are together.” She tears up a little, which makes me tear up too. It feels good to see her so…happy. “Go on. You’d better go change or we’ll be late to the choral fundraiser tonight. The concert portion starts at seven with a children’s choir from Africa. I hear they’re fabulous.”
“Yes, Mama.” I promise myself that I’ll talk to Elliot about the wedding again as soon as he’s back home from L.A. The fact that tomorrow is my day to go visit Grandma Judy at Magnolia Manor only reinforces my determination. I want my grandmother to share the wedding celebration with us. Since childhood, I’ve imagined the day with her in it. There’s no telling how much more time we have.
I mull over various ideas while the evening passes. I try to form mental pictures of a garden wedding. Elliot and me, several hundred friends and acquaintances, a perfect spring day. It could be truly lovely, a modern version of an old tradition. Grandma Judy and my grandfather were married in the gardens at Drayden Hill.
Elliot will agree, no matter how much he instinctively resists the idea of his mother or mine running our lives. If a garden wedding is really what I want, he’ll want it too.
In the morning, I drive to Magnolia Manor with a new agenda in mind. I’ll ask Grandma Judy for details about her special day. Maybe there are some favorite moments we can re-create.
As if she senses that I’ve come with important business this time, she greets me with a bright smile and a look of recognition.
“Oh, there you are! Sit right here next to me. I have something to tell you.” She tries to pull the other wing chair close but can’t. I drag it forward a bit, then perch on the edge, so our knees are touching.
Grabbing my hand, she looks at me so intensely I’m pinned to the spot. “I want you to destroy the contents of my office closet. The one at the Lagniappe house.” Her gaze strains into mine. “I don’t suppose I’m ever getting out of here to take care of it myself. I wouldn’t want people reading my daybooks after I’m gone.”
I steel myself against the inevitable sting of grief. “Don’t say that, Grandma Judy. I saw you in exercise class the other day. The instructor said you were doing great.” I play dumb about the daybooks. I can’t stand the idea. It’ll be like saying goodbye to the busy crusader she once was.
“There are names and phone numbers there. I can’t have them falling into the wrong hands. Start a fire in the backyard and burn them.”
Now I wonder if she has slipped away again, yet she seems lucid. Start a fire in the backyard…on a city street filled with meticulously preserved old homes? The neighbors would call the police in 2.5 seconds.
I can picture how that would look in the papers.
“They’ll only think you’re burning leaves.” She smiles and gives me a conspiratorial wink. “Don’t worry, Beth.”
It’s suddenly very clear that we’re not in the same place. I have no idea who Beth is. I’m almost relieved that Grandma Judy doesn’t know who she’s talking to. It gives me an excuse not to abide by her closet-clearing request.
“I’ll look into it, Grandma,” I say.
“Wonderful. You’ve always been so good to me.”
“That’s because I love you.”
“I know. Don’t open the boxes. Just burn them.”
“The boxes?”
“The ones with my old society columns. It won’t do for me to be remembered as Miss Chief, you know.” She covers her mouth and pretends to be embarrassed about her days as a gossip columnist, but really she’s not. That’s evident in her face.
“You never told me you wrote a society column.” I wag a finger, scolding.
She pretends to be innocent of keeping secrets. “Oh? Well, it was a long time ago.”
“You didn’t say anything in those columns that wasn’t true, did you?” I tease.
“Why, of course not. But people don’t always take well to the truth, do they?”
Just as quickly as we got on the track of Miss Chief, we’re off it again. She talks about people who have been dead for years, but in her mind, she’s just lunched with them yesterday.
I ask her about her wedding. In answer, she offers up a mishmash of memories from her wedding and others she has attended over the years, including those of my sisters. Grandma Judy loves weddings.
She won’t even remember mine.
The conversation leaves me sad and hollow. There are always