“Edith,” she said, “you’ve spent fifteen years acting like you’re on standby for everyone else’s emergency. What exactly are you saving your good years for now?”
That question followed me for days.
So did another one.
If not now, when?
Around that time, Rebecca came over one evening and helped me make dinner. We cooked lemon chicken and green beans and ate on the screened porch while the cicadas started up in the trees.
“How are things at home?” I asked.
She gave a humorless little smile.
“Loud.”
I waited.
“Mom blames Dad for folding too easily. Dad blames Mom for pushing too far. Toby is mad at everybody but mostly because he can’t keep living the way he was living.”
“And you?”
She set down her fork.
“I’m relieved,” she said.
That surprised me even though it shouldn’t have.
“Relieved?”
She nodded.
“Grandma, our family has been orbiting your checkbook for years. Nobody said it because saying it would make it real. But it’s true. The minute you stepped back, everybody had to show who they were.”
I looked out through the screen at the darkening yard.
“That’s a hard thing for a granddaughter to say.”
“It’s a hard thing to watch too,” she said.
After a moment she added, more quietly, “I want you to know something. I support your decision.”
I turned toward her.
“You do?”
“Yes. I love my parents. I do. But loving them doesn’t mean pretending they’ve been fair to you.”
I could have cried then. Not because she approved of me. Because she saw me.
There is a difference.
Three days later Toby came over unannounced.
He looked tired in a way young people only look when they have recently discovered consequences. His shirt was wrinkled, his hair unwashed, and he had the restless, embarrassed energy of someone trying to act grown while secretly hoping to be rescued like a child.
“Grandma,” he said from the doorway. “Can I talk to you?”
I let him in.
He stood in the living room for a second, looking at the floor, then at the family photographs, then finally at me.
“I’m in trouble.”
“What kind?”
“Money kind.”
I almost smiled. At least he was direct.
We sat down. He leaned forward with both hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white.
“I owe around seven thousand on credit cards,” he said. “And my rent is due. And the bank keeps calling.”
“What did you spend the money on?”
He looked offended by the question for half a second. Then ashamed.
“Stuff.”
“What stuff?”