain surgeon, is in North Carolina.”

“Your daughter is a brain surgeon?”

“No. But she thinks she is.”

“What does she do?”

“Not much,” Doris said.

I got a kick out of Doris, enjoyed talking to her. “I’m lucky to have a son nearby,” I said. “The problem is his wife doesn’t like me.”

“What’s not to like? You’re adorable.”

“Every time I visit, my daughter-in-law is coincidentally on a business trip.”

“Let me guess—she doesn’t have a job.”

I felt sad knowing that Doris was alone. “Have you thought of moving near one of your children?”

“Why? You think they want me?”