The brunette beside him stares at the TV, then at Chelsea. “Holy shit is right.”
“What?” Chelsea says, her stomach dropping. “Are you talking about me?”
But no one answers. They’re all focused on the TV.
On one side is an old photo from Chelsea’s phone, a selfie of her smiling at the beach. The words underneath, in all caps, say WANTED BY POLICE.
On the other side is George, standing by her minivan on the side of the highway.
“I barely escaped with my life,” he says angrily. “I guess that’s what happens when you stop to help someone these days. She attacked me and stole my truck.”
Now a reporter dominates the screen. “Police are looking for Florida woman Chelsea Martin—”
Holy shit, all the way.
23.
Ella is unsurprised when Nana doesn’t offer to tuck her granddaughters in. She doesn’t read them stories or hug them good night. A soft alarm goes off on her phone at nine, and she walks in from her room as if she’d forgotten they exist.
“Bedtime,” she says, flapping a hand at them. “I expect you both showered and dressed at breakfast.”
And then she goes back to her room and shuts the door. She’s still fully dressed, her glasses low on her nose. Brooklyn looks at Ella, and Ella turns off the TV and says, “Come on, Brookie. It’s already way past sleepytime.”
Ella’s heard a few stories of what it was like for Mom, growing up. How Nana had to work from dawn until dark just to keep a roof over their heads, and how they moved a lot and often had to live in trailers or one-room apartments. How Mom spent most of her time with neighbors and in daycares and got food through free meals at school or leftovers from Nana’s work, packed in greasy Styrofoam. When Nana got pregnant, she was a junior in high school, and she didn’t even get to earn her GED. Her widowed mother kicked her out, and the rest of the family was so judgmental that Nana cut them off before they could cut her off.
Mom said Nana had never been the huggy type, which is why Mom always made an effort to hug them so much. One time, after Dad was mean and Mom drank too much wine, she told Ella that she was pretty sure Nana had always hated her, but she didn’t know if that was because she had the audacity to be born an inconvenience or because she was who she was. Ella knew for herself that what Nana liked best in a child was compliance, and apparently neither she nor her mom had lived up to her standards.
Her only tolerable memories of Nana were from when she was really little, maybe Brooklyn’s age. They didn’t see their grandmother often, but when they did Nana played a game where she held out both of her fists and said, “Pick the right one, and you get a surprise!” Ella would point at a fist, and Nana would open it and there would be candy there. Sometimes, she picked the wrong fist, but then Nana would let her try again. She liked that version of Nana and remembered the comfortable house where she’d lived with Grandpa Terry, a sweet old man who told her the names of the flowers in his garden and let her hammer nails into pieces of wood because he was a builder and said girls could be builders, too. Ella was sad when Grandpa Terry died, although Nana gave her a dirty look when she cried too hard at his funeral.
Then Ella was seven, and it came time for Nana to marry Grandpa Randall. Nana presented Ella with a big white box wrapped in a beautiful satin ribbon, and Ella thought it was about the size and shape of an Xbox and got very, very excited, as Daddy had told her she was too young for such an expensive toy and Nana liked to make Daddy mad. But when she opened the box, she found a huge, puffy dress. Nana helped her put it on and asked her to be a flower girl at the wedding as if this was the best surprise ever. The dress was pretty, but it went too high up her neck and choked her, and it pinched under her armpits and was scratchy. Nana beamed and clapped and told her she looked beautiful in it, but Ella told Nana she didn’t care. The dress hurt. She wouldn’t wear it.
Nana and Mom got in an argument over that dress. They were loud and mean, making big gestures with their arms, and they wouldn’t listen to Ella at all. So Ella took the beautiful dress and cut it in half with scissors so they couldn’t make her wear it again.
That was the last day Nana was kind to Ella, the last day she gave her that special smile. The next time Ella came over, Nana offered her both fists, but neither fist contained candy. “Sweets are only for the sweet,” she’d said. They didn’t play that game again. Since then, Nana was distant at best, cruel at worst. At Ella’s next birthday, she “forgot” to bring a gift, and when Ella’s eyes pricked with tears of embarrassment, Nana called her a complainer and selfish, and Ella ran out of the room crying in front of all her friends.
Ella is still that same defiant girl, the one who cut the itchy dress in half, but she’s learned that there are better ways to play the game. Living with Dad taught her how to follow directions and stay out of the way while secretly seething with disdain. Open rebellion makes people angry. It earns punishment and grudges. It means that someone is always watching, expecting a problem. She now focuses on learning the rules and obeying them exactly to avoid pain, and most of the time it works. She can think whatever she wants to think as long as she flies under the radar and meets expectations. It’s hard, sometimes, hiding behind a fake smile, but it keeps her from being hurt. It’s not like any of these people need to see who she is—or really want to.