Chapter 25
I rushed to Callie. In her room, I soothed her, rocked her in my arms, told her everything would be okay, told her anything I believed would help. That Mom would be home soon. That I was very sorry and very sad. She asked when her daddy was returning to Woodfield. I had no idea, but I said soon. She asked why I wanted to go on the field trip. I said I wanted to spend as much time with her as I could. I wanted to meet her teacher, Ms. Burch, and all her classmates and their parents. Callie hugged Chester to her chest, kissed each of his legs. She whimpered and whimpered until the pillowcase was wet, and at long last, she fell asleep. I covered her with her quilt, sat by her side, rubbing her back. How could I have let this happen?
Downstairs, Di and Annie congregated on the front porch, staring out at the deserted road. Their expressions told me they knew we had all made a terrible mistake.
“Is she all right?” Di asked quietly.
“Hope so,” I said. “I told her that, although we all want the best for her, we seem to disagree on what the best is.”
“I shouldn’t have hit you, Annie,” Di said. “I apologize.”
“I was about to slam back at you,” Annie said, “when Callie showed up.”
“I overreacted about the jewelry. It wasn’t even my good jewelry. It’s so rare that I’m wrong.”
I had no idea what it would feel like to believe nothing was my fault. I felt the opposite way about myself. I sucked in the blame for whatever went wrong. If I couldn’t get a hotel key to work, I assumed I was inserting it the wrong way. Then it would turn out the manager had made a mistake, changed the code before checkout. The Pilgrim didn’t like me? It must be something I said early on. My grandchild had walked in on a massacre. Totally my fault. I should have prevented the scene or stopped the bloodbath sooner.
Di laughed, which seemed weird. She had whacked Annie across the face, fought over a harmless tarantula. I considered how dissimilar all our backgrounds were. Annie’s mother was an alcoholic. She had no one to turn to when she was a kid. Diandra had a strange upbringing. After all, her sister who now lived in Rhode Island was her birth mother. I was lucky enough to have loving parents who scrutinized my every step, wanted my life to be their kind of perfect, what they believed perfect should be. Parents who did the best they could.
I waved the white flag. “It’s over. No more petty jealousy. We must do better. We have to get along. Let’s accept this: we all love Callie, and we’re all grandmas.”
“Di?” Annie said. “Does this include you?”
“Ceasefire?” Di said to my surprise, and I nodded.
“Yes,” Annie said. “Lisa treats me as family, she’s always good to me, and I forget I’m not a real grandmother.”
After days of being annoyed by her delusion that she was Callie’s grandmother, I almost blurted, Oh, of course, you’re a real grannie. I understood how much Annie cared for Lisa and Callie, but the girl needed to wake up. One day—if she ditched Paul Newman shot to hell, or he succumbed sooner rather than later—Annie might choose to have children and grandchildren, if that was what she wanted. And those kids would be fortunate.
“I might let the kid call me Grandma,” Di said.
“Nope. That’s my name,” I pointed out.
“Okay, what do you think of Me-maw?” Di asked.
“You’re willing to be called Me-maw?” Annie said.
“Right. What about Number One Nana?”
Annie and I glanced at one another. Annie said, “That’s not an option in the spirit of this conversation.”
Di settled in a rocker. “By the way, now that we’re putting Macallan first, I have a secret to share. I deplore school trips, loathed them when I was a kid. I’d bring a paper bag and puke on the bus. And a nature walk—in actual nature? The thought makes me itch.”
“How about a liquid peace pipe?” Annie said.
“First, let me go and check on Callie. I want to be certain she’s sleeping,” I said.
“We can all go,” Annie said.
“Together is good,” I said.
Slowly, I opened Callie’s door. We watched over her, peacefully sleeping. Sure, Di was a pain in the ass, and Annie was delusional, but I had been petty since the day I arrived. That was over. Nothing came before this child.