“I miss you,” I say.
“I’m sorry, I haven’t been here, girly. I wish I could say I was here to stay.” She stretches her hand to mine.
“I wish that too.” More than anything. “But I know you have things under control, Grace.” Her words are fierce. “You always have.”
“Do you really believe that?” I ask her.
“I know. I know you always carried the burden of your sister’s problems on your own back. Sometimes I feared that there was more to it than that. I’m sorry if I was hard on you growing up. I didn’t want to lose you, too.”
I want to tell her that she never lost either of us, because part of me still wants to believe that pretty lie. But by tomorrow or within the hour or maybe in the next few minutes, she’ll have forgotten again. I need to stop telling lies to other people and especially to myself. Nana doesn’t ask me more about Faith. She doesn’t ask me how Max came to be under my care. She doesn’t ask me for a laundry list of every mistake I’ve ever made. Instead she asks me what I’m doing for a job and how Max is doing in school. I tell her that he’s only in preschool, then I tell her that he’s deaf.
“I know that,” she says, her lips twisting into a rueful smile. “I do remember some things.”
It soothes me to know some information reaches her. It’s a fact I’ll cling to when I come again and she looks at me with blank eyes. I’ll know that the important things get through to her, I’ll know that she knows who Max is at some level and that she loves him as much as I do. We catch up on years in minutes. I can’t get the stories out fast enough. I can’t tell her enough about what has happened in my life, and for the first time in a long time I realize that so many good things have happened over the last four years. Max has given me so many beautiful memories. I have an amazing best friend and an awesome life.
“It isn’t perfect,” I tell her, “But it’s mine. I made myself a home that I’m proud of.”
Our eyes lock and I see myself reflected in her. I see me, I see Grace.
“What about the man that came with you last time?” she asks.
“Some things really do get through!”
“You don’t forget a man like that” Nana tells me. “Some things don’t change with age.”
“No, you don’t forget a man like Jude. I wish I could sometimes,” I admit to her.
She heaves a sigh. “Did he muck it up or did you?”
“A bit of both.”
“Did he cheat on you?” she asks.
“No.”
“Did he use you?”
“Not really.”
And he didn’t. Jude was as confused as I had been. We never meant to tell each other lies. It just happened. The truth had been too nebulous for far too long. Grace had been too lost. However, we had both lied and in doing so, we’d covered up a past that undermined any chance we had at a future.
“Then why can’t things work out between you two?” she interrupts my thoughts.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated between a man and a woman. Your papa, God rest his soul, was a good man but he sure knew how to fuck up sometimes.”
I hang my head as we laugh.
“He knew Faith,” I tell her.
“And?”
“And doesn’t that mean something? He came from her life.”
“Did he give her drugs?” Nana asks.
I check to make certain Max is still reading before I shake my head.
“No, he tried to help her but he couldn’t.”
“Then what are you afraid of?”
I pause and take a deep breath to steel myself, because I know exactly what I’m afraid of. I know exactly why I pushed Jude Mercer out of my life. “I’m afraid I can’t be her.”
Nana hand grips mine tightly. “No, you can’t be her, Grace. No matter how you try. It was never your job to replace her. Not for me, not for her son, and not for this ... what’s his name again?”
“Jude.” It hurts to say it.
“Jude,” she continues, not missing a beat. “Nobody. None of us want you to replace her. We want you. So what if this Jude knew her in the past. Is he here with you now?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m the one who pushed him away.”
“Then you need to be the one to say you’re sorry. It’s not a man’s job to fix everything, girly.”
“What if he can’t forgive me?”