I’m having a hard time picturing this relationship.
Sydney holds the door open. “Good friends, actually. We play poker every Friday afternoon. Well, we did before this last round of chemo hit her so hard.”
Icannotpicture my grandmother playing poker with Sydney Holt. “Since when?”
“Since I did that feature on this property last year. I interviewed her about the lake’s history, and we just... clicked. She’s so easy to talk to—and she gave me really helpful advice when I needed it.” She shrugs, like it’s the most natural thing in the world for a woman in her twenties to befriend someone over forty years her senior.
“And now you just... come over whenever you want?”
“Pretty much.”
We reach the porch of the sprawling log cabin-style ranch house that’s been in my family for generations, and she grabs the door handle with the familiarity of someone who’s done it a hundred times before.
I climb the stairs behind her, albeit slower in my skates, and I do my best to keep my eyes off her ass.
After we both take off our coats, hats, and gloves, I ditch my skates and we enter the warm kitchen that smells like cinnamon and coffee, and it’s exactly the same as it was when I was little—worn oak table in the center, vintage appliances that somehow still work better than anything modern, copper pots hanging over the island. Meema refuses to update anything, claiming new stuff doesn’t have “character.”
“Maisie!” Sydney calls out, her voice instantly warmer. “Look who I found lurking around your lake like the Loch Ness monster!”
A laugh echoes from the living room—that familiar, throaty chuckle that’s been the soundtrack to every happy memory of my childhood. “Did you two play nice?”
Sydney shoots me a glare, but her voice is bright. “Always! Brooks was just giving me some pointers about ice safety.”
We move into the living room, where Meema sits in her favorite armchair, a handmade quilt tucked around her thin legs. The TV is on, muted, showing a rerun of the broadcast we just finished.
Of course.
“Morning, Meema.” I lean down to kiss her papery cheek. She smells like roses and the hard candy she keeps in her pockets.
“There’s my least favorite grandson.” She pats my face with a hand that seems smaller than I remember. Her skin isalmost translucent now, blue veins visible beneath the surface.
“I’m your only grandson,” I remind her, the familiar exchange as comforting as an old sweater.
“Details.” She waves a dismissive hand. “How’s the shoulder today?”
“Fine,” I lie, because what else am I supposed to say?
That it hurts like hell?
Sydney moves around the room with the ease of someone completely at home, straightening a pillow here, adjusting a photo frame there. She heads back to the kitchen without being asked and returns moments later with a mug of tea that she hands to Meema.
“Two sugars and hot enough to scald the devil.” Sydney smiles. “Just how you like it.”
Meema takes the mug with a grateful nod. “This girl knows me better than my own family,” she says, winking at me.
“How’s Gus doing today, Mais?” Sydney looks around for him.
“Still refusing to eat that diet food.” Meema perches her tea on the arm of the sofa. “I don’t blame him.”
They laugh together, and I stand there feeling like an outsider in my grandmother’s house. Who the hell is Gus? Andwow, Sydney really is Meema’s friend.
“Who’s Gus?”
“My new dachshund,” Meema says. “He stayed with Janet last night, so you haven’t met him yet. Poor thing’s got more rolls than a bakery. The vet put him on a diet, but he’s staging a rebellion.”
“Ah,” I mutter, sitting on the couch.
“Sydney, be a dear and make Brooks some coffee, would you?” Meema sighs. “He likes it black, like his soul.”
