Rosalind let go of Dina’s hand to squeeze mine. “That must be so stressful. In school, I mean. And you had that awful teacher, Ms. Collins. She’s gone now. I heard that in the school’s parent group. Let go permanently.”
“Was that your doing? Or one of you?” It seemed kind of random to have happened otherwise.
“I wish it were us. I think Barrett had Daniel working on it. But I think it was the Monks. I think… I think they are taking some ownership of you before you even get there. That’s something you’ll want to think about. If I can help you navigate that, let me know. Dina would be better. I am here. Dina helped me navigate everything.”
I stared at our joined hands. Rosalind had cursed in what sounded like Cajun the day she had thrown me out of the Hamptons. Out of everyone, she seemed to want me around the least.
“You called me a charity case,” I managed to say. This was probably not the time and place. I couldn’t seem to control myself. “In the Hamptons. I… I have been pretty sure you don’t really like me.”
Dina sat up further. “Oh how awful.”
Tears shone in Rosalind’s eyes. “I am so sorry, Alatheia. I do like you. I should not have said that, and it’s terrible that you had to hear it. I apologize. Dina was so much more welcoming to me than I have been to you. I am constantly so afraid, so worried about strangers coming to hurt us. That’s part of what I have been attempting to deal with. I have no excuse. Please accept my apology.”
I supposed I could understand that. Given everything she’d lived through. How could she not be wary? “I don’t… I don’t want anything from your sons except their love. I’m after nothing.”
“I know that.” Her voice was low. “I am so sorry.”
“I forgive you.” I answered her. It was enough already. “Maybe you could read Dina’s journal to her.”
She looked at her mother-in-law. “Would that be okay with you?”
“Yes.” She smiled at both of us but winced.
“Are you in pain?” I could get someone for her.
“Always a little bit and then it gets worse. Now is fine. I may fall asleep. You’ll forgive me?”
Rosalind squeezed my hand tighter which was the only sign that she wasn’t okay. “Rest when you need to.”
I handed her the journal, and she opened it up to the page I indicated.
After a second, Rosalind nodded. “March 16th1968.”
“Wait.” I stopped her. “That’s a jump of a year. It was just April 1967.”
Dina did her wave. “I started and stopped a lot. You know how it is? Days pass and you think maybe none of what you’re doing is very interesting. Then I would come back to it again for a while. Can you imagine if I wrote every day since 1966?”
I would have loved that. Every day of her thoughts although I supposed that made sense from a real-life perspective. Whowould want to read my thoughts? I didn’t even want to think them most of the time.
Rosalind started again. “March 16th1968. Well, I have decided to write again. Truthfully I haven’t had any reason to put my thoughts down lately.” In Rosalind’s southern drawl, Dina’s journals sounded much more sophisticated than my own voice in my head. “The store is doing well. So well that Nathaniel and Ed think we can open a second store in a year. They have been looking at property. Oh, and Robert has grown a mustache. I hate it. But I don’t dare tell him. He is so proud of that mustache. The other thing about us all doing so well financially is that we are taking a vacation. Well, their version of a vacation. I might like to see the Grand Canyon.”
Dina laughed. “Still haven’t.”
Rosalind returned her grin and then kept reading. “But we are instead going to Louisiana to see their mother. I am not kind, but I don’t like their mother, and I doubt I ever will.” Her daughter-in-law lifted her head. “Oof.” That was obviously not part of the journal. Dina would never say oof.
“I wish I could say I was hard on her, but I wasn’t. I may have been too kind.”
I loved how Dina sounded like herself when she said that.
Rosalind went back to reading. “Her initial support of my husbands’ absence has waned. She wants them home. She doesn’t care what we’re doing here in New York, and she basically blames me for their not returning. Of course they left before they ever knew me but that is neither here nor there to her. They aren’t where she wants them. She will not come and visit. She has no real idea of the store that we are devoting ourselves to and does not wish to know anything about it. She simply knows that I have not had a baby, something that she feels I should have done by now. I have seen a doctor. No one knows why I’m not pregnant. It breaks my heart. Not that Iintend to discuss that with her. If I did, she would just wish harder they had married someone else.”
Rosalind leaned forward. “Little did you know how many kids you were going to have in such a short period of time. Boom. Boom. Boom. We share that experience.”
“We do.”
Rosalind turned to me. “Don’t ever feel pressure to reproduce from me, Alatheia. That is none of my business.”
“I can’t imagine kids. I’m barely functioning.”
