it drooped in folds from her neck, her fine bone structure gave a clue to what an arresting-looking woman she must once have been. “Where did you get those?” she said, her eyes focused on the vase of flowers.
“When I went to the supermarket, Grams. I thought you might like some daffs to cheer you up.”
Her grandmother leaned back against the pillows, closing her eyes. “Oh. I thought the ones in the garden had bloomed already. And actually, they are narcissi.”
“Okay, narcissi then.” Eve determinedly kept her tone upbeat. “Though I’m not sure there’s much of a difference,” she muttered. Then, more loudly, “And the ones outside are barely poking through the ground. It’s still freezing out there. Forecast says we might get snow—in March! In London! Can you believe it?”
“Snow?” Her grandmother perked up.
“Anyway, I reckon these must be hothouse ones,” Eve said.
“Or flown in from somewhere warmer.”
“Perhaps. They smell gorgeous though, don’t they?” For a moment, when Eve had pulled them from the bucket of water in the supermarket the thought that this might be the last spring her grandmother saw crossed her mind and she’d had to blink back a sudden rush of tears, leaning on the cart to steady herself. She’d always thought Grams indomitable, but seeing her in the hospital after her fall had changed her mind; she’d thought she might lose her. Although Grams seemed to be making a steady, if slow, recovery, Eve knew that things could change in the flutter of an elderly heart. A cold could lead to pneumonia, could lead to . . . she did her best not to dwell on it.
“Yes, they do. Thank you darling. Perhaps you might bring them closer.”
“Are you hungry? I made a sandwich.”
“Oh, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Of course not. I said, it’s already made.”
“Oh yes, well then, that would be lovely.” Her grandmother was making an effort, Eve could tell, just as she herself was. Grams was frustrated by her inability to do much for herself anymore and Eve bore the brunt of her occasional burst of bad temper by biting her tongue and trying not to retaliate, reminding herself of the alternative.
Eve returned with the tray, setting it on a side table, and eased her grandmother forward so that she could adjust the pillows and make her more comfortable. When she was satisfied, she placed the tray in front of her, being careful not to slop the tea in the saucer. She’d receive a ticking off for such a transgression.
“Do you think you might be up to some work after lunch?” Eve asked, as she had done almost every day since she’d moved in. Eve was helping her grandmother write her autobiography, a manuscript that was due at the publisher’s later that year. It had originally been planned to coincide with her ninetieth birthday but it now looked like that date would come and go before she’d even written a word of it. Lucky her publisher was patient.
True, there were sheaves of notes and a stack of indecipherable scrawls on scraps of paper, but each time Eve had asked if she wanted her to transcribe them, or for her grandmother to dictate to her, the answers had been a firm “no,” a “perhaps tomorrow,” or a “stop pestering me, darling. I’ll get to it in my own good time.”
Eve was taking a gap year. Just not the one she’d planned on. She’d graduated from UCL the summer before with little idea of what she wanted to do with her life. An offer to spend a few months with her boyfriend building a primary school in Africa, to do something that she could feel good about and put off getting a real job for a while longer had seemed like the answer, at least in the short term. But then her grandmother fell, breaking her hip. There had been no one else near enough to care for her—her uncle lived in New Zealand, and couldn’t leave his farm. Eve’s mother, who had moved to the South of France in pursuit of a sailing career years before, had died when Eve was a teenager, racing a sportscar on a winding road between Saint-Tropez and Ramatuelle. Eve’s brother was in New York and only managed to fly back for the occasional weekend. There was really only Eve.
She couldn’t bear the thought of Grams having to stay in the hospital for weeks on end, or worse, go into a home. Without even a second