Glad to be absolved of the decision, I let her lead me to the armchair as if I’m incapacitated.
I sit down, lean back, and close my eyes after she scurries off. I’ve been through the loss of loved ones enough times that I should be used to it, but the truth is, it never gets easier. I lost my mother, my father, my sister, and my husband. That was bad enough, but then I lost my only child and her husband and my grandson, all at once, in one terrible accident. I thought nothing could ever be as bad as that, but pain is apparently not measured by body counts or lessened by the number of times one has suffered it.
In many ways, tragedy is a matter of survivors. I’m old enough that most of my life is behind me, and it doesn’t much matter to me personally if I slog my way through this or abandon all hope, but there’s Lily to think about. Because of her, I can’t give up. It’s unbelievably horrible that my sweet great-granddaughter has lost her mother, especially at such a tender age.
Not that there’s ever a good age to lose a mother—my grandmother told me that she was sixty-nine when she lost hers, and she still felt orphaned. My mother died when I was eight and it felt like the end of the world, but thank heavens I still had my father. Poor Brooke was twelve when she lost both parents.
That was truly catastrophic. Twelve is such a terrible, awkward age anyway—an age when everything wonderful about childhood is ending, but the excitement of the teen years hasn’t yetarrived. Twelve-year-old minds and bodies are gangly and green and unevenly growing, prone to hormone storms and mood squalls. Twelve-year-olds really need their parents, if only to pull away from later.
At three, Lily will hopefully be more resilient. I sit for a moment, mentally checking my math. Yes, she’s still three. Dear God—she’s three, and I’m seventy-nine. I’ll be ninety when she’s fourteen!
Before Lily was born, Brooke had tactfully broached the subject of setting up her will. “You know how I love you, Grams, and you know there’s no one I’d rather raise my baby if I were in an accident or something, but I’m worried about the age difference. I’m wondering if perhaps I should name Quinn as the baby’s guardian if anything happens to me.”
“If anything happens to you, the child’s father should be named as guardian,” I’d told her.
Brooke’s eyebrows had lowered. “Grams, we’ve been over this. You know that’s not what he signed up for.”
“How many men in the history of the world have had children they didn’t ‘sign up for’? Half of the earth’s population got here that way, I’d wager.”
“This is different, and you know it,” she’d said. “The donor signed a contract waiving all parental rights and responsibilities. I don’t know his identity and he doesn’t know mine, and the cryobank will keep it that way.”
“Yes, yes, yes. So you’ve told me.” I’d sighed. I knew I wasn’t going to change her mind by arguing with her, but nothing would change my mind, either.
When Brooke first told me she was pregnant by an anonymous sperm donor, I tried to talk her into locating and contacting the father. She’d unpacked all these official-sounding words—cryobanks, contracts, anonymity—that should have nothing to do with parenthood. She told me that her child’s father had no rights or responsibilities, and explained that the terms of the contract were bindingmorally as well as legally. We’d argued about it—quite vehemently, in fact. I realized then that I’d have to accept the situation on Brooke’s terms if I didn’t want to risk alienating her, but I’d held out hopes that she might change her mind as the child grew older. “I just think that every child should have two parents,” I’d said yet again when we discussed her will.
“That’s ideal, I agree, but it’s not always an option,” Brooke had replied. “And my child will be very blessed to have you and Quinn in her life.”
Quinn is a lovely young woman, to be sure, and I’m very fond of her, but she isn’t a blood relative. I believe that family should raise family. I knew this argument wouldn’t hold weight with Brooke, who often said Quinn was like a sister, so I focused on the fact that Quinn was living in Atlanta at the time.
“If something were to happen to you, God forbid, it’ll be best for the child to be with someone she knows well. I’ll be visiting all the time since I live in Louisiana,” I’d said. “Quinn will only be able to see the child occasionally. Besides, I’m remarkably sound for my age.” I take great pride in my physical fitness. I walk two miles almost every day and I volunteer three days a week at the library. Everyone, including my doctor, says my physiological age is at least ten years younger than the calendar indicates. “Are you saying I’m too feeble to care for a baby?”
“I wouldn’t dare!” Brooke had laughed. “You might pin me to the floor.”
I’d smiled. “That’s more like it.”
Brooke had shaken her head, then held up her hands in surrender. “Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll put you as the primary guardian and Quinn as the backup for now, but we’ll revisit this in a few years. I’ll make a note to talk to my attorney again when you’re eighty and Lily’s four.”
She’d given me a copy of the will. Both Quinn and I already had letters of temporary guardianship for the times when Lily was in our care.
“Miss Margaret, are you okay?”
I open my eyes now to see Quinn standing in front of me. I’m embarrassed that she’s caught me with my eyes closed, like a doddering old woman napping in a chair.
“Yes, yes. I’m just... regrouping.”
“Here you go.” The petite woman with the glasses reappears and hands me a glass of wine. Again, I feel a bit sheepish about Quinn watching me. I hope she doesn’t think I make a habit of drinking in the middle of the day.
The thought irritates me. She’s not the judge of whether or not I’m fit to raise Lily. Although, I have to say, it bothers me a bit, how close she is to the child since she moved to New Orleans. She lives just a couple of blocks over, which means she sees Lily all the time. I’m still a three-and-a-half-hour drive away in Alexandria, so my argument about why I should have guardianship of Lily no longer holds water.
Quinn and Lily are very attached to each other. I feel a little twinge of—what? Guilt? Jealousy? I don’t know, but it’s an unpleasant and shameful emotion—that Brooke hadn’t called me to come stay with Lily when she went out of town, the way she used to before Quinn moved to New Orleans. Of course, it’s a long drive for me, and I can see how much easier it was to just have Quinn pop over, but still. I feel a little... displaced.
Well, that’s not Quinn’s fault. And I’m very grateful for the way she’s handled things since Brooke’s death. She’s been most considerate and respectful of my feelings.
After the police visited her that awful night, she phoned my minister—she knows my church because she’s attended Christmas Eve services with Brooke and me for the last eighteen years—and she asked him to come to my house to break the news to me. Afterward, he put me on the phone with Quinn, and she told me everything she knew. She offered to handle the arrangements for getting Brooke’s body back to New Orleans. She realized it was my placeto break the news to Lily, so she waited for me to arrive from Alexandria.
The memory makes my chest hurt again. I hope I did an adequate job with that. How does one tell a child her mother is dead? I’ve had to do it twice, which is twice more than anyone should ever have to do such a horrific thing in a lifetime. My minister—a man with a short graying beard, caring brown eyes, and a rock-solid faith—had driven me down to New Orleans early the next morning, his wife following in their car. They and Quinn were with me when I’d told Lily the tragic news, and the support had been a tremendous help.
“Just tell Lily what happened,” my minister had advised when we discussed it on the drive. “Put it in simple terms that she can understand.”
