Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Michael took her to the place on Coast Highway with the good fish and the patio that faced the wrong direction, which meant the sunset crowd skipped it, which meant you could actually get a table.
Bea had been in Sedona for four days. Michael had called at four and said “dinner,” and Anna had said yes before she’d thought about it, which was how most of her best decisions with Michael had happened.
She wore the blue shirt she liked. He wore the shirt he wore to the place on Coast Highway, which was a slightly nicer version of the shirt he wore everywhere.
They sat at a table near the window. The bar behind them was dim and quiet, a few low conversations and the clink of glasses.
The waiter brought water and menus and Michael ordered wine without consulting her, which would have annoyed her from anyone else and from Michael meant he’d been paying attention to what she liked since the day they met.
Michael opened his menu. Closed it. “You look tired,” he said.
“Thank you, Michael.”
“You look good. And tired.”
“Better.”
He ordered the same thing he ordered every time here—the halibut, no substitutions. The menu was a formality. Anna suspected he opened it out of respect for the restaurant.
“Bea texted this morning,” Anna said. “Sam made them Campbell’s for dinner the first night. From a can.”
“Campbell’s.”
“With cornbread from a box. No egg.”
Michael looked at her. “That’s not dinner.”
“Then she took them to Carmen Sandoval’s studio. The painter Bea has been studying for two years.” Anna picked up her water glass. “Sam called Carmen at seven in the morning and got Bea in the door. Just like that.”
“That sounds generous.”
“That’s what scares me.” Anna set the glass down. “She’s being wonderful, Michael. She’s being exactly the kind of grandmother you’d want—the big gestures, the connections, the stories, the ‘come back anytime.’ And Bea is eating it up because Bea has been wanting this her whole life.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“That Sam does what Sam always does. She’s brilliant for a week and then she’s gone.
She means every word of it while she’s saying it and then the light changes and she follows it and Bea is standing in the driveway watching her leave.
” Anna turned her wine glass on the table.
“I’m not afraid of Sam being terrible. I’m afraid of Sam being wonderful just long enough for Bea to believe it. ”
The waiter came. Anna ordered something she wasn’t going to taste because she was going to be talking through most of the meal and eating between sentences.
The wine came. She took a sip. It was the one she liked—he’d been choosing the right one since the first time they’d come here, and she still noticed.
“And Stella?” Michael asked.
“Stella I worry about differently. Sam doesn’t know Stella.
Tyler left a voicemail a week ago saying ‘my daughter is coming too’ and Sam said ‘what a lovely surprise’ and that was it.
” Anna picked up her fork and put it down again.
“Stella is walking into that house and Sam has no reason to see her. She’s not a painter.
She doesn’t reflect Sam back to herself. ”
“Stella can handle herself.”
“Stella is seventeen. She acts like she’s forty but she’s seventeen and she’s never met a grandparent who doesn’t care.”
Michael was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “She has Tyler.”
“She does.”
“And Tyler will be on the other end of a phone the entire time.”
“He will.”
“Then she has what she needs.” Michael picked up his wine glass. Took a precise sip. Set it down. “Both of them went to Sedona with a foundation under them. That’s not nothing, Anna. That’s seventeen years of you showing up.”
Anna looked at him across the table.
“Even if Sam is exactly what you’re afraid she is,” Michael said, “Bea will come home and tell you about it. And Stella will come home and tell Tyler about it. And they’ll be fine. Not because Sam was good to them. Because you were.”
Anna didn’t say anything for a moment. The restaurant was quiet around them. The wine was good and Michael was steady and her daughter was in the desert with a woman Anna hadn’t trusted in twenty-five years.
“I keep thinking about the birthdays,” Anna said. “All the birthdays Sam missed. All the years she didn’t call. Bea doesn’t know about most of them because I never told her. I wanted Sam to be the grandmother who sends postcards and remembers sometimes. I wanted that to be enough.”
“Was it?”
“For Bea, yes. For a long time.” Anna took a sip of wine. “But Bea’s in that house now. And whatever she finds there, she’s going to come home knowing more than I wanted her to know.”
“That might not be a bad thing.”
“I know. I just wanted to be the one to decide when.”
“You don’t get to decide when. You just get to be there after.”
The food came. Anna took a bite and closed her eyes—the fish was buttery and clean, lemon and something herbed underneath. It was even better than she’d expected, which was the thing about this restaurant—the patio faced the wrong direction but the kitchen faced exactly the right one.
They were halfway through when the front door opened and Margo walked in.
Anna’s fork stopped.
Margo was in her good coat. The one she wore to the Circle and to things that weren’t the Shack. She walked to the counter, spoke to the hostess, and stood waiting with her purse on her arm.
“Is that Margo?” Michael said.
“That’s Margo.”
“Does Margo eat out?”
“Margo does not eat out.”
They watched. The hostess disappeared into the kitchen. Margo stood at the counter. She had not seen them, or had seen them and was pretending she hadn’t, which with Margo was always possible.
“Margo.” Anna was standing at the counter before she’d decided to get up.
Margo turned. The half-second of surprise was there and then it wasn’t.
“Anna. Hello.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Picking up an order.”
Margo shifted the purse on her arm. “You ordered takeout? From here?” Anna asked.
“They have a good soup.”
“You make good soup.”
“I wanted a different one.”
Anna looked at her grandmother. Margo looked back and said nothing else.
“Is it for Bernie?” Anna asked.
“It’s soup, Anna.”
“From a place you’ve never been to.”
“I’ve been here. I came once in 2019.”
“For what?”
“Eleanor’s birthday. I had the fish. It was fine.”
The hostess came back with a paper bag. Margo took it. Thanked her. Turned back to Anna.
“Enjoy your dinner,” Margo said. “Tell Michael the halibut is good here.”
“How do you know he ordered the halibut?”
“Michael orders the halibut every time.”
The door closed behind her. Anna stood at the counter for a second, then went back to the table.
Michael had not moved. His plate was in front of him. His fork was in his hand.
“She’s bringing Bernie soup,” Anna said.
“I gathered.”
“From a restaurant.”
“Margo doesn’t go to restaurants.”
“She went to one tonight.”
Anna sat down and picked up her fork. She looked at Michael.
“For the record,” she said, stabbing a piece of fish, “I’m choosing not to make a thing of this.”
“Noted.”
“I’m not going to say anything.”
“Good.”
“Even though she came to a place she hasn’t been to since 2019 to buy soup for a man she plays flamingo cards with three times a week.”
“Anna, you’re making a thing.”
“I’m done.”
Anna took another bite. The room was quiet around them—forks, low conversation, the kitchen working behind the wall.
“Hey, Michael?”
“Yes?”
“I think Bea’s going to be okay.”
He looked at her. “I know she is.”
“Even if Sam disappoints her.”
“Especially then. Because Bea will have everyone else.”
“And if Sam does show up? Really shows up?”
“Then Bea will know what that looks like next to all the times she didn’t. She’s had seventeen years of people who show up. One week of Sam doesn’t undo that.”
Anna set her fork down. She reached across the table and put her hand on his—briefly, a check-in, a touch that said something she wasn’t going to say out loud.
“Thank you for dinner,” she said.
“You haven’t finished.”
“Thank you preemptively.”
“You’re welcome preemptively.”
She picked her fork back up. They finished the meal. Michael paid on Tuesdays, and Anna paid on Thursdays.
They walked to the car. The night air was cool and salt-edged, their footsteps quiet on the asphalt.
“Michael?”
“Yes?”
“I think I’m doing okay. With Bea. With all of it.”
He stopped walking and turned to her.
“You’re doing more than okay,” he said.
She took his arm. They walked a few steps. The parking lot was quiet.
“I’m cooking tomorrow night,” Anna said.
“Okay.”
“For you. At my house. A real dinner.” She looked straight ahead. “Not the one where Bea ran out of the room crying over Sam’s letter.”
“That was memorable.”
“That was a disaster. I’m doing it over. Just us.” She paused. “Bring your toothbrush.”
Michael didn’t break stride. “I’ll bring the toothbrush.”
He drove her home, walked her to the door he kissed her—brief, warm, his hand on her arm.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” he said.
“Don’t make a thing of it.”
He smiled. “I’m not. I’m just bringing a toothbrush.”
Anna laughed and kissed him before she went inside. “Goodnight, Michael.”
“Goodnight, Anna.”
She stood in her kitchen for a minute, in the quiet, with the blue mug on the left and hers on the right, and she thought about Bea in Sedona and Sam in Sedona and Margo carrying soup to a man who played flamingo cards. And Michael, who was coming tomorrow with a toothbrush and no questions.