She stared at the floor, her fingers tapping against her leg as the seconds ticked by. "It was good of you, what you did for Brenda. Helping her get into that facility and taking care of the damage to her house."
Technically, all I did was step up as the adult in the situation. No one else was there to do it and, regardless of all the issues between us, she was still Percy's grandmother. She was family and I wasn't going to let her get shuffled around by a shitty managed healthcare company or leave her house to a flock of seagulls. Dealing with her homeowner's insurance and researching assisted living communities in the area wasn't difficult. Covering some extra costs didn't kill me. "It was no problem."
"But you didn't have to do it."
I lifted a hand, let it fall to my side. "She needed the help. I did what I could."
"I should've handled it for her," she said, almost to herself.
I kept my mouth shut because, to an extent, I agreed with that statement. But if there was one thing I'd learned from my mother's illness it was that families rarely behaved in the ways we expected. A lot of people shut down when it came to the scary shit. Others walked away. Some just needed time to find their footing. Like Maddie.
"What are you going to do with the house after it's fixed up?"
"I'm not doing anything with the house," I said. "That's up to Brenda."
"I miss her, you know. Penny." She said this like an accusation, her eyes flashing up to me and then back toward the floor. "I miss her every day. She loved that little boy so much and she should be here, watching him grow up."
I nodded but stayed silent. Penny had never been mine to grieve and I accepted that without question. She belonged to Maddie and Brenda. Percy too, though the limits of his connection to his mother would always be difficult for Maddie and Brenda to accept. They wanted him to carry on all the love and memories they had of her, even if that was quite a lot to ask of a young kid.
"He's just like her. I see so much of her in him and I'm so scared I'm gonna lose him too," she went on, her words growing watery. "My lawyer says the petition isn't going to work and she's not going to keep me on as a client after this, and I can't really afford her anyway but I didn't know what else to do."
I watched as Maddie swept tears from the corners of her eyes before letting her hands rest on her hips. Some of the worry eating away at my stomach settled.Some. I was jaded enough to know better than to trust anything unless it came straight from the judge.
"I just…I want to watch him grow up," she said. "I want him to know who I am, who Brenda is." She peered up at me, her eyes still glassy. "He deserves that, don't you think?"
"Yeah, I do," I replied. "It never crossed my mind that we wouldn't come back to visit."
"Okay, yes, I might've jumped to that conclusion," she rushed to say. "But you have to admit you've never liked Percy spending time here."
I took a huge mental step away from that last comment. Not taking that bait. Not when I'd tried and failed for years to explain that Percy needed to be surrounded by people who understood his communication needs and were willing to learn ASL for him. That ignoring his differences only made the barriers higher for him than accommodating those differences. And that he could be the last living piece of Penny but only if he was also allowed to be a kid and not a talisman of their grief.
"I can admit that I've been hard on you," she added. "None of this is easy and I don't like saying it but a podcast told me I could do hard things so here I am."
I bit my tongue. Not for the first time, I wished Audrey had insisted on coming along. If she'd pressed, I would've folded on that issue. And she would've known exactly what to say to all of this.
Since I didn't know what kind of reaction Maddie was going for, all I could manage was, "Okay?"
"But you have to know that hostility was only because adjusting to this whole thing has been so hard. Every time I feel like I get a handle on it all, something new comes along and stomps all over my mental setup." She held up a hand and started ticking off on her fingers. "First, Penny's pregnant and she's busy searching for you, and then there's a whole human baby, and then she goes anddieson me?—"
"Wait, she wanted to find me? When she realized she was pregnant?"
Maddie's eye roll should've come with sitcom sound effects. It was that far over-the-top. "Yeah, of course she did. It just took a long time to track you down. She always wanted you to be involved. She said you were kind. Funny too. Not sure I see much of that myself but it's not like I can argue with her now."
I couldn't put a finger on why it mattered to me so much that she'd wanted me to know about my son right from the start. But it did. It was the breeze that sent a boulder tumbling off my shoulder, one I hadn't even realized I'd been carrying.
When I didn't respond, Maddie asked, "Have you thought about when you'll visit?"
"I don't know." I hesitated a moment, not sure it was wise to share so much without legal counsel breathing down our necks. "I haven't seen Percy's school calendar for the year and Brenda won't be up for much more than video calls until she's back on her feet. It really depends on what's best for them."
"You mean that? You're not just looking for a loophole to take him back east and never return? Isn't all of this a silver lining for you?"
It was my turn to roll my eyes. "I don't know what it says about me that you'd assume I take a dementia diagnosis as a silver lining."
She circled a finger near her head. "Yeah, hearing you say that now makes me realize I might've catastrophized a little too close to the sun."
With an arched brow, I said, "Brenda's had one shitty turn after another these past few years. But the reality of this situation is that we were overdue in revising the custody agreement. We know now why she was having a hard time looking after him but that's not the real issue. He requires people who prioritize his needs above all else. He doesn't deserve to bepassed around for weekends, holidays, and summer vacations because it makes us happy. He should be able to join a soccer team if he wants and know he won't have to miss a quarter of the games because he has to fly out here once a month."
As if we hadn't worn this path bare already, she said, "The obvious answer to all of that would be you moving here. You have to see that it would work best for everyone. And it's not like you have a whole bunch of family where you live now."
