“Matthew, dear? It’s late. Are you all right? Merry Christmas,” Grandma says, not an ounce of resentment over me leaving sitting between the notes of her singsong voice. That comforting sound makes the tears come on. “Dear, what’s wrong? You sound upset,” she says. The concern is palpable even through the phone. Even though I put this distance between us again.
“Everything is changing and I can’t make it stop,” I say as if the act of manipulating time and space were ever in my power. “How do I make it stop?” With the phone to my ear, I slide on my shoes and coat, lift open the window, and hop out onto the fire escape. Oksana and Maxim are sleeping, and I don’t want to be a burden. More of a burden, I should say.
“Hold on.” I fumble with the old latch. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…” I keep saying it on repeat. All those years filtering it from my vocabulary and now I’m a broken record. It doesn’t feel good, but it doesn’t feel bad either.
“What are you apologizing for? Dear, did something happen?” she asks. But where to begin? God, I can’t play her our greatest hits without croaking a full sob.
“I found out about the divorce,” I tell her. “And how Mom leaked the story of my island to cover it up.” The betrayal flashes fresh each time I call it out. “Everything is changing and not for the better.”
Her sigh causes a crackle on my end. “I’m sorry you’re going through that, Matthew.”
“I keep asking myselfwhy. Why did she do it? There’s no real answer.”
“Dear, it makes me sad, but I think your mother only shows you a small sliver of who she really is.” Grandma sniffles. “Your mother has been struggling for a long time now, and she’s gotten very good at hiding it, especially when you were a child and she stepped onto the world’s stage.” A tentative beat goes by. “I don’t say this to excuse her behavior, which angers me more than you can imagine. I say this so you know there’s more to her story than she puts on the page.”
You get that from my side of the family.I slump against the cold railing, letting the biting frost seep through the pair of borrowed sweatpants I’m wearing. The cold is a shocking balm.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” I ask.
She clucks. “I’ve already divulged too much. I know you’re probably not ready right now, but one day, when the time comes, ask her yourself. She may surprise you.” Her tone isn’t convincing even if it is hopeful. “None of this will be easy but Gramps and I will be here for you if you need us.”
I think about what she said. Doors and windows into my life. “Even after I ran off like a scared little boy?” I ask. Shouldn’t that have put a dead bolt in the way?
“Scared? Would the Matthew who showed up on my doorstep three weeks ago have voluntarily thrown a charity gala? Put his ego away to connect with a community he didn’t know and wasn’t a part of?”
“Probably not.”
“Look, I’m not saying you were an oaf stomping around all the time before, but you always had your own interest at the front of the line. Something changed for you here. If you feel everyone around you is changing, it’s because you’re changing too. Enough to notice it,” she says.
I wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve. “I guess you’re right.”
“Oh, I’m a grandmother and grandmothers are always, always, always right. Never forget that,” she says.
“I won’t,” I say, remembering the reason—the real reason, not the selfish one—I did all that work in the first place. “How did we do?”
“We raised a good chunk of change because of you.”
Momentarily, I brighten. Only she doesn’t say more, which makes me fearful.
I hedge, “Enough to save the store?”
“It was a record amount.” It doesn’t come out cheery. It’s a simple fact, which lets me know that the event wasn’t the smashing success it needed to be. “You did your part beautifully. Everyone is still talking about what a perfect evening it was. The money we needed was a long shot. Don’t beat yourself up about it.”
I resist the urge to argue. Instead, I simply thank her for the grace she’s granting me in this moment—letting me know that I can’t harbor hurt over something out of my control.
Maybe I need to apply that lesson to Mom’s lies as well. The one thing I could control was how I responded to Hector as my mental health spun like a top off the table. All the other wreckage was an unavoidable by-product.
I sigh. There’s a beat where I take in the sounds of the cabin. She’s hearing sirens and the rattle of buses down below. We hover in an alternate reality where I didn’t leave with Mom. One where I didn’t go running at the first sign of impending doom.
Trying to be courageous, knowing there’s a bigger apology meant to be made, I ask, “Is Hector in?”
There’s a lengthy pause. Some whispering. “He’s…not, dear. He stepped out for a bit. Or, um, sorry, he’s sleeping.” She’s not accustomed to lies. Even tiny ones. “Would you like me to leave him a message?”
“No, no,” I say, almost too quickly. The mean words I said to him flip inside my mind. I’ve been studying that scene repeatedly. If only I’d thrown out the script, forgotten my lines, been honest about my feelings and heard him out. Too late now.
“If you’re sure,” Grandma says. She’s trying not to sound too dejected.
“I’m sure,” I say. “Everything else okay?”
