just far enough to slip through. “G-Grand-mother?” she asked, letting her voice tremble just the slightest bit. “I couldn’t sleep. I miss Grandfather so much …” She reached up and brushed at her eyes.
Her grandmother’s response, as always, was immediate.
“Tracy, darling, come in. Please.” From her chair, Abigail held her arms wide, and Tracy, after hesitating only a second, ran across the room, dropped to her knees, and buried her face in the old woman’s lap. Abigail, her own eyes flooding, gently stroked Tracy’s hair.
“What is it, child? What’s wrong?”
Tracy sniffled slightly, then looked up. “I … I just don’t know what’s going to happen to us, now that Grandfather’s …” She let her voice trail off, and held still as Abigail brushed the beginnings of a tear away from her eye.
“It’s going to be all right, my darling,” Abigail assured her. “We have to learn to accept these things. We all die sooner or later, and it was time for your grandfather to go.”
“But I didn’t want him to die!” Tracy wailed. “I loved him so much!”
“Of course you did. We all did. But we have to understand that he’s gone now, and that our lives go on.”
“But without him, everything’s going to be different!”
“Different?” Abigail asked. “How are things going to be different?”
Tracy hesitated for a long time, waiting for her grandmother to urge her to speak.
“Go on, Tracy. Whatever it is, you know you can tell me.”
Tracy took a deep breath. “It … it’s Carolyn. What’s going to happen to me, now that Grandfather isn’t here to help me? She hates me.”
Abigail slipped her arms around her granddaughter, and drew her close. “How could she hate you? You’re a lovely child.”
Tracy allowed herself a small pout. “But she does hate me. She always tells Daddy that I’m spoiled, and that you’ve raised me wrong.” She felt her grandmother’s body stiffen.
“I’ve raised you precisely as your mother would have raised you,” Abigail replied. “And your father knows that.”
“But he married her! And now she’s going to try to change everything!”
“Everything? How?”
Tracy’s eyes clouded, and she drew a little away from her grandmother. “I … I guess I shouldn’t talk about it tonight,” she said. She stood up as if to leave, but Abigail stopped her.
“Nonsense. Whatever is upsetting you, we should deal with it. Now, what is it?”
Tracy turned to face her grandmother again. “M-my birthday party,” she stammered. “Are we still going to have it next week, like we planned?”
Abigail blinked, then remembered. Tracy’s party, planned for weeks, had slipped her mind when Conrad died. “Why—I don’t know.” Then, seeing the disappointment in Tracy’s eyes, she immediately made up her mind. “But I don’t see why we shouldn’t have it. In fact, I’m certain your grandfather would have wanted it that way.”
Suddenly Tracy brightened. “And I can invite anybody I want?”
“Absolutely,” Abigail assured her. “After all, it’s your party, isn’t it?”
“But what about—” Tracy fell silent, as if once again she was hesitant to tell her grandmother what was on her mind.
“What about what?” Abigail pressed.
“Beth,” Tracy whispered. She hesitated as her grandmother’s jaw tightened slightly, and wondered if she’d made a mistake. But when Abigail spoke a moment later, Tracy knew it was going to be all right.
“I don’t think the little Rogers girl would enjoy your party.”
“But what are we going to do?” Tracy asked. “Carolyn will make me invite her.”
“Perhaps,” the old woman said softly, but her eyes were glinting now. “Perhaps she will. But perhaps she won’t, either. At any rate, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. All right?”
Tracy came back, and leaned down to give her grandmother a hug. “I love you, Grandmother,” she whispered.
“And I love you, too,” Abigail replied. “And you mustn’t worry about anything. Just because your grandfather’s gone doesn’t mean you’re all alone. You’ve still got me.”
A few minutes later, Tracy left her grandmother’s room, and started back down the long corridor. But the smell of the room—a mixture of mustiness and too-sweet cologne as well as something else—was still with her. She took several deep breaths, trying to rid herself of that cloying scent she had always hated: it was the smell of old people.
She wondered how her grandmother could stand it. And the room, too. Though she was always careful to tell her grandmother how much she liked the old-fashioned sitting room, with its Victorian furniture and worn Oriental rugs, the truth was that she hated the look of her grandmother’s suite as much as its smell.