Chapter 28
On Friday morning, the day Edmund was due to fly north, Rebecca settled him and Emma on the veranda with glasses of iced tea. Then she left them alone to have their talk.
Edmund reached into the pocket of his cardigan and took out an envelope.
It was an ordinary utility envelope with a window on the front and Florida Power and Light printed in the corner. Gloria M. Kendrick's name and a condominium address on Brickell showed through the window.
“You asked me what became of Gloria’s lists, and I told you I didn't know. That was true when I said it.” Edmund turned the envelope in his hands. “Rebecca found this in the lining of a suitcase I hadn’t properly emptied, which tells you something about my housekeeping.”
He handed it to Emma.
Gloria's careful handwriting ran down the back in blue ballpoint.
1. Cardinal on the rail two mornings running
2. The Erdrich. Did she finish it
3. Hurricane photograph on the wall at Max's
4. E's pelican joke. Not funny. Tell it anyway
5. The lime tree
Below the five items, written in a different pen and in a hand that had become less steady, was one more line.
Ask her if she’s happy.
Emma held the envelope with both hands.
She read the question once and then went back to the beginning.
By the fourth time through the list, she could picture Gloria sitting at a kitchen table with the envelope beside her.
She could imagine her grandmother adding things as she thought of them because she didn't trust herself to remember later.
“She never asked me,” Emma said. “The call always ended first.”
“It did.” Edmund folded his hands. “But I want to tell you what she did instead, because I know where your mind is going. You're going to think about how she wanted to ask and couldn't.”
Emma looked at him.
“There's another part of it that's true too. She asked me.”
“She asked you if I was happy?”
“Every few weeks. Usually in the kitchen when she was doing something with her hands so it wouldn't sound like a large question.” Edmund smiled faintly.
“She'd say, ‘Do you think Em is happy?’ I'd tell her I didn't know because I'd never met you.
Then she'd say she didn't know either. After that, we'd talk about something else and she'd go back to whatever she was doing.”
Emma looked down at the envelope.
“That's worse.”
“It isn't.”
“It feels worse.”
“I know it does, but I've been an old man in a chair for six weeks, so let me have the one useful thing I've got.”
Emma smiled despite the ache in her chest.
Edmund leaned forward.
“She didn't write that question because she was frightened for you. She wrote it down because she wanted to know the answer. Gloria had started forgetting things, so she made lists. That's what this is.” He nodded toward the envelope. “It's a woman keeping track of someone she loved.”
Emma ran her thumb over the edge of the paper.
For years, she had remembered those phone calls by what hadn't been said.
She remembered the awkward pauses and the way Gloria sometimes lost her place in a conversation.
Emma had blamed distance and work and everything else that had made it too easy to promise herself she'd call again in a few days.
Now she looked at the list and saw something different.
Gloria had been trying.
Her grandmother had written down a cardinal, a book, a photograph, Emma's terrible pelican joke and a lime tree because she wanted things to tell her granddaughter the next time they talked.
Then she'd written down the one thing she most wanted to know.
Emma turned the envelope over and looked at Gloria's name through the window.
“You can answer it,” Edmund said.
Emma looked up.
“If you want to. The question's still there.”
She almost laughed at the idea of answering an old electric bill on a veranda in Key West.
Instead, Emma held the envelope in her lap and looked toward the fig tree.
A month ago, she wasn't sure what she would have said. She had been successful. She had a good job and a beautiful apartment. She had Priya and a life that looked exactly the way she'd once believed it should.
But happy?
Emma thought about the cottage and the little model her father had built. She thought about Margarita Max's and the people who expected her to walk through the door. Most of all, she thought about Jake.
The answer came easily. “I am,” she said softly. “Grandma, I'm happy.”
Edmund looked toward the fig tree and gave her the privacy of pretending he hadn't seen her wipe her eyes. Emma appreciated it, but it wasn’t necessary. Edmund was as much her family as her grandmother.
They left at one o'clock.
Rebecca drove because she was flying north with Edmund and coming back Thursday. She had strong opinions about the airport and shared most of them while they stood in the driveway.
Jake put a paper bag from the bakery on Petronia in the back seat. He'd added two bottles of water and a sleeve of Yolanda's shortbread that he'd gone back for without telling anyone.
Emma watched him tuck everything beside Edmund's bag.
It was exactly the sort of thing Jake did. He noticed what someone might need and took care of it without making a production out of being thoughtful.
Edmund stood beside the open car door in a linen jacket despite the ninety-degree heat.
“You know they have air-conditioning where you're going,” Emma said.
“I've been wearing linen in Florida for forty years. I'm not changing now.”
“That wasn't what I meant.”
“I know.”
He turned to Jake and held out his hand.
Jake shook it.
Edmund said something too quietly for Emma to hear. Whatever it was made Jake glance at him and nod.
Emma immediately wanted to know.
She decided she could wait at least five minutes before asking.
Edmund turned back to her.
“I'll write. On paper. Rebecca's been trying to teach me how to send a photograph on the telephone, and I've decided that at seventy-four I'm allowed to lose that particular argument. The same goes for all this emailing. What's wrong with a stamp?”
Emma laughed. “Nothing. I promise I'll write back.”
“You'd better.”
He held out his arms.
Emma stepped into them and held on longer than she expected to. Edmund did too. Beneath her cheek, she could feel his heart beating faster than it should have.
The reminder of his health frightened her more now than it had when she'd first met him. A few weeks ago, Edmund had been a stranger who knew things about Gloria. Somewhere along the way, he'd become a grandfather and part of what Emma had found on this journey.
“You take care of yourself,” she said when they finally separated.
Then she looked at Rebecca.
“I'll make sure he does,” Rebecca promised.
“I don't require this much supervision,” Edmund said.
Rebecca opened the passenger door. “Get in the car, Dad.”
He made a funny face and rolled his eyes before climbing inside which made Emma laugh.
Emma stood beside Jake as Rebecca pulled away. The car went up Simonton, turned at the corner and disappeared.
Jake slipped his arms around her waist from behind.
Emma leaned back against him.
“What did he say to you?”
“I knew you were going to ask.”
“Of course I was.”
“He told me to look after the lilies.”
Emma turned in his arms. “That's all?”
Jake smiled.
“That's not all. But that's the part I'm going to tell you today.”
Emma narrowed her eyes at him.
“You realize I'm not good at waiting.”
“I've noticed.”
“How long will I have to wait?”
“I haven't decided.”
“That seems unfair.”
“It probably is.”
Emma laughed and rested her forehead against his shoulder.
On the way to Hibiscus Lane, she took the envelope from her bag and read Gloria's list again.
This time she didn't linger on the question at the bottom.
She already knew the answer.
At the cottage, Emma opened Gloria's leather notebook and slipped the envelope between the last written page and the first blank one.
It seemed like the right place for it.
Gloria's lists belonged with Gloria's words. One day, Emma would open the notebook again and find the envelope there. She would remember the things her grandmother had wanted to tell her and the question she'd wanted to ask.
And Emma would remember that she'd finally been able to answer it.