"Yeah. Barbara was pretty cool."
Serene turned to look at him, her delicate features set still and regal like one of those Egyptian statues he'd seen in textbooks. Serene's eyes made Steve think of large dew drops about to give way. They dipped down at the tear ducts and her thick dark lashes provided a natural liner. A halo of frizz cupped her head, her enormous ponytail exploding out in a cloud of puffiness against her back. He had never seen anyone like this girl before. She was gorgeous and plain at the same time. Shyness lurked in her dark brown eyes, but she didn't let it show in her posture. She held herself tall and radiated a quiet strength, an I-can-hold-my-own demeanor.
"What was she like?"
"Your grandma?"
"Yeah, Barbara." Serene lifted her chin a little, and that tiny movement jolted Steve as the image of Barbara flashed through his thoughts, the way she used to lift her chin in that same way and then fluff out her hair.
Steve tried to remember if Barbara had ever mentioned meeting her granddaughter and realized that, aside from telling him she existed, hadn't said much else about her. There was a grandson too, Serene's brother, who was killed when he was small. Barbara told Steve about him much later into their friendship. In fact, Steve only learned of Cedar four weeks before Barbara passed away. She'd become chatty about her life. Told him the same stories of her childhood repeatedly, reliving the deaths of her daughters, Clair and Dottie, and her husband Frank. She spoke of Brenda too, the estrangement, but she never stayed on that subject long.. It was one of those afternoons, though, when she was barely able to stay awake longer than an hour, that Steve learned of Cedar. Fell off a cliff. Serene had been there, witnessed the whole thing. Barbara had closed her eyes after she’d told him. He could see them moving under her lids, the gathering of tears leaking out and snaking down her emaciated cheeks, the slash of her mouth working back and forth. Barbara had fallen asleep shortly after this revelation, her thin chest rising and falling laboriously.
"It's good for her to get it out," the hospice nurse had said, taking in his pale face. "People like to travel back in time when death is near. Revisit the past. Pick it over, the good and the bad."
"She was… she was smart and fun," Steve said in answer to Serene's question. "Barbara wasn't like other old people; she liked to learn about new things. Actually, she was the one who showed me how to use the internet and how to set up an email account and use instant messaging."
Serene's eyes lit up as he talked. He raked his mind for other details. It felt good providing something of interest to this girl. "Um, she was a school-teacher, but did you know that during WWII she worked for Douglas Aircraft?
Serene looked at him in wonderment. "Douglas Aircraft? What did she do there?"
"She was one of the Rosies during the war."
"A Rosie? What's that?"
"Rosie the Riveter. When most of the men were out fighting in the war, a lot of the women took over the jobs the men had."
"Ah, no way," Serene said, her lips turning up into her crooked smile. "So what did she do at Douglas Aircraft?"
"She assembled fuselages on B17s."
"What's that?"
"The bodies of the planes were assembled with sheets of metal held together by rivets, hence the name Rosie the Riveter."
Serene laughed then, a throaty laugh, filled with delight at this bit of news. "Barbara was a badass then," she said and laughed again. "I've been wondering about her more, ever since we went move in her house."
"Have you ever asked your mom about your grandma?"
"Nah." Serene lifted her face up toward the sky and took a deep breath. "Ramani didn't get along with Barbara. There's a lot of bad blood between them, that's all I know. She doesn't like to talk about her, like never."
"Ramani?"
"Yeah. My mom."
"Was Ramani's name Brenda?"
"Yeah, but that's, like, ancient history, brah."
Steve nodded and smiled inwardly at Serene's use of the word brah. Brenda not getting along with Barbara fit with what Barbara had shared with him about her daughter's estrangement. "Well, if there's anything you'd like to know about your grandma, you can ask me. I got to know her pretty well over the last year."
"Shoots," Serene said and fell silent. They didn't speak for some time as they continued their walk through neighborhoods of weeping willows and suburban single-family homes. Steve snuck a look at Serene. Her features were pinched in thought and she turned to look at him just then. He felt caught out, his face growing warm.
"She was nice, though?" Serene asked.
"Barbara was really nice." He flinched at the memory of her bony hand, ribbed with veins, lying over his, her mouth slack, unable to work properly in the last days of her life. A week before she died, she had sometimes called him by her husband's name, Frank.
When they arrived at their homes, the blond guy was outside on the front porch. He was sitting on the bottom step in his usual attire, clipping his toenails.
"Who is he?" Steve asked, gesturing with his head. Since Serene and the smaller elfish-looking dark-haired man had shown up, Steve often saw Maybe Brenda, AKA Ramani, walking hand in hand with the other man. The make-out sessions with the blond seemed to have ended and she wasn't so publicly lovey-dovey with him as before. Serene stiffened at his question and her mouth seemed to cave into itself, the right side of her upper lip rising slightly.
"Darpan," she said quietly. "He's my mom's friend, kind of an ass."
"I thought maybe he was her boyfriend, but then…"
"He's no one," Serene cut him off. "Catch you later."
They'd been standing in front
