“Logical place for it.” Granny nodded. “Did you see a down sleeping bag?”
“Yep, but it’s mildewed.”
“More stuff for the dump,” Granny muttered.
“I’ll use Dawn’s bedding, Mom.”
Granny took the flashlight and went into the master bedroom. She came back with a pile of clothes. She dropped a dark green sweatshirt and pants onto Mom’s lap and a navy blue set beside Dawn. “Dad’s. I meant to offer these things to Mitch and Christopher, but I kept forgetting. Take off those dirty pants, Carolyn, and put on the sweats. You must be frozen through.”
Mom laughed. “After all the trips in and out of the garage and up and down those stairs, I’m nice and toasty.”
“Well, you won’t be for long.”
Mom went to change. Dawn pulled on the extra layer. Papa’s sweatpants pooled around her feet. She laughed. At least they fit her waistline. “Don’t I look fetching?”
Granny chuckled. She went back into the bedroom and returned with thick pairs of Papa’s socks. She insisted on warming the stone soup. “It’s my house. I’m supposed to be the hostess.” They ate in the living room, Mom sitting cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace, Dawn and Granny in the two yellow swivel chairs on either side of her.
Dawn relished the closeness. This was a first-the three of them sitting and talking, like three buddies at a sleepover. “I’m glad the roads are closed and the power is off.”
Granny shook her head. “Being cut off from the world is the last thing a lady in your condition should want.”
“This is fun, don’t you think? The three of us sitting around the fire, enjoying one another’s company.” Deeper conversations could happen under these circumstances. She wouldn’t push yet.
Granny tucked her hands inside Papa’s old sweatshirt. “It’s why Papa and I moved out here. We hoped this would become a gathering place for the whole family. Maybe I should keep the place, for you and Jason and your children to enjoy.”
Mom looked at her with dismay. She set her empty bowl aside and pulled her legs up against her chest, gazing into the fire. Dawn didn’t have to guess what she was thinking, and she decided it was time to make a few things clear. “Jason intends to stay in the military, Granny. He could be transferred anywhere anytime.”
“Just a thought.” Granny sighed. “Things don’t always turn out the way we hope.”
“I noticed you were reading Oma’s journal again. Did she ever come up here, Granny?”
“She drove up once to see the place, stayed for two days, and went back to Merced. We invited her to live with us, but Mama said there wasn’t anything in Jenner that mattered to her.” She pinched lint off the sweatpants.
Dawn felt her hurt, but saw no reason for it. “I doubt she meant you and Papa didn’t matter, Granny.”
“Well, what else could she mean?”
Mom glanced at her. “Oma liked meeting people.”
“There are people here.”
“She liked exploring in her car.”
“She had to give it up soon after that.”
“And she wasn’t happy about it. She started taking walks around the neighborhood, then started riding the city bus. She said it took a while to feel comfortable riding around town with strangers, but she got to know the drivers and some of the regular passengers. She rode the bus to the community college and took classes there. She was enrolled in another American history course when she passed away.”
Granny leaned back, taking in that news. “I didn’t know that.” She sat quietly, contemplating what Mom had told her. “Oma always valued education. College for Bernie, trade school for Chloe, art classes for Rikka. She was disappointed when I chose nurses’ training.”
“Why?” Dawn curled her legs into the chair and pulled Papa’s sweatshirt over her knees.
“She thought I was training to be a servant. Oma wanted me to go to the University of California.”
Mom glanced up. “Her father made her quit school. Oma told me she would have loved to have gone to a university and I should take advantage of the opportunity.”
Granny gave a soft laugh. “She said she’d pay my way if I’d go to the school she had picked out for me. I enrolled in nurses’ training anyway. It was the first time I bucked her about anything.” Her smile turned sardonic. “It makes sense she set up that fund for girls wanting to go to college. And it never occurred to me that might be the reason Mama didn’t want to live up here.”
“Did Oma ever earn a degree?”
Granny shrugged. “I don’t know. She would’ve told you, Carolyn.”
Mom smiled. “Dawn gave her the only diploma she ever received. I think Oma just liked learning new things. She took art history once so she and Aunt Rikki would have things to talk about.”
“Did she ever take biology?” Granny asked.
“She took anatomy, physiology, and biology by correspondence course while living at the cottage. When she moved to Merced, she took chemistry. She said she could’ve used your help with that one.”
Granny frowned. “Why didn’t she ever tell me?”
“She tried. She invited you over for tea every day. You always had other things to do.”
Granny sat with her lips parted, a deep frown furrowing her brow. Dawn remembered that when Oma died, Granny had grieved deeply. Was it because things had been left unsettled between them?
Granny crossed her arms, hugging herself. “I’ve been reading her journal. I’d hoped it might share some of her feelings. But it’s just recipes, housekeeping information, boardinghouse rules, farm schedules-”
“You haven’t read all of it yet, Granny.”
“I’m sure it’s unrealistic to think she’d have written anything about me, when she could never be bothered to talk to me. Or to say she loved me. She never said that to me, not once in my entire life.”
Mom turned to her. “Maybe we have something in common.”
“Don’t you dare sit there and say Oma never told you she loved you. I heard her say it to you all the time! Every day when I was sick in bed, I’d hear her say it. ‘I love you, Carolyn. I love you. I love you.’” Granny’s voice broke.
“I didn’t mean Oma.” Mom turned her face toward the warmth of the fire.
Granny looked as though Mom had slapped her. Her eyes shone with tears as she stared at Mom.
Dawn wanted to weep for both of them. “Oma loved you, Granny.”
Granny hadn’t taken her eyes off Mom. “I’d like to believe she did, but she never said it. Not to me.”
“Not everyone knows how to say it, Granny. They show it. Did Oma tell anyone she loved them? Uncle Bernie? Aunt Chloe?”
“She never said it to anyone, not even my father.”
Mom frowned. “She loved him, didn’t she?”
“So much so, I worried she’d grieve herself to death after he died. She’d go out into the orchard and scream and pound the earth…” Her eyes filled. “I never understood her.”
“Oma wrote about love in her journal, Granny.” Dawn got up and retrieved the worn leather book from the side table. She turned pages. “Here. From 1 Corinthians 13. ‘Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant…’”
She turned more pages until she found what she was looking for near the end. “‘We try to do a little better than the previous generation and find out in the end we’ve made the same mistakes without intending. Instead of striving to love as God first loved us, we let past hurts and grievances rule. Ignorance is no excuse.’” She looked up. “It’s right here in her handwriting.”
Dawn sat down. “Oma told me she only wrote important thoughts in her journal, things that helped her in life.” She turned more pages. “Here’s more about love. ‘I know how Abraham felt when he placed Isaac on the altar. I know that pain. But what did Isaac feel lying there, bound, his father holding the knife? afraid? abandoned? expendable? Or did he, too, understand God would rescue him? God tested Abraham, and He showed Isaac what it meant to trust God. Will my Isaac ever understand that what I do, I do for love?’”
Dawn looked pointedly at Granny. “Who do you suppose Oma’s Isaac was?”
“Bernie or Papa. Perhaps. How would I know?”
