“Why was it her last journey?” asks Elsa.
Mum smiles with an emotional combination of melancholy and joy that only she in the entire world has fully mastered.
“She got a new job.”
And then she looks as if she is remembering something unexpected. As if the memory just fell out of a cracked vase.
“You were born prematurely. They were concerned about your heart so we had to stay at the hospital for several weeks with you. Granny came back with her on the same day we came home. . . .”
Elsa realizes that she means the woman in the black skirt. Mum clutches Kia’s steering wheel hard.
“I’ve never spoken much to her. I don’t think anyone in the house wanted to ask too many questions. We let your grandmother handle it. And then . . .”
She sighs, and regret floods her gaze.
“. . . then the years just went by. And we were busy. And now she’s just someone who lives in our house. To be quite honest with you, I’d forgotten that was how she first moved in. You two moved in on the same day. . . .”
Mum turns to Elsa. Tries unsuccessfully to smile.
“Does it make me a terrible person that I’ve forgotten?”
Elsa shakes her head. She was going to say something about The Monster and the wurse, but she doesn’t because she’s worried Mum won’t let her see them anymore if she knows. Mums can have a lot of strange principles when it comes to social interaction between their children and monsters and wurses. Elsa understands that everyone is scared of them, and that it will take a long time to make them all understand that The Monster and the wurse—like the drunk—are not what they seem.
“How often did Granny go away?” she asks instead.
A silver-colored car behind them sounds its horn when she allows a space to develop between her and the car in front. Mum releases the brake and Kia slowly rolls forward.
“It varied. It depended on where she was needed, and for how long.”
“Was that what you meant that time Granny said you became an economist just to spite her?”
The car behind them sounds its horn again.
“What?”
Elsa fiddles with the rubber seal in the door.
“I heard you. Like a mega-long time ago. When Granny said you became an economist because you were in teenage rebellion. And you said, ‘How do you know? You were never here!’ That was what you meant, wasn’t it?”
“I was angry, Elsa. Sometimes it’s hard to control what you say, when you’re angry.”
“Not you. You never lose control.”
Mum tries to smile again.
“With your grandmother it was . . . more difficult.”
“How old were you when Grandfather died?”
“Twelve.”
“And Granny left you?”
“Your grandmother went where she was needed, darling.”
“Didn’t you need her though?”
“Others needed her more.”
“Is that why you were always arguing?”
Mum sighs deeply as only a parent who has just realized that she has strayed considerably further into a story than she was intending is capable of sighing.
“Yes. Yes, sometimes it was probably for that reason we were arguing. But sometimes it was about other things. Your grandmother and I were very . . . different.”
“No. You were just different in different ways.”
“Maybe.”
“What else did you argue about?”
The car behind Kia beeps its horn again. Mum closes her eyes and holds her breath. And only when she finally releases the hand brake and lets Kia roll forward does she release the word from her lips, as if it had to force its way through.
“You. We always argued about you, darling.”
“Why?”
“Because when you love someone very much, it’s difficult to learn to share her with someone else.”
“Like Jean Grey,” Elsa observes, as if it were absolutely obvious.
“Who?”
“A superhero. From X-Men. Wolverine and Cyclops both loved her. So they argued so much about her, it was totally insane.”