I wave for him to head down the hall with me before he can ask more questions. I don’t want him to stare at his great-grandmother like she might disappear any moment.
Nana’s sitting by the window when we reach her room. Her fine white hair has been combed into a tight bun exactly like the one she wore every day of my youth. It amazes me that she remembers how to do this. She can dress herself and make her bed and read a book. Her body keeps moving forward each morning out of habit. There’s none of the responsibility that urges the rest of us out of bed and yet she’s here—dressed and waiting for no one and nothing.
That used to make me feel guilty. I would drive up every weekend as long as I could scrape together the gas money. When Max was born I would bring him and she would sing him the lullabies she never forgot while she rocked in her chair. I wanted to be the someone she waited for—I wanted to be her reason for getting dressed. Then one weekend I left some diapers in her room. At the time they were a precious commodity and I couldn’t afford to leave them. When I unbuckled Max and wrapped him up and dragged us both inside, I found her sitting by the window still waiting. In five minutes’ time she’d forgotten I had been there. That was how quickly we slipped from her. After that I came less because it hurt too much to be erased each time.
Max doesn’t mind that she forgets him. Today he runs and drops to her feet, taking her paper-thin hand in his. She pats him on the head and asks his name. He doesn’t need to read her lips to know this part of the monthly ritual.
“It’s Max, Nana,” I call over. She looks at me with a frown and squints. “Grace?”
A lump forms in my throat but I force myself to shake my head and smile. “It’s Faith and I brought Max to visit.”
“Oh yes. Max.” She’s gotten very good at sounding like she’s following.
We sit and I tell her about work and how Max is doing with his lip reading. I tell her that insurance still refuses to pay for the cochlear implants and that I’ve saved a little more toward them. Max draws pictures of the ocean for her. Not the still bay she can see from her window but the choppy, wild water near where we live. He writes her a letter that I do my best to decipher. We give her glimpses of our lives while I silently pray that any one of them will stick. My parents died a long time ago but it wasn’t until she got sick that I felt like an orphan.
“I missed you, Grace.”
It’s an overwhelming moment of clarity so I don’t correct her.
“Have you heard from your sister? I think she should stay in school.”
She’s faded back to before and I find myself falling with her. “I haven’t spoken to her in a long time.”
“I hope she’s doing okay. I worry about her.”
“Me too, Nana.” Another little piece of me shatters.
She leans closer and whispers, “And who is this?”
I don’t bother to tell her it’s not necessary. I don’t remind her that Max is deaf. She hasn’t collected a memory since we were nineteen and if she remembers one thing I want it to be this.
“My son.” I ruffle his hair as he works on his next masterpiece. “This is my son.”
Chapter 6
Before
“Worst day ever,” Grace announced as she slung her messenger bag over a chair in their grandmother’s tiny kitchen. “Anything to eat?”
With only a few months left until graduation, her teachers had decided to become masochists. The acceptance letter from the University of Seattle proudly hanging on the fridge should have felt like a ticket out—one with a set departure, but without a clear sense of how she was going to pay for that escape, it didn’t.
Her mirror image peeked out from behind the refrigerator door, frowning. Faith was her identical twin. Mostly. If someone really bothered to look they’d notice that Faith’s hazel eyes had more green than blue to them. But otherwise the biggest differences between the two could only be observed in behavior. Faith was impulsive. Grace planned. Faith fell in love once a week. Grace didn’t have time for boys.
“Well, there’s this.” Faith held up the cordless phone. “Not much else. Maybe I can find the remote in the freezer?”
Neither of them laughed at the joke. Nana’s behavior had been erratic for months. At first it had been nothing to worry about. She couldn’t remember what day of the week it was or she forgot to pick up milk at the store. But in the last few weeks, she hadn’t remembered to pick-up anything at the store.
“She thought I was you this morning,” Grace whispered.
“That’s nothing new.” But Faith didn’t bother trying to convince her further. Nana had always been able to tell them apart. Probably since she’d raised them since they were two. Identical twins were a little much for any woman in her sixties to take on, but she’d done it with ease.
“It is for her.”