‘I’ve made up my mind,’ said Hannah. ‘She can help us. You know she can.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Adam. ‘I know how you hate to ask anything of her. I don’t want you to have to do that.’
‘It’s for Lisa,’ said Hannah. ‘I’ll go there and beg if I have to.’
‘You’ll have to,’ Adam predicted. ‘I wish we didn’t have to involve her in this.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘It’s no sacrifice on her part. She’ll never miss it. Besides,’ she said with a grim smile, ‘she loves to see me grovel.’
Adam sighed. ‘I hope Lisa appreciates this.’
‘She’s my only child,’ said Hannah matter-of-factly. ‘What wouldn’t I do for her?’
Hannah’s mother, Pamela, wasn’t overly fond of children but she expected to see Sydney occasionally. And Hannah told herself that Sydney’s presence would ensure her mother’s impatience, and thus, a short visit.
Hannah explained to Sydney that they were going to see Gram Pam as she dressed her in a pull-up diaper and a sundress. There was a walled terrace outside of her mother’s garden apartment in the assisted living facility where she could play in the sun. Hannah brought along a little basket of toys for her to play with. They set out after breakfast, and made the twenty-minute drive to the Verandah, which was the name of the shady, beautifully kept complex.
The staff, in their cheerful flowered scrubs, all cooed over Sydney as Hannah carried the toddler past the gracious, light-filled common rooms to her mother’s unit. At seventy, with her deteriorating muscular condition, Pamela could no longer live on her own, and she wouldn’t consider living with Hannah and Adam. Pamela had had four husbands, the third of whom was Hannah’s father. That marriage, like her first two, ended in divorce. Pamela had left each of her marriages considerably more prosperous than she had been going in. From her fourth husband, whom she outlived, Pamela inherited a sizable estate, which, in addition to her investment portfolio, afforded her a generous income in her old age.
Hannah was glad that her mother was financially secure although she had never felt comfortable about her mother’s turbulent love life. She often thought that her own, early marriage was hastened by her desire to escape from the chaos in Pamela’s shadow. Pamela was alone now but Hannah noticed that she often spoke about one of the widowers on the premises who belonged to her bridge group. Hannah recognized the signs. Husband number five was in the wings.
Still carrying Sydney, Hannah knocked on the door to Pamela’s apartment and opened it. ‘Mother. We’re here.’
Pamela, whose pale blonde hair was stiffly coiffed, was dressed in a perfectly crisp mint-green linen pantsuit. She paid a laundress to keep her clothes looking perfect. Although she had always loved high heels, she was now forced to wear sensible white sandals on her pedicured feet.
Pamela rolled up to them in her smart chair, and accepted a kiss on her still-soft cheek from Hannah. Hannah steeled herself against her mother’s customary scent of light floral perfume and medicinal breath. Sydney squirmed away from her great-grandmother’s kiss and ran to the French doors which led out to the patio. The last time they visited Sydney had witnessed a noisy standoff between a bluebird and a squirrel. No doubt she was hoping for a repeat performance. Hannah walked over and opened the door for her, setting down the basket of toys on the pavers.
‘Stay out of the flowerpots,’ Pamela commanded.
Sydney made herself at home on the terrace while Hannah placed a box of pralines on the counter. ‘I brought your favorites,’ she said.
‘I can’t eat those anymore,’ Pamela said dismissively.
Hannah sat down in a chair near the open door so she could keep an eye on Sydney. ‘You can offer them to the bridge group.’
‘Oh, they won’t eat them. Everybody has dietary restrictions. Except for Christina Shelton. Her husband was Jock Shelton, the senator. Did I tell you that?’
‘Yes, you mentioned it,’ said Hannah. She knew that her mother was most pleased to be living in the same complex as the widow of a senator. Even more pleased that she belonged to the same group of ladies who regularly played bridge together. ‘Well, give them to Christina, then.’
‘Oh, she’s off in the rehab. Since she broke her ankle. I don’t know what’s taking so long.’
Hannah didn’t know, and didn’t care. ‘So, how are you, Mother?’
‘Well, to be honest with you, a little beleaguered lately. Everywhere I go, the TV is blaring, and I have to answer the same question. “Isn’t that your granddaughter accused of killing that man?”’ She shook her head. ‘That Troy Petty was a nice enough young man but he was entirely unsuitable. As I told her when she first started seeing him, if you dive into the trough, there’s no point in complaining about the muck. Of course, you’re the ones who gave your approval to this unsavory situation. How could you have even allowed her to get tangled up with a low-class fellow like that?’
Despite her many marriages, Pamela still saw herself as the arbiter of correct social behavior.
Hannah sighed. ‘She’s an adult, Mother. She lives her own life. She makes her own choices.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sakes, Hannah. She’s the definition of a child. She still lives under your roof, like a schoolgirl. Why shouldn’t you have a say in what she does and whom she sees?’
Hannah counted to ten. ‘She needed our help to go to medical school, OK? Between her studies and the baby, she wasn’t capable of handling it all herself. Of course we agreed to help her.’
‘Well, you didn’t do her any favors. And in my opinion, you should have let her stand on her own two feet a long time ago, when she went and got pregnant. That would have
