Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Once the kitchen is cleaned from breakfast and Lovie is settled in the living room with her beloved puzzle books, Adam with her, I make my way to my childhood bedroom. My bags still sit where I dropped them last night, the offensive toy right there on top. I push it to the side with a shudder, finding a fresh set of clothes and my toiletries.
There’s another bag tucked in the corner. Adam’s, if I had to guess. Classic black, all pockets zipped, a pair of shoes lined neatly next to it, soles up. He’s so organized it offends me.
He even made the bed, as best as he could without the quilt and second pillow.
It pisses me off just looking at it.
Me having a shower will do us all some good.
I nearly trip over the plastic bath chair when I climb into the pink-tiled tub. How does Lovie maneuver this without assistance? I think she’d deny me if I offered my help, and part of me is glad. There are a lot of things you don’t come back from, and seeing your grandmother naked is one of them.
My phone starts chiming with alerts halfway through applying my conditioner, and it speeds me up. I miss a few patches when shaving my legs.
Wrapping myself tightly in a well-worn pink towel, I step onto the bath mat and pick up my phone from the counter.
The latest episode of Elle on the L just went live about an hour ago, complete with an introduction I recorded hastily before catching the train yesterday that explains my coming to stay with Lovie. The diehards who drop everything and listen every Wednesday at ten in the morning should be finished by now.
I didn’t always think I’d podcast full time. I went to school for marketing in New York and lived about thirty minutes away from campus. Bored out of my mind, I used my commute to chat with the people around me on the subway. Even after I moved back to Chicago, I could never escape that itch, getting to the heart of what makes people human.
My friend Liss was the one who suggested I start recording those conversations, and I did just that on nights and weekends, until that wasn’t enough. You interview one very married state senator’s very pregnant sidepiece, and suddenly your name is in the New York Times . I couldn’t afford to keep the desk job very long after that, not when I was single-handedly producing a “compulsive, bingeable expos é on the human condition.” Humble brag. I didn’t need the desk job anyway when sponsors started breaking down my door. Not-so-humble brag.
What if people are cruel about me taking this time off? People can—and do—get nasty if things go different from what you’ve promised. It won’t change anything about my plan to stay with Lovie, but I’d be more hesitant to share personal things with my listeners in the future.
My muscles relax as I view the comments section:
@jollyxholly527: so sweet!! take your time bb, we’ll be here.
@Purrrsiankitty8: grandmas rock anyway, but I bet yours is badass AF
I reply to my favorite comments, liking all the others. When you do this long enough, you start to notice screen names and regulars.
Ugh, like @thatguy3k00 , who always says something snarky and unwanted. Today’s entry: Stick to telling sob stories for other people. Nobody cares about your own.
I’m petty, so I like that one extra hard. My eyes keep scanning, and I smile when I come across Dakota’s screen name. He’s been the third member of my trio with Liss since he started working at her bakery a few years ago.
@DMillsBakes: I LOVE LOVIE. Take care of her for us, Fanning #1!!!
That brings a goofy smile to my face. It’s a play on our names—Dakota and Elle, like the famous Fanning sisters.
A knock on the door breaks my reverie, and I scramble for my underwear. “Yeah?”
“Sorry to interrupt your forty-minute shower.” Adam sounds annoyed through the bathroom door, and since he can’t see me, I indulge in a large eye roll and middle-finger flourish.
“I didn’t realize my shower habits concerned you.”
“Only because I’m running to the store,” he says, and yeah, that’s definite annoyance in his tone. “I wanted to make sure you could keep an eye on Lovie while I’m gone.”
“Give me two seconds.”
I finish dressing quickly, pulling on joggers and a tank top bralette. When I open the door, billows of steam greet Adam, who turns hazy for a second before the air clears.
I try to imagine what he sees: cherry-red hair hanging limp and wet alongside my face. Decent boobs (but not so decent I need anything more than the bralette), trim waist leading to wider hips leading to even wider thighs. I haven’t had a thigh gap since I was born. Bright-blue toenails, which now that I’m thinking of it, sort of—
“You like that color,” Adam says, staring at them, one eyebrow quirked. “You own a lot of things that particular shade of blue.”
If all the eye rolling I’m doing doesn’t give me a headache, the teeth grinding surely will.
“Careful,” I warn. “Spend any more time staring at my feet and I might think you have a fetish.”
I push past him to my bedroom, throwing my dirty clothes in the hamper and donning a gray cardigan atop my bralette. No need to traumatize Lovie any more than she must already be, having spent the last definitely-not-forty-minutes with Adam’s undivided attention.
Judging by the hairs on the back of my neck, that’s what I’m getting now. His gaze tracks me as I move my bag to the dresser and start unpacking.
“Trust me,” he intones. “There are much more interesting parts of your body than your toes .” He palms the top of the doorway with both hands, his shirt coming up to reveal a sliver of tanned stomach skin and the band of a popular brand of men’s underwear. “Like your mouth, when it’s shut.”
If he’s trying to push me, see how far I’m willing to take this, he’s going to be surprised. Like Lovie, there’s not much I wouldn’t do.
“Oral fixation. Hot.” I tug open the top left drawer and start shoving my shit in haphazardly. “My boobs aren’t bad either.” I look down at my cleavage, then at Adam.
His jaw is so tense it sticks out wider than normal, takes up more space. Red splotches are building near the hinge. He’s going to crack a molar.
Oh darn.
I flutter my lashes at him. “Did you need something else, or did you want to just stand there and stare at me all day?”
“I—” He huffs, moving from annoyed to frustrated. He turns away. “Just watch her.”
I throw a hand over my shoulder in acknowledgment, but I’m not worried, and he’s already out of view. There are turtles that move faster than Lovie ever has, even in her younger days. She’s never in a hurry to go anywhere. Maybe that’s why I missed that first train yesterday: tardiness is hereditary.
My reflection stares back at me from the mirror on the bureau, the sides and drawer faces covered in stickers and boy band posters. Silver picture frames sit in one corner, photos yellowing with age. The more important family pictures hang in the hall and living room—my grandparents’ wedding, my high school and college graduation—but there’s not enough wall space to hold them all. The overflow must have come here. There are a few of my grandfather from his military days, dressed in Army blues after coming home from Vietnam, and nostalgia tugs sharply at my heart.
Still smiling at the picture, I begin unpacking in earnest. The top left drawer fills quickly; I may have brought too many pajamas. No big deal—there are plenty of other drawers. Except when I pull open the next one, I find it occupied.
By neatly folded scrubs.
Leaving the mess, I march into the hallway, ready to give whoever will listen an earful about how I simply cannot share living space with Adam Wheeler, let alone a dresser.
But judging by the absence of any unfamiliar cars in the driveway or on the street, Adam is already gone. Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing Lovie when I was on my rampage either.
No need to panic. She’s probably in the bathroom.
I give a gentle rap on the door. “Lovie?” I whisper, then clear my throat and repeat. “Lovie, are you in there?”
She’s not in the bathroom, but it’s a small house. There aren’t many places for her to wander off. I peek my head in the other rooms. First in her bedroom, thinking she lay down for a late-morning nap. The living room, in case she’s recently taken to trashy midday soap operas.
The kitchen, because I’m running out of places to check.
The front porch, where she sat earlier to do her puzzles. There’s synthetic grasslike material covering the concrete, an off-white metal rocking bench, and nothing else.
My heart beats harder in my ears. How did I lose my grandmother already? It’s been less than a day. It’s been less than twelve fucking hours . I lean around the side of the porch to the driveway. Her car is here, but she is not.
I have to call someone. Not the police yet, I don’t think. AngelCare, maybe? Or Adam? Maybe he decided to take her to the grocery and forgot to tell me. Probably to get further under my skin. But I don’t have his number. And calling the agency to ask for said number or tell them I lost my grandmother is a surefire way to screw us all.
I’m on the verge of tears, but I swallow them down. Is this like when a kid goes missing, where the first forty-eight hours are the most essential? If so, we only have forty-seven hours and fifty-six minutes left.
I run back inside, doing another sweep of the interior. “Lovie?” I call over and over, trying not to let my voice give any indication of just how worried I am.
After I’ve checked every room in the house two more times, I pull my phone from my pocket and dial a nine and a one. I’m not ready to pull the trigger on that last digit yet. In the kitchen, I search the note cards and appointment slips magnetized to the fridge. Adam’s number has to be somewhere .
Through the window above the stove, I catch movement in the side yard.
Sliding open the patio door, I spot Lovie on her hands and knees by the flower bed. Relief crashes through me, making my limbs go light and heavy all at once, like I’ve been treading water and just got a chance to relax.
“Lovie! Are you okay?” I drop to my knees next to her, pulling her hands from the dirt and checking them over for cuts, scrapes, dislocations.
Her eyes go wide, then fill with disdain. “I’m fine ,” she says, snatching away her wrinkled, arthritic hands.
I sit back on my feet, glad she isn’t hurt or bleeding. “What are you doing out here?”
“I’m gardening. I always garden on Mondays.”
That’s why I didn’t think to check here in the first place. “Lovie, it’s Wednesday.”
She scoffs, returning her hands to the soil. “No it isn’t, girl.”
I may sleep like the dead, but I didn’t sleep that long. I pull my phone out and flash her the screen. “No, see? It’s Wednesday. October first.”
Lovie squints at my screen, and I can tell she doesn’t really see the numbers or the date there. “Your generation and those damn phones. Taking them for fact,” she says sharply. Quieter, maybe just for herself, she repeats, “I always garden on Mondays.”
The relief I felt seconds ago gives way to anxiety, and the contrast makes me a little light-headed. My knees are soaked through from the grass, not yet sun-dried. Is this what Adam meant about going along with whatever she believes?
Unpacking can wait an hour until he comes home. So can peeing, and blinking.
“Do you want some help?” I ask, both hesitant and eager.
Lovie doesn’t bother looking up. “I can do it myself.”
So that’s where I learned that. “Company, then?” I’m scared to let you out of my sight now. When the hell did you get so fast?
“I’m fine by myself.”
I don’t think she means to be rude or sharp, but it cuts like she did. “Okay, I’ll …” I head back into the kitchen, where if I stand on tiptoes, I can see the top of her head through the window. I don’t think I look away for the next hour. Or breathe, for that matter.
I would never forgive myself if my inattention caused her to get hurt, turned around, or confused. My love for her, this strong, determined woman who raised me, takes up most of the real estate in my heart, and I don’t like to imagine how I’d function without her. She is my most important person.
Lovie’s still outside when the front door opens. I finally blink my burning eyes and pull them away from her hunched form.
Adam unloads the groceries on the island counter. His forearms are tiger-striped with red and pink.
“No, thanks,” he grumbles, leveling me with a scathing glare as he rolls out his shoulders. “I’ve got it.”
I’d be quicker to tease him and his weak muscles if I felt remotely playful right now.
“So, hey.” I rest my hip against the counter as he unpacks the first bag. “Funny story. While you were gone, I sort of lost Lovie for a second, and when I found her, she thought it was Monday. Is that something—”
His hand freezes inside the bag. His eyes are living thunderstorms. “You lost her?”
“I also found her,” I defend. “You interrupt me a lot, you know.” That’s not the point, but it is a point I’ve wanted to make since last night.
Adam scrubs his jaw. Hard. “I told you to keep an eye on her.”
My hands shoot out to my sides. “It was five minutes!”
“It takes five seconds!” he shouts, his shoulders shaking.
It’s the first time I’ve ever heard the full impact of his voice, loud and abrasive. Gruff, like maybe he’s smoked a pack or two before. He’s always got the right words picked out too, ones that make the most impact.
And these certainly did. Since I arrived last night, I’m the one who’s been unaware of her surroundings, off-kilter and out of orbit. Me, not Lovie.
Adam’s expression goes blurry. Am I—oh jeez, crying ? I must be more sleep deprived than I thought.
I clear my throat. “Please forgive me if I’m not an expert at this the way you are. She’s only my grandmother, after all. What do I know?”
“This isn’t going to work.” His sandpaper tone abrades my already frayed nerves.
“You think?” I bite my lip to stop it from trembling. A whimper slips through.
“Well, I don’t—wait.” His voice changes midway through. “Are you crying?”
I bite down harder. “Nope.”
“Shit,” he mumbles. He runs a hand over his face, the perpetual shadow of hair there. “Shit, okay. Just—let me just think for a second.”
“Should I go home?” I ask, because it’s the only option I see. I don’t want to endanger Lovie’s care, and if Adam and I continue to butt heads this way, I fear it’s only a matter of time.
Sighing, Adam drops his hand. His gaze is pensive, too heavy, so I study my blue toenails again. They scream at me against the ugly beige floor. Maybe I’ll take the polish off later.
“No, no.” He braces on the island with palms flat, arms locked. His head must be heavy, hanging there between his shoulders. “We just need to be more careful. Call a truce.” The way he watches me crawls under my skin, settles uncomfortably there. He sees more of me than I want him to. “Around Lovie, at least.”
That’s fair. And also probably as much as I can offer. “Fine.” I chew my lip, motioning toward the groceries. “Is there a bell in one of these? She moves faster than I remember.”
He crumples an empty bag between his oversized palms. “You’re just not used to having to care for her yet, when it’s been the other way around for most of your life.”
I hate how sure Adam sounds, how confident he is of the direction things are going and how sure he is that we can do this together.
I’m starting to get the sinking suspicion we don’t need to do this together.
Lovie doesn’t seem to need me at all.