“Grace, are you okay?” Ms. Chancellor asks, dragging me from the Russian embassy and onto the street. We don’t even wait on Grandpa, who is, presumably, still saying his good-byes inside. “Are you injured?” she asks, but my answer is beside the point. She’s too busy looking at me like I’m broken.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to —”
She holds up a hand to stop me, the universal signal for don’t waste your breath.
“Exactly what were you doing in the garden?” she asks.
“I wanted to go for a walk.”
“I thought you were going to unpack.”
“Yeah. I was, but …”
“But what?”
“I wanted to get some air.”
“Some air?” She puts her hand on her hip and whips off her glasses. “You wanted some air so you decided to attack the Russian ambassador during the middle of the annual tree-planting ceremony? Do you know why your grandfather plants a tree with the Russians every year?”
“I didn’t attack him. It was an accident!”
“It is to symbolize our renewed commitment to cooperation and hope for the future.”
“It was an accident,” I say again, softer this time. “I had to get some air, get out of that room, and …”
“And what?” Ms. Chancellor snaps. “Please, Grace, tell me what was so urgent that you made a man bleed.”
I can’t tell her the truth. I’m too exhausted to make up a lie. So I don’t say anything at all.
After a moment, Grandpa joins us on the street. He looks tired, older than I remember. Of all the changes I’d been expecting, this wasn’t one. I mean, old is old. I’d never really thought of it as something that has degrees. But his hair is whiter. His skin is a little looser. And his eyebrows are definitely bushier. I wonder for a minute how I must look to him.
“I’m sorry,” I say before he can start in on whatever lecture is probably coming. I’m too tired to listen.
“I know you are, Gracie,” he says as if he’s seen me every week for ages, like it hasn’t been years. He puts his hand on my shoulder and steers me toward our gates. “So, how’s your brother?”
“Fine,” I say.
“He’s a West Point man now, I hear.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I bet your father’s busting his buttons over that one.”
“He’s very proud of Jamie,” I say as I look down at my dirty hands.
No one is proud of me.
“How was your flight?” he asks, his tone so conversational that he might as well be talking about the weather, inquiring about my health.
Then I realize that, no, that is the last thing he would ever ask about. Even small talk is a minefield now, so I just shrug and say, “My flight was fine.”
“Eleanor tells me you don’t like your room.”
I cut my eyes at the woman. “I didn’t say that,” I lie.
“She’s dead, Grace. She’s not going to need it.”
Some people would call my grandfather callous, unfeeling. Cold. In truth, he’s none of those things. And he’s all of those things.
“Your momma would want you to have her old room,” he goes on, and I see the soft, gooey center of his diplomatic shell. “She was happy here. You’ll be happy here. You’ve got to let her go, Gracie.”
Let her go. The words jolt me to a stop. I spin on him.
“You think I don’t know she’s gone?” I shout. “I was there, remember? I watched her die. And now you’re telling me to let her go? No. You don’t get to stroll back into my life and tell me how to deal with anything. Not now. Not after three years.”
Grandpa shakes his head. “That was your father’s doing. When he and your brother came for the funeral … we had words. After that, he didn’t want you and Jamie to come visit for a while.”
“Planes only go one direction?”