On the walk home, she decided to work like a fiend for the next two days, get the house in tip-top shape for Ida, and then move on. To make the leaving easier, she’d tell Ida that she would write and be back for visits. She’d promise to come for Christmas, but once gone she would have to stay gone forever. Annie would be angry with her for doing it, but she would be safe, and hopefully with time thoughts of Grandma Ida would be little more than a pleasant memory.
Suzanna felt the weight of that decision settle on her shoulders like a lead cape. It wasn’t what she wanted to do. It was what she had to do.
Ida
Finding Family
ONCE DARLA JEAN AGREED TO stay for a few days, Ida breathed a sigh of relief. Having her here at the house had changed things. The gloom that lurked in the corners of every room seemed to be disappearing; the house was suddenly brighter, happier even. The patter of Scout scrabbling up and down the stairs behind Annie reminded Ida of how it used to be. Before the cancer, before nurses came and went at all hours of the day and night, stepping softly in rubber-soled shoes, taking away hope and leaving behind bottles of pills. Back then, the house reeked of sorrow and antiseptics. The odor remained even after Bill was gone.
Then this morning Ida had opened the kitchen window and for the first time in over a month caught the musky smell of the wisteria in the back yard.
She saw that as a sign, a sure sign Bill was watching over her, telling her the time for mourning had passed, giving her the family she’d wished for. In those last few weeks, when he’d been too feeble to stand, she’d sat beside him and they’d talked for hours on end. That’s when he’d told her he would always be there.
“Even after I’m gone from this earth,” he’d said, “I’ll still be watching over you.” Afterward, he’d closed his eyes. Ida thought him asleep until a raspy breath rattled through his chest and he added, “Both you and Darla Jean.”
Now he was giving her the gift he treasured most: his granddaughter.
How else could something like this happen? It was no coincidence that after 25 years Darla Jean had showed up to say goodbye to a granddaddy she’d never even known. If something like that wasn’t a sign, then Ida didn’t know what was.
When Annie convinced her mama to stay a few days, Ida knew this was the one opportunity she’d have. Darla Jean clearly wasn’t her daddy. She wasn’t anything like him. After thinking about it, Ida had come to the conclusion that Tommy had been as callous with his daughter as he’d been with his daddy, because Darla Jean wouldn’t even talk about him. That in itself said a lot about her. A girl who wouldn’t run down her mean-ass daddy had to have a forgiving heart.
Ida had two, maybe three days to show her granddaughter what being a family meant, and she sure as the devil wasn’t going to waste that time cleaning.
Just moments after Darla Jean left to retrieve her luggage from the bus station, Ida pulled out a picture album that had been in the family for years; one that had been passed down from Bill’s mama, the leather cover worn at the edges and loose pages tied together with a narrow blue ribbon. She brushed a thin layer of dust from the top and called for Annie.
“Would you like to see pictures of your mama when she was a baby?”
“Can Scout see too?”
“Of course he can. Climb up here beside me on the sofa, and we’ll look through this album together.”
“What’s an album?”
“It’s a book with family pictures that go way, way back. Some of these were taken when your great-granddaddy was a teeny-tiny baby.”
Annie grinned and scooted a bit closer. “Has it got pictures when Scout was a baby?”
“There are some pictures of Scout, but I’m not sure how old he was at the time.”
Having Annie curled up against her made Ida’s heart feel warm, like the sun appearing from behind the clouds after a year of rain. She untied the ribbon and opened the album to the first page. It was filled with sepia-colored prints of dour-faced ladies in long dresses.
Annie pointed to a photo in the center of the page. “Who’s that?”
“I believe that’s your great-granddaddy’s mama when she was a young girl. Some of these pictures have names and dates written on the back of them, would you like to see?”
When Annie nodded, Ida eased the photo from the corner mounts that held it in place. “Looks like I was right. See, it says right here, Lucinda Graves.”
“How come she wasn’t a Parker like you and me?”
“She was a Parker after she married your great-great granddaddy. Graves was her maiden name, the name she had before she and George Parker got married.”
Looking a bit puzzled, Annie asked, “Do people have to change their name when they get married?”
Ida gave a chuckle and nodded. “That’s how it works. When a girl baby is born, she’s given her mama and daddy’s surname. Then when she gets married, she switches over to using her husband’s
