Chapter 9
After the park, Grandma sent me one card.
She wrote about the tomatoes growing in her garden. She asked whether I still liked the yellow ones. She didn’t ask me to visit or tell me she was lonely.
I put the card on my shelf.
Dad noticed but didn’t mention it until I brought it to him.
“Can we send her a picture of my new room?” I asked.
“Yes. Are you sure you want to?”
“I want her to see the table.”
He took a photograph of our kitchen, with my drawing pinned near the window. I wrote a note on the back: Paige comes over on Thursdays. We all eat here.
Grandma replied with a photograph of her garden. I liked seeing the familiar path between the plants. I didn’t feel ready to walk down it again.
Mrs. Brooks asked how I felt about writing to Grandma.
“Better than seeing her,” I said. “I can think before I answer.”
“That’s a good reason.”
At school, I began noticing how often I apologized. I said sorry if someone bumped into me. I said it if I needed Ms. Reed to repeat a question. One day, Tessa told me I had apologized for asking her to pass a pencil.
“I didn’t know what else to say,” I told Mrs. Brooks.
We practiced a few different sentences. “Excuse me.” “Can you help?” “I need a minute.”
I felt silly saying them in her office. I used one the next day when I couldn’t find my reading book. Ms. Reed helped me look. Nobody got angry.
Dad was changing too. He made dinner most nights, even when he was tired. Sometimes we ate leftovers. Sometimes we invited Lena over because she had cooked enough for six people and wanted someone to help finish it.
If Dad expected to be late, he told me in the morning who would pick me up and when he would be home. I marked it on the calendar by the fridge.
One Friday, a machine broke at the hospital. Dad called Aunt Lena to pick me up and called me before I left school.
“I’ll miss dinner,” he said. “I’ll be there before bed.”
My stomach tightened.
“What time?”
“About eight. If it changes, I’ll call.”
Lena and I made soup. I sat at our table and ate with her. At seven forty-five, Dad called to say he was leaving work. At eight fifteen, he walked in, tired and smelling faintly of the hospital’s cleaning soap.
He sat beside me while I finished a book.
“You came,” I said.
“I told you I would.”
“I know.”
This time, I really did.
The next weekend, Celia called about Grandma. She had started talking to someone who helped families work through painful things. She had told Celia she wanted to understand why she had kept punishing me when she could see I was hurt.
I was glad she was trying. I didn’t ask to visit.
A month later, Paige and I had a school concert. Dad, Celia, and Lena sat together in the audience. Grandma had asked whether she could attend too.
Dad told me about it days ahead of time.
“She can sit in the back and leave afterward,” he said. “Or I can tell her it’s too soon.”
I thought about singing while she watched. I thought about looking for Dad in the audience the way I used to look for him at dinner.
“She can come,” I said. “I don’t want to talk afterward yet.”
Dad told her exactly that.
On concert night, I saw him first. He waved. Celia and Lena were beside him. Grandma sat several rows behind, near the door.
My hands shook before our song began. Paige leaned toward me.
“Look at me if you’re nervous,” she whispered.
I did. We sang the first line together.
Afterward, Grandma stayed where she was. She smiled at me from across the room. I smiled back, then went to Dad.
He wrapped his arms around me. “You were wonderful.”
“Did you see me?”
“The whole time.”
We walked home under the streetlights. I told him about Paige forgetting one word and making up another. He laughed, then asked if I wanted hot chocolate before bed.
At the apartment, I found a small envelope tucked into my concert program. Celia must have passed it to Dad when I wasn’t looking.
Inside was a note from Grandma.
“I am proud of you,” she wrote. “Thank you for letting me hear you sing.”
I put it beside her other letter. I was glad she had come on the terms I chose.
May you like
As Dad warmed the milk, I looked at our table. There were four chairs now. Two were empty tonight because our visitors had gone home.
I no longer looked at an empty chair and wondered whether I was allowed to sit in it.
