When she answered the phone, I walked her through the events of the last month as quickly and clinically as I could. I thought that was the best way to do it since neither of us liked small talk or beating around the bush. I finished with, “If you’re free tomorrow or Tuesday, come by for dinner and meet her. We fly to Croatia on Wednesday.”
Silence.
I held the phone away from my ear and frowned. “Mom?”
“I’m here.” Her voice sounded quiet and far away.
I put the phone back to my ear and tried to keep impatience from hedging my voice. “What do you think about dinner? Can you come?”
“Yes, Landon. I think I can make time in my busy schedule to meet my granddaughter. I’ll come tomorrow.” Though the receiver was right next to my ear, her voice still sounded distant.
“Great,” I said, ignoring it. “We’ll cook.”
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
It took all the discipline I’d developed over the last twenty some years to keep from barking at her in frustration. There was no winning with her. If we had a home cooked meal, she’d say we shouldn’t have bothered. If we ordered out, she’d try to get away with ordering a side salad or an appetizer instead of a meal, and then she’d try to insist on paying her portion herself.
“We’ll cook,” I repeated flatly. “Come over at six.”
I got off the phone before she could say anything about rush hour traffic. My mother was retired, though she still subbed at the local high school a few days a week. I had no idea if it was because she needed the money or not. I doubted it. She had her pension and her social security. She’d always been thrifty, and she still lived in the small, two-bedroom townhouse we’d moved into when my father disappeared. Still, I knew I’d be the last to know if she did need money. I’d tried to give her plenty over the years – not because I thought she needed it but because I wanted her to have it. She turned it down, along with the house I tried to buy her. Emma might be the only thing I was able to give her in my adult life that she wouldn’t turn away.
The next night, she came for dinner, and I wondered if maybe I was wrong. Maybe she would turn away her own grandchild. It definitely wasn’t love at first sight. She and Emma sized each other up across the table for most of the meal. Cami and I ended up puppet mastering a conversation wherein Cami prodded Emma to tell grandma about this and that while I prompted my mother to respond.
“This is painful,” Cami whispered after dinner while we were cleaning up. We’d sent my mother and Emma into the living room, hoping that they wouldn’t just sit silently watchingPaw Patrol.
“Welcome to my childhood,” I muttered back. Being back at a dinner table with my mother was bringing back an avalanche of memories. How many times had she and I vacillated between stilted conversation and extended silences while I was growing up? At least now I wasn’t eating a fucking grilled cheese.
We lingered in the kitchen after the dishes were done, neither of us wanting to return to our role of conversational puppeteer between a suspicious three-year-old and a recalcitrant sixty-three-year-old.
“Listen,” Cami whispered suddenly, setting down her wine. “Do you hear that?”
At first, all I could hear was the Dalmatian in the show getting all fired up to save a kitten from a tree. Then I heard a quiet murmuring underneath the bouncy dialogue. Then a higher pitched response. More quiet murmuring, and then, unbelievably, a giggle.
“They’re getting along,” Cami whispered, reaching over to squeeze my arm. “Oh, I’m so glad.”
The murmuring and giggling went on. Cami and I stayed in the kitchen with our glasses of wine, afraid to break the spell, until finally, my mother came in to find us.
“Thank you for a lovely meal. I’m afraid I have to get going,” she said stiffly. “And surely it’s past Emma’s bedtime.”
I shot a look at Cami, wondering if she’d heard the critical note that underlined the words. I was used to it, and it still had the power to piss me off. Cami looked unfazed though.
“Oh, it is,” she said easily, “but it’s not every day she gets to meet her grandmother.”
The faintest flush of pleasure swept pink over my mother’s cheeks, but you couldn’t have heard it in her voice. “I see. Well, I’ll see myself out while you get the poor child to bed.”
“I’ll walk you out,” I said automatically. I set my glass of wine down on the counter, wishing I’d poured something stronger.
“No need.”
Much as I would have liked that to be the case, I ignored her. The last thing I needed was to hear a pointed comment about how she’d had to walk herself out the next time I saw her. I even rode down to the garage with her, though the silence was so thick between us I might have been alone in the elevator. She didn’t speak again until we reached her car.
“Thank you for letting me meet my granddaughter.”
I ground my teeth, ignoring the injured note in the words. “Of course.”
“You say you didn’t know about her until just last month?”
“I don’t just say it, Mom. It’s the truth.”