She’d been carrying this moment since Bea was six and had asked, for the first time, why Grandma Sam wasn’t at Christmas. She’s traveling, Anna had said, which was true. Is she coming back? Bea had asked. I don’t know, honey. Also true. Eleven years of building on that answer without ever saying the rest of it—that Sam left when Anna was ten, that she didn’t come when Bea was born, that she called for Bea’s tenth birthday because Anna had reminded her and didn’t call for the eleventh. Yearsof protecting Bea from that math so that when Bea thought of Sam, she thought of a grandmother who lived far away and sent postcards and remembered birthdays, sometimes.
And now Bea had a card in her hand and she was happy, and Anna was terrified—not of the card, not of the visit, but of the moment when Bea would learn that Sam’s warmth was the exception, not the rule. That it came in brilliant flashes and then went dark, and there was no predicting when the light would move, and by the time you noticed it had, you’d already built your whole day around it.
“It’s not a big deal,” Anna said. “We were just surprised.”
Bea watched her face for a second. “So can I go?”
The kitchen was quiet. The oven ticked as it cooled.
Anna found Tyler in the doorway. Tyler was looking somewhere to the left of Bea, which Anna knew from thirty-five years of Tyler meant he was going to be absolutely no help. Meg had put the knife down. Margo was looking at Bea with the steady expression that meant she wasn’t going to intervene no matter what anyone wanted her to do.
Anna looked at her daughter, who was waiting.
“That’s yours to decide,” she said.
Bea put the card back in the envelope. Carefully, the way she handled things that were important to her. “Okay. I’ll think about it.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to go get my sketchbook from the table.” She went out through the patio door, and they heard it close behind her.
Stella looked at Tyler. Tyler looked at the floor. Stella pushed off the doorframe and followed Bea outside.
Nobody spoke for a long moment.
“Well,” Meg said finally, very quietly. “That was awful.”
Tyler set his beer on the counter. “I need some air,” he said.
Anna looked at Margo. Margo looked back.
“You did the right thing,” Margo said.
“Did I?”
“Yes. You let her have what she has.” Margo turned her coffee cup on the table. “People find what they need to find. Even when it’s not what you expected.”
Anna nodded. The lasagna was cooling on the counter. Somewhere outside Tyler was probably having whatever conversation he was having with himself, and on the patio Bea was sketching and Stella was sitting beside her and Joey was probably reorganizing the outdoor napkin station because that was Joey.
The kitchen smelled like garlic and heat and, very faintly, pink roses.
“I need a minute,” Anna said.
“Okay,” Meg said.
Anna went into the pantry and closed the door. It smelled like onion skins and flour and the cardboard boxes Meg kept her overflow dry goods in. She didn’t turn on the light.
CHAPTER FIVE
Bea showed up at the bungalow on Wednesday afternoon with a backpack full of homework she wasn’t going to do and two bottles of the weird kombucha Meg had started buying in bulk from the co-op.
“Your dad home?” Bea asked at the door.
“Garage.”
“Okay.”
Stella closed the door behind her and followed her through to the living room. Bea dropped the backpack on the couch and held up the bottles.
