Apples Never Fall

* * *

“Why go away with her, of all people?” asked her family. “After what she did to you? How could you forgive her?”’

Joy

said, “She just happened to call at the right time.”

That was true, but it was also true that Joy enjoyed not only her cooking but her company, and that Savannah’s intentions might not have been pure when she banged on their door that night, but most of her actions had been kind, excluding of course her unkind blackmail of poor Troy, but when Joy weighed that up against Savannah’s childhood and her family’s own actions that long-ago day when they’d all been so heedlessly cruel to a child in need, she found that she could forgive if not forget.

“Forgiveness comes easier with age,” Joy explained, full of her own wisdom and grace, but her children laughed at that and helpfully listed the many people Joy had still not forgiven, decades after the event, like that one very rude local council member and the teacher who only gave Joy seven out of ten for the Great Wall of China assignment she’d done for Troy.

The difference was that none of those people had ever made Joy minestrone or cinnamon toast.

There was only one time in the twenty-one days that Joy suddenly questioned why she was spending time with this person, and that was when Savannah admitted to other tiny, peculiar acts of revenge against Joy’s family.

For example, she’d called Logan’s college and complained about him.

“I didn’t exactly accuse him of sexual harassment,” she said, and she said she was pretty sure they hadn’t taken much notice. She’d also made a number of online bookings at Brooke’s physiotherapy practice so that she’d get a whole lot of no-shows.

Joy was incensed on behalf of both her children.

“You were risking their livelihoods!” she cried.

“I could have done much worse,” said Savannah. “I’ve done worse.”

“Oh, well done to you, Savannah!” snapped Joy. “Should I thank you for not doing worse?”

Savannah bowed her head as Joy continued, “So obviously you blackmailed Troy. What about Amy? What did you do to her?”

“Nothing much. I just made brownies on Father’s Day,” said Savannah, as if it were obvious.

“But how in the world did you know that would upset her?”

“You’d told me they were her signature dish,” said Savannah.

Joy hadn’t remembered this. She’d been an old biddy twittering away while Savannah took careful notes. She found herself unable to look at Savannah, because she felt, just for a moment, like slapping her.

“And me?” Joy suddenly remembered herself, because wasn’t she the worst offender on that day? She’d been the only grown-up.

“I tried to seduce your husband,” said Savannah. “While you were sick in hospital.”

“Oh,” said Joy. “That. But you wouldn’t have really…”

“Yes, I would have,” said Savannah. “Like I said, I’ve done worse, Joy. I’ve done far worse. I’m not a nice person.” It was twilight and they were sitting on the balcony watching hundreds of black bats swoop across a huge orange sky. Joy breathed, and felt her anger rise and fall, and when she was calm again she said, “I think you are a nice person. You’re a nice person who has done some not-so-nice things. Like all of us.”

“I might have broken up your marriage,” said Savannah.

“Well, yes,” said Joy. “That was a terrible thing to do. You must promise to never do anything like that ever again, because some marriages couldn’t survive an accusation like that, but you know, I never believed for one moment that Stan harassed you.”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Savannah. “I meant what I told him about you and sending Harry away.”

It was true that Savannah may well have ended her marriage with that revelation. “Well, yes, but that wasn’t a secret anyone asked you to keep,” Joy said to her. “That was entirely my own doing. To be honest, I never expected it to stay a secret as long as it did.”

Savannah sighed as if Joy really didn’t get it. “Okay, but I’m not a nice person.”

It felt like she was trying to tell Joy something more than she was saying, as if there was a hidden message in her words, and if Joy concentrated hard enough she’d be able to decipher it, but all she saw was a very damaged young girl who had been dealt an awful hand in life, who had come to her house and cooked and cleaned for her.

Joy waited for Savannah to tell her whatever she wanted to tell her. She could feel her desire to speak, the way she’d once felt her children’s desires to confess some terrible action or unspeakable thought, and mostly, if she was patient and gave them the space, they finally told her what they wanted to say.