“Fair.”
“Sounds fair to me,” Mom said.
“Sweet Pea,” Dad said, “I’m not moving for good. But I am going back up to Connecticut for the summer.”
“For what?” I asked.
He glanced over my head to Mom and she gave him a nod. “Grandma’s not doing so hot. She’s got dementia.”
That sounded like some kind of awful dementor rock band from Harry Potter. “What’s that mean?”
Mom’s voice was gentle as she said, “It means her brain isn’t what it used to be and that she can’t take care of herself like how she always has. She’ll also have a hard time with her memory and always knowing where she is and when it is.”
“But...” My voice cracked a little bit as I tried not to cry. “Will she remember who I am?” I didn’t know Grandma as well as I knew Nana, my mom’s mother, but what I did know about Grandma was that she was bossy and didn’t take nonsense from anyone. I can’t imagine her ever needing help taking care of herself... and I felt bad for Dad too. The last few months with my parents had been a lot, but I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if that ever happened to one of them.
“Sometimes,” said Dad. “And other times, she won’t.” His mouth pressed together in a thin line, and I could see this was hard for him to talk about.
“But what about all the mail you’ve been getting? And I heard a voice mail about a loan to open a business?”
“Well, that’s the good news,” said Dad. “When I get home, I’m buying Love’s Hardware.”
“What? No way!” I wiped away the stray tear that had escaped.
His lips split into an uncontainable grin. “And I’ll be selling art supplies too.”
“Will you still be painting?” I asked.
“I’ll do window paintings still, like for Honey’s Diner or the bank and for the car dealerships around town. And I think I’m going to pick back up again with my bowling league when I get back from Connecticut, so maybe you could come with me and hang out at the arcade like old times.”
“But what about, um, Mr. Bryant?”
Dad gave me a look. “I guess you would’ve heard about that.” He nodded. “Sometimes when someone has seen the whole world one way their entire lives, it’s hard for them to come around to different ideas. Especially when the people they think they know best aren’t exactly who they expected.”
“So did Mr. Bryant apologize?” I asked.
“He did in his own way,” Dad said. “He’s got some things going on in his own life right now and I think he just needed time to adjust.”
“I know about him and Mrs. Bryant.”
Dad looked over my head to Mom and then back to mebefore saying, “You know, part of it is that Mr. Bryant has never really known a gay person as a close friend, and part of it was that seeing me and your mom get a divorce while he’s having a hard time with his marriage hit pretty close to home.”
I could understand that, but I still felt sick for Kiera.
“But Sweet Pea,” said Mom, “all of this means your dad will be moving into the apartment above the hardware store.”
I turned to Dad. “You won’t live next door anymore?”
He shook his head. “Is that okay with you?”
I didn’t realize that in the most unexpected way I’d become attached to the fact that I could just walk a few steps to either of my parents’ houses at any given moment. I nodded. “Having the two houses and you both on the same street... it felt like a Band-Aid. I want things to be the way they were, but we can’t move on if we’re stuck in the past.”
My parents beamed, like I’d just won first place or landed the leading role in the school play or hit the honor roll.
“It’s a shame we can’t take all the credit for how smart you are,” said Mom.
Dad laughed. “Speak for yourself.”
Mom turned to me. “We wanted to give you the best experience possible by living on the same street and evenre-creating your room. But maybe that’s not giving you the best. Maybe giving you the best means us trying to be our best in our own ways.”
