Chapter 14
Fourteen
“Gram, where are we going?” I am questioning her directions—big time.
“Last errand,” she says, though she’s taken me out into the woods. We’re talking tall trees and dirt roads where all civilization has disappeared. What in the world the woman would need to do out here is beyond me.
I’m about to question her again when there’s a small house in the middle of the trees.
“Right there,” Gram says, pointing to the little cabin.
“What is this place? What kind of errand would you have out here?”
Her wrinkled fingers clasp together, and she gazes out the front of my Corolla. “My pottery lesson.”
My heart must be connected to my foot because I slam on the brakes, in the middle of the road; we haven’t yet reached the driveway of the house yet. “Gram,” I growl.
“I thought you might like to see your grammy in action.” Her penciled brows bounce.
“Gram, you know that this woman knows me. You know I don’t know her. I—” I shake my head. The pounding from my chest is growing louder in my ears. “I can’t do this.”
“You said you met her at Fran’s. Formally. Now you do know her.” She pats my leg. “I think you can do this. And I’ll be right here with you.”
“Grammy, please.”
“I want to go to my lesson, dearest. I can’t make it out of here without you. It’s been six months.” She looks at me with a patient expression on her face.
“It means that much to you?” My pulse thunders in my neck and I tell myself to breathe.
“It does. But if you need to go—”
“I can do it,” I say, not knowing if I actually can. I grind my teeth. She’s gone six months without her lessons because of me. I roll my neck, counting and breathing and telling myself that I’m braver than I am.
“Of course you can!” She’s giddy. “You’ll be fine. No new faces. Besides, Stella does not bite, I promise. Have you met Ivy, too?”
“Grammy, I don’t know who Ivy is.” She isn’t helping with her no new faces garbage.
“Stella’s baby, of course. It’s been forever since I’ve seen her. Yes, you’ll definitely want to meet her.”
Except that I don’t. I have nothing against babies or children—I quite like them, actually—but I’ll be just fine if I don’t meet this stranger’s baby. Ever.
But Grammy has apparently sacrificed something she loves for the last six months because of me. How can I not try?
Does that mean I came to Tesoro often? Fran is here. I suppose that’s how I met Stella and how Grammy got into pottery lessons.
“I could stay in the car. I don’t want to disrupt you.” My nerves settle with the idea.
But Grammy scoffs. “You’re being silly, Rosalie. You aren’t sitting in the car. And you need to meet Ivy again.”
Oof. I hate that word. Again. People are only allowed to use that word if it makes sense in my head. I have no memory of meeting anyone in this house. Therefore, “again” is not allowed.
Except I’m too chicken to say any of that to my grammy.
“Let’s go,” she says once I’ve slowly crept into their driveway. Her door is open before I’ve put the car into park. “Pick up your feet, now. We aren’t dawdling. Technically my lesson began two minutes ago.”
I clench my jaw and inwardly groan. “I can do this,” I mutter to myself. “It’s thirty minutes—”
“An hour,” Gram calls. Apparently, my muttering isn’t quiet enough.
Grinding my teeth, I slam my car door closed and follow Gram up to the door of the house. It’s more a cabin with the rounded wooden logs making up the outer walls.
Gram knocks, and the wailing of a baby sounds inside. Crap—am I barging in on a stranger and waking their child?
Stella, the blonde from the café and Fran’s house, opens the door. A chubby baby with a puff of blonde on top of her head sits on Stella’s hips. Her eyes are wide—so not sleeping—and a little red—definitely crying.
“Noreen,” Stella says, her voice happy, but also quite surprised. Her eyes draw up to me, as I am much taller than my five-foot grammy. “Rosalie,” she says, my name almost a whisper. Her mouth turns up in a grin, and yet she looks as if she might cry.
Which makes me want to cry—but I’m guessing for a whole other set of reasons.
The baby in her arms squawks again, more tears filling her little blue eyes. Gosh, she’s pretty. There’s something about those sad eyes that I resonate with, something that calms the race of my heart.
“Sorry. Come in. Ivy’s got a little cold. She’s been a little grumpy today.” Her eyes find me again, and then she glances down at herself. Her oversized T-shirt hangs low over her gray sweatpants, and she’s barefoot. She doesn’t exactly look ready for company. “Please, come in.”
We step inside to a cluttered little front room. It’s a small, homey space, though it looks as if Baby Gap may have exploded inside it.
“Sit down,” she says, moving a baby blanket, stuffed elephant, and box of tissues from the couch to make room for us.
“We’re already running late,” Grammy says. “I thought we’d just get started.”
“Started?” Stella’s eyes narrow.
“Is it not Saturday at eleven in the morning?”
“Ah—” Stella looks at me, her expression of an old friend asking for help. And yet if you put a dozen blondes in a room, I might have to think hard to pick her out. “It is Saturday at eleven.”
“Gram, did you not have a lesson today?” I say, ready to drag her out. She’s going to put me back in the hospital.
“Saturday at eleven is my regular day and time.” Her eyes widen. “Right, Stella? Is this not the day and the time we agreed upon?”
Stella hefts the baby up so that she’s holding her against her chest, the baby facing outward. Ivy’s pretty pink lips buzz with a raspberry. “No—I mean, yes. This is our agreed-upon time. It’s just—” She swallows, glancing at me once more. “You haven’t been able to come… for a few months.”
Six, to be exact.
But Gram looks at her like that doesn’t matter. Like Stella should keep every Saturday at eleven open for her and just be pleased if the woman shows up.
“However,” Stella says, telling me she knows my grandmother. “This is your day and time. Give me five minutes to set up.”
“Give me Ivy,” Gram says. “We need to get reacquainted. It’s been a while.”
Stella hands over her child. “She might be a little grumpy. Oh.” She reaches down, plucking a tissue from the box, and hands it to Gram. “She’ll probably need this, too.” She runs a hand over the little girl’s round face and rosy cheeks. “Be good for Grammy Noreen.”
“Grammy Noreen?” I say once she’s left the room. “How well do we know this woman, Gram?”
“Quite well. I’d wager she’s one of your best friends.”
I gulp. Best friends? Is she saying she’s another Fran and I don’t even recognize her? My heart flutters in that uncomfortable way when I know everyone in the room knows more than me.
Everyone except maybe this baby.
It gives me little comfort. Still, I’m handling myself semi-well. On the outside anyway.
The little girl hums like she’s tired, like her head hurts—I understand the feeling. Still, she’s content in Gram’s arms until she sneezes, drenching Gram’s blouse with mucus.
“Oh dear,” Grammy says.
Ivy whines, her little fists rubbing at her eye and the goop on her face.
“Here, Gram. Let me help.” I wipe the little girl’s nose, then reach out my arms, and Gram passes Ivy over.
I’m not thinking about how uncomfortable I am, or how I know less than anyone else in the room.
I’m simply acting. Gram needs help. So does Ivy. I’m capable.
With a withered expression, Grammy wipes at the front of her blouse with a tissue.
“You aren’t feeling very good, are you?” I say to Ivy, one hand beneath her bottom, the other around her back. I tilt my head to peer into her eyes. “I’m sorry. That’s not very fun.”
Ivy’s plump pink lips perk up at the corners with my words.
There’s a sniff, and I look up at Stella, watching us. Her eyes are glassy. “You used to read to her,” she says.
Her words make my heart race once more.
“Something about the cadence of your voice.” Stella shrugs. “She always loved when you spoke or read aloud.” She blinks and brushes the back of her hand beneath her nose. “I’m ready for you, Noreen.”
We follow Stella through a small kitchen to an enclosed back porch with floor-to-ceiling windows and an entire art studio set up in the quaint space.
“Wow,” I say, adjusting baby Ivy in my arms.
“You sit there, dear,” Gram says, pointing to a plush chair in the far right of the porch, with Stella’s pottery station set up on the other side. “I’m going to get my wheel on.”
I sit with Ivy on my lap, facing me. I peek at Gram and Stella, but they’re too busy talking about the video Gram watched on the “Tube” and how Gram knows of a new method Stella really should be using. Yes, she’s attempting to school the teacher. Sounds like Gram.
I turn back to the baby. The semblance of privacy we have with the others across the room deep in discussion gives me peace. I can easily pretend it’s just me and Ivy.
“I’m Rosalie,” I tell her. I keep my hands on her waist, holding her steady as she sits on my lap.
She crinkles her nose and rubs one chubby little fist over her eye. A sigh falls from her chest.
“Are you tired?” I ask.
She hums out a moan, and for a moment, I think she might cry. Crap. No crying allowed, baby.
“She is sleepy,” Stella says—apparently, she can multitask. She can listen to my grandmother try to tell her how to do her job and know what’s happening over here with her baby. “There are books on the shelf right next to you. She might fall asleep if you read to her.”
“Read to her,” I mutter, looking back at Ivy. She returns my stare. Stella said I used to read to her. That she liked it. I mean, it sounds like something I would do. If Fran had a baby, I’d buy that kid all the books and I’d read them to her, too.
From what Gram said, I might have done that with Ivy and Stella.
“Should we try this?” I ask her. I turn the baby around so that her back leans against my chest. Snatching the first book from the shelf at my right. I open it up and fall into a strangely comfortable rhythm as I read to little Ivy.
I read book after book after book, only hearing bits and pieces from Gram and Stella’s lesson. Ivy and I are reading—we have no time for other people’s conversations.
Ivy twists and turns until her side and cheek press against me. She nuzzles her head into my chest, and her breathing evens as she listens to stories about bunnies and slippers and what babies eat.
Just when I think we’re out of books to read, I look up to Stella standing in front of us.
She’s startled me. I was so focused on the books and the baby that I never saw her coming.
I have no idea how much time has passed.
Stella wipes her hands on a rag and smiles down at us. “I knew she’d fall asleep.”
I peer down at little Ivy. I’m not sure when she drifted off.
The crook of my arm is warm and sweaty where she lies.
There’s a wet ring on my chest where her face has smooshed into my shirt and she’s slobbered.
I hadn’t noticed the damp spot until now.
We were reading. There was something comforting about Ivy’s breaths and heart beating next to mine.
I often read for comfort. But this was different—this was reading together, and it felt calming. I never noticed the baby sleeping, just that she was here, next to me.
“Sorry. I should have laid her down,” I say, remembering my cousin, Alisha, who threw a fit if you held her sleeping child too long.
She swore her kid would never learn to sleep in a bed if people didn’t start putting him down.
I was a teenager when that happened, but the memory is loud as Stella stares at us now.
But she doesn’t seem upset. “She looks comfortable to me. Thanks for holding her.”
I clear my throat. “I was happy to. She’s sweet.”
“She really is, isn’t she?” Stella crouches in front of us.
She’s too close, but her eyes are on Ivy.
She runs a hand over her daughter’s sweaty head, brushing the girl’s fuzzy blonde hairs back.
“She can’t even talk, and already I am certain there was never a sweeter human on the planet. Isn’t that weird?”
“No,” I say, forgetting for the moment that we’re strangers. “I don’t think so. I don’t think a person has to speak for you to understand their disposition. She’s gentle and joyful. You can see that, clearly.”
Stella sniffs, like she might tear up. “Thank you, Rose. That means a lot coming from you.”
She says it like she knows me.
And I guess, in another life, she did.