Page 17

“Yeah.” I stand up, and the couch strains under my weight. “Medical update. Normal.”

He looks at me for a second too long. “Normal?” he says.

“Normal.”

He nods. He doesn’t believe me, but he lets it go anyway, because Dominic knows I would rather keep my cards close to my chest until I need to play them, and not a moment sooner. I only told him my dad had dementia because he had a moment in front of him. Besides him and Bud, this is a Douglas family secret.

“Alright, well, when you’re done staring at the ceiling and contemplating the meaning of life, I need a second set of hands on Miss Franklin’s buggy. The fuel line is being a little bitch.”

“Yeah. Coming.”

I shove the phone in my back pocket and follow him through the swinging door. Halfway across the bay, the phone buzzes.

I pull it out.

IRIS: No, what?

4

SIENNA

“Would you just stay with me?” I yell at the screen, following the intense breathing of Ryan Gosling to perfection.

Grandma Mary sits next to me on the couch, empty bowls of rasta pasta on the coffee table as she repeats the lines of Rachel McAdams. “Look at us, we’re already fighting!”

“Well, that’s what we do! We fight!” I whimper, turning to look into Grandma’s deep brown eyes, her brows furrowed in the middle of her wrinkled brown face, and grab her hands theatrically. “You tell me when I’m being an arrogant son of a bitch, and I tell you when you’re being a pain in the ass!”

Grandma Mary pushes my hands away. “Sienna Reneé Rhodes! Language.”

“Grandma!” I whine, turning back to look at a soaking wet Ryan Gosling, huffing as he begs for the love of his life to stay with him. “It’s not me. It’s Ryan. You’re allowed to cuss when you’re begging for the love of your life.”

“Not allowed to cuss at me,” Grandma sasses back, pushing herself off the couch. “No love of my life would cuss at me, and the love of your life shouldn’t cuss at you neither.”

“It’s the passion that’s important, Grandma. Not the cuss.” I pause the movie.

She gives me one of her looks. The look that says I’ve been doing this for sixty-eight years, and I do not need a twenty-six-year-old to explain love to me.

“Bring those dishes in here,” she says, already walking toward the kitchen.

I push myself up off the couch with a groan and start gathering the bowls, the empty wine glass, and the napkin she has folded into a perfect little square because Grandma Mary is a lady and does not ball anything up.

“Yes, ma’am,” I huff, following her.

Her kitchen hasn’t changed in twenty years. Same yellow tile she put in herself when she moved in. Same plants in the window over the sink, four of them, all named, all older than I am. Same magnet on the fridge that says “A grandma’s house has unlimited hugs,” which I bought her at a Cracker Barrel when I was twelve. When I got here a week ago, I almost cried at the sight. I did cry when Grandma made me tea and told me not to bullshit her the day after.

I set the dishes in the sink, careful not to chip the bowl with the little blue flowers on the bottom, the one she got mad at me for chipping when I was fifteen. She turns on the water and starts rinsing.

“I can do that, Grandma,” I say, leaning against the counter beside her.

“I know you can. But you aren’t going to,” she says, not looking up.

“I am.”

“Sit down, child.” She nods toward the kitchen table. “You’re still moving like your ankle hurts, and you are taking a break. B-R-E-A-K. That means you will be doing nothing, including running that mouth at me.”

“My ankle feels better, Grandma,” I lie.

“Mm-hmm,” she hums. “Sit your lying butt down.”