He put his paper back in front of his face as he told her, then he told her her secret password for using her cash card at the bank machine, but he would not tell her how he had come to know that number.
“Vanessa’s number,” she snapped out.
“Stumped me on that one. In fact, I’m not sure I ever knew it.”
He was lying, of course, but when she looked back at her computer screen, she was smiling.
At three o’clock, Samantha left her chair and went to the kitchen where she began rummaging in the cabinets trying to find what she needed.
When Mike heard Sam in the kitchen, he wondered what she was doing so he got up to see. He found her sitting on the floor, surrounded by half a dozen pans and looking puzzled. “Trying to figure out what to do with them?” he asked with a male smirk.
“I am trying to figure out how to make a sidecar.”
“Hire a welder.”
“Very funny,” she answered, rising, starting to put the pans away. “I was hoping you had one of those drink-making books.”
“Ahhh, that kind of sidecar. Are you planning to get drunk?” he asked, hope in his voice.
“No, I’m going to make a pitcher of sidecars and take it with me when I visit my grandmother this evening.”
That announcement stopped Mike from speaking as he stared at her in astonishment. “W…what do you mean?”
She stopped moving to look at him. “For some reason, Mike, you seem to think that I’m not altogether very smart and that you can keep things from me, but I knew that Abby was my grandmother the moment I saw her. She looks like my father, moves like him. She even quirks her mouth exactly like my father did.” She leaned toward him. “And you knew who she was too. It was written all over your face. You were so taken aback you could hardly speak.”
Catching her hand in his, Mike held her fingers tightly. “I didn’t say anything, not because I don’t think you’re smart but because…”
“I know,” she said, smiling at him, squeezing his hand in return. “You don’t want anything to happen to me and you think it’s dangerous for me to visit her.”
“Exactly.”
She took a deep breath. “Mike, you are so lucky. You have so many people who belong to you, but my people are all gone. Only Maxie and I are still alive, and she’s there in that horrible place alone day after day and I’m here and…and she won’t be there much longer.”
When she began to tremble, he pulled her into his arms. “Hush, sweetheart. It’s okay. We’ll go see her if you want.”
“You don’t have to go with me.” As they always did, Mike’s arms made her feel safe.
“Sure,” he said, stroking her hair. “I’m going to let you go by yourself. You’ll probably get stuck in a revolving door.”
Smiling, she looked up at him. “I was hoping you’d go.” She pushed away from him. “Now,” she said, businesslike, “how do I make a sidecar?”
“Samantha, you can’t take her booze. I don’t want to have to point out the obvious, but she’s a very sick lady. I don’t think her doctor will allow—”
She put her fingers over his lips. “My granddad Cal said, ‘When you know you’re dying, what can hurt you?’ He hadn’t smoked since the fifties, but on the day the doctor told him he was dying, he bought a big box of very expensive cigars and smoked one a day until he died. My father put the ones he didn’t smoke under the lining of his casket.”
Mike could only stare at her; she had experienced things that he couldn’t imagine.
She had grown up surrounded by dying people, and her father, when he wasn’t dying, had demanded that no sunlight be allowed into the house.
Without a word, Mike reached into a cabinet above her head and took down a yellow book that turned out to be a collection of drink recipes. “Let’s see. A sidecar: Cointreau, lemon juice, and Cognac. I think we can manage that.”
“Oh, Mike, I do love you,” she said, laughing, then was embarrassed at what she’d said.
He didn’t look up from the book. “I should hope so,” he said, sounding as though what she’d said meant nothing to him, but the color of his neck was a little darker than normal, almost as though he were flushed.
Busying herself with getting the lemons from the refrigerator, Samantha began talking quickly to cover her embarrassment. “I do hope the nursing home doesn’t give us any trouble and will allow us to spend some time with her. You know what I want to do, Mike? I want to take photos to her. Upstairs I have a big box full of albums and loose photos of my father and mother and Granddad Cal and me, most of them taken after Maxie left. My goodness, but I can’t keep calling my own grandmother by her name. What do you think I should call her?”
“Abby,” Mike said seriously. “Until she wants you to know that she’s your grandmother, I think you shouldn’t let her know that you know.” He grimaced. “The poor woman probably thinks that keeping her identity from you will help keep you safe.”