Did friendship mean dependency on another person? If so, I wasn’t sure I liked the feeling at all.
I turned off the television and stood up. I rounded the short bar, opened the refrigerator door, and stared into it like it were an abyss. “This place is as quiet as a tomb.”
What do you know about a tomb?Mama’s voice popped into my head.
“It’s just a saying.” I shivered at the thought of Mama being forever in a tomb.
I was glad that I could envision her laughing and having a good time on the beach and in the cool ocean water, rather than imagining how I would feel if I visited a cold tombstone in a cemetery.
Everyone needs friends,she said.
“Why? And what has that got to do with us pouring you out in all that water?”
A hard knock on the door startled me. I whipped around so fast that it made me dizzy. I figured Rosalie or Scarlett had their arms full and couldn’t open the door, so I hurried across the floor to find Ada Lou standing on the porch.
“Put your coat on. I’m going to give you a tour of Dell City,” she said. “And then we’re stopping by my place for a movie and popcorn.”
I was glad for anything that would take my mind off the past, but something about being told what to do set me on edge. “You’ve been around Rosalie too much.”
“What makes you say that?” Ada Lou asked.
I reached for my coat. “You are almost as bossy as she is.”
“I’ve been accused of worse,” she said with a grin, and led the way to her truck.
She could barely see over the steering wheel, and she had to stretch her leg to get her foot to the gas pedal. But that didn’t stop her from driving several miles an hour over the speed limit.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“When is your birthday?” she fired right back at me.
“December 24. Mama told me that Santa Claus left me under the tree.”
“I like that better than a stork flying through the air with you, or some stranger leaving you under a cabbage plant in the garden. When I realized how old my Robin would be today, it made me think that any child she could have had would be about your age. You could be my granddaughter.”
“I don’t think so,” I said and told her the story of what my mama had said about the family on her side only having a stick instead of a tree.
She laughed out loud. “I would have liked your mama. And, honey, family doesn’t always mean that you share blood or that DNA crap. It can mean that you share heartfelt love. Look, I never got to be a grandmother, so I’m going to give you some advice. The family you are born into is just a starter one. The people in that one care for you the best they know how. They love you, feed you, clothe you, and all that until you are old enough to go out into the world and find your own family. I found mine right here in this place, and you could, too, if you just open your eyes.”
“Why do you care?” No one else had ever—more or less—adopted me on the spot. Hell’s bells, I didn’t come from a dysfunctional family. I came from a nonexistent one. Frank was more like a friend than a father figure.
“Because in another world and another time, you might be my granddaughter, and grandmothers are supposed to be bossy and giveadvice,” she answered. “Besides, Rosalie says that you are the best help she’s ever had, and she is my friend. If I can do this for her, then I’m happy.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then I tried, and that’s all any person can ever do.” She shrugged.
We sat in silence for a full minute before she spoke again. “Do you know why I named my daughter Robin?”
“No. Is it a family name? I’m named Carla after my grandfather. My middle name is Penelope, after my grandmother. Her nickname was Nellie.” I stared out the window at nothing but dead grass between the road and the mountains.
“Oh, hell no!” Ada Lou declared. “Remember how I told you I went to Woodstock? Well, I made a vow to myself that I would name the baby the first thing I saw after she was born. And when I heard her first cries, a robin landed on the windowsill right outside my hospital room.”
“Thank God it wasn’t a buzzard.”
Ada Lou threw back her head and laughed like a big, burly trucker. I would have never guessed that so much volume could come out of such a skinny little body.
“You got that right,” she finally agreed when the echoes died down.
