Her grin falters and she nods slowly at me. She looks at Mikayla. “And who’s this?”
“This is your granddaughter, Mikayla.”
“Hi,” Mikayla says again. She cranes her neck to look up at me. “Grandma?”
“Yeah. Your grandma.”
Mom smiles at Mikayla, then she looks past us, her eyes beginning to glaze the way they would when she would start to disassociate. I remember a nurse telling us when she does that, we should just talk to her like normal anyway.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you,” I say, adjusting Mikayla on my lap. “I’ve had a lot going on.”
Mom blinks and her gaze shifts to the corner of the room.
“Maybe that’s no excuse.” I clear my throat. “But I was coming up to Watertown today. Thought I’d see you. Thought I’d let you meet your granddaughter.”
“Hi, Grandma,” Mikayla says, taking off her earmuffs and handing them to my mother. Mom absently takes them in her hand and looks down at them, puzzled.
“And I wanted to tell you that I met somebody.”
Recognition comes back into my mother’s eyes, and she beams at Mikayla. “Come here, sweetie. Want me to hold you?”
I hesitate before I hand over Mikayla. But I don’t think my mom will hurt her or anything like that, so Mom holds her in her lap and touches the princess clip in Mikayla’s hair. “I remember when I had a little boy. He looked just like you.”
Mikayla looks up at her. “Can you bake cookies?”
My mom laughs. A joyful, sparkling laugh. I don’t remember ever hearing her laugh. I wish I’d thought to bring a camera.
Mom looks at me. “She’s adorable. Just as cute as you used to be.”
I feel my heart flutter because I didn’t think she’d remember me as a baby.
“I’m happy you met someone,” Mom says. “You have such a good life, Shane.”
Tears well up in my eyes at the sound of my name coming from her. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I always just wanted you to be happy. Happier than I could ever be.”
I feel a kind of relief that has just a touch of pain as I watch my mother talk to my daughter and play with my daughter’s hair. This has gone better than I expected. So, I just sit there and let my mom spend time with Mikayla. I didn’t have my mother, but maybe Mikayla will have her grandma.
But we don’t get to stay for long before my mom begins to disassociate again, so I take Mikayla, kiss my mother on the head, and promise to come see her again soon.
Maybe with Ethan.
I don’t know yet. But right now, I need to see a man about some black roses.
I’ve emailed and called Ethan for over a month, but I haven’t seen him, so it feels sort of strange when I see him at the door to my apartment. I kiss him and he kisses me, and it takes him way too long to notice the bouquet of fake black roses, but when he does, he grins from ear to ear.
“You got these for me?” he says.
“Of course. I thought you’d like them.”
“I love them.” He goes over to the black vase I put them in and picks them up. “Where did you get them?”
“Well, I’m sorry they’re not real, because real black roses don’t exist. They’re fake ones I saw at a store.”
He grins. “It doesn’t mean the thought behind it was fake.”
I laugh. “No, it wasn’t.”
