“I’ll come back,” Lexi promised, backing away. In ten minutes with her daughter, she’d done everything wrong. She’d scared Gracie. “Next week, okay? Same day and time?”
“You left something on the couch,” Jude said.
Lexi looked back at the stack of letters. They looked small from here, dirty and disheveled in this perfect room. She’d been a fool to think that letters would matter to a five-year-old. Another mistake. “They’re for Grace,” was all she could manage to say, and then she left her daughter again.
* * *
“She doesn’t even know I can’t read,” Grace said, her voice heavy with disappointment. She slithered out of Jude’s grasp and got to her feet. “When does my daddy get home?”
Jude couldn’t take her eyes away from the battered shoe box on her sofa. It looked absurdly small and out of place against the expensive fabric.
“Nana?” Grace said, stomping her foot for emphasis. “I want to go home. ”
Jude looked up, seeing Grace standing by the fireplace with a mutinous look in her eyes. Her granddaughter was scared, and so she lashed out. It was exactly what Zach would have done at that age. “Okay. But I don’t know when your daddy will be home. ”
“I don’t care,” Grace said, but her voice wobbled a little.
“You want a hug?”
“I just wanna see my daddy. ”
Jude sighed. It was hardly surprising that Grace didn’t want to be comforted by a grandmother who’d spent years ignoring her. “Get your things together and we’ll go. ”
As Grace picked up her toys, Jude walked slowly into the living room. For a moment or two, she stared at the shoe box full of letters.
“I’m ready,” Grace said, holding her yellow blanket against her cheek.
Jude picked up the box and carried it out to the car. She strapped Grace into her car seat and placed the letters in the passenger seat beside her, where now they seemed to take up a lot of room.
Jude could tell how upset her granddaughter was, and she wanted to soothe the little girl, but too many separate years had left them strangers. Grace didn’t even look to her grandmother for comfort. “It’s okay to be upset, Gracie. Meeting your mom is confusing, I’ll bet. ”
Grace ignored her, talking furiously to her wrist.
Jude stared down at her granddaughter for a long time, perhaps longer than ever before, and then slowly, she stepped back and closed the car door. On the way back to Zach’s, Jude tried to start a few conversations, but Grace didn’t answer. The little girl just kept saying, come back, Ariel, I need you, really, and the fervent whispers reminded Jude of years ago, when a little girl who looked just like Grace used to whisper to her brother constantly in a language only he could understand.
At the cabin, Jude parked and helped Grace out of her car seat.
She took hold of Grace’s small hand. “How about if I read you a story?”
Grace looked suspicious. Finally, she said, “Okay,” slowly, as if she expected Jude to rescind the offer and maybe start laughing.
They walked silently into the cabin and Grace headed straight for her bedroom. She grabbed the silvery white princess doll that was her favorite and climbed up onto the white spindle bed, wiggling under the colorful Wall-E comforter. “I’m sucking my thumb,” she said defiantly.
Jude couldn’t help smiling. “Maybe I will, too. ” She popped her thumb into her mouth.
Grace smiled. “You’re too old. ”
Laughing at that, Jude went to the bookcase.
A thin white-jacketed book caught her eye. Slowly, she picked it out from among the others and sat next to Grace. Opening the book, she began to read: “The day Max wore his wolf suit and made mischief of one kind or another and his mother called him ‘Wild Thing’…” The words took Jude back to a room that was full of action figures and plastic dinosaurs, to a little boy who laughed all the time and wouldn’t listen to stories unless his sister was beside him. The memories were close enough to inhale. For a second, she was a young mother again, sitting in the middle of a big king-sized bed with a baby tucked under each arm and a book open in her lap …
“It’s not sad, Nana. Why are you crying?”
“I forgot how much I loved this book. It reminds me of my … children. ” It was the first time in years she’d said the tender word aloud. Children. She’d had two.
“I like it, too,” Grace said earnestly, moving closer to Jude, almost snuggling up against her. For a long time, they sat there, connected as Jude read the story. When she closed the book and looked down, Grace was asleep.
She kissed Grace’s soft pink cheek and left the room, closing the door behind her.