understood what was happening between us. There were words like “juxtapose” that could thrill just with their sound, the music of something bursting forth, clanging itself forward into miraculous change. I wish I could have breathed them over my children’s cribs, repeating them instead of singsongs.
“Like… what kind of photos?”
“How about,” I rubbed my hands together, “I take pictures of you or maybe your mother and father, running, flapping your wings…” I paused and moved my own arms slowly, ballerina-like, invoking the grandest of birds. “The camera blurring, showing you in motion? I have a great camera, and I’m not a bad shot. We could take them in black and white to look old.”
“Or on the computer,” she added brightly, “we could make them that old brown color!”
“Sepia!”
“Yes!”
If we were another sort of pair, we might have cried “Eureka!” or slapped each other high fives. Instead, we set to work. We finished all the interior pages, nestling the photos into plastic sleeves, writing captions. She put all the pieces into the large portfolio envelope she’d brought along, then started cleaning up. She began closing the albums, stacking them. I went to the coat closet to get a hand vacuum for the paper scraps.
“Grandma,” she called out, “are there any other family secrets besides the breast cancer?”
My hand went to my heart. I knew I hadn’t opened the green trunks in the attic. I knew I hadn’t brought down the wrong albums. But what had she seen? Could a photo have fallen in and stuck to the back of the album? The birthday photo, the one I kept under my pillow for so long—was that where it had gone?
I turned so quickly I got dizzy. The album in front of her was open to a photo of two boys in letter sweaters swinging my aunt Caro by her legs and arms. I leaned in for a closer look. Caro had her engagement ring on, but my mother did not. Who were these boys? Where was this picture taken?
“Grandma?”
“All families have secrets,” I said quietly, with as much tact as I could muster.
“Like what?”
I took a breath; I had to be more careful, I did.
“Oh, it’s complicated, sweetheart.”
“Too complicated for a kid to understand?”
“Too boring, really,” I said and smiled. “Tangled and silly. Not all secrets are interesting, some are just plain silly.”
“My mommy has a secret,” she said quietly.
“Oh?”
“She has a friend she works out with. Who is a boy.”
I swallowed and took a deep breath. Ellie’s eyes moved up from the album to meet mine.
“That’s different from a boyfriend.” She said it as a pronouncement, but I saw the crack in her armor. I felt the fissure coming, as we walked, as if the floor Theo had designed but never built could have opened up at any time.
“Yes, why, yes it is,” I said, patting her hand. “Completely different.”
“But she told me not to tell anybody.” Her voice was soft again and I felt her unease. It was one thing to move closer to your grandmother with a confidence, and another thing to have to move away from your own mother to do it.
I cocked my head. Why would Tinsley do such a thing? This seemed completely unnecessary, unless… was Tom the jealous type? I couldn’t recall ever seeing him be overbearing or controlling.
“You know, when you were tiny, she used to take you with her when she ran, in the jogging stroller. She never went anywhere without her little sprout. That’s what she called you, ‘sprout.’”
I smiled, proud of myself for remembering so clearly. At Tinsley’s baby shower her friends had wheeled in that red canvas monstrosity with the enormous tires and everyone oohed and ahhed over it like it was a new car. Tinsley had always liked to be outdoors, baby or no baby. She and Tom were constantly hiking or biking somewhere when they were first married. For their first anniversary, Theo and I had given them a tent, and Tinsley’s eyes lit up as if she’d gotten a string of pearls. Tom used to joke that Tinsley was born outside, and found among the leaves, like Mowgli.
“She doesn’t take me anymore, and she exercises all the time now,” Ellie said quietly and I realized that if you added her statements together, their sum was greater than their parts. Was Tinsley exercising all the time with her friend? Was she worried her husband would be jealous? Was she not spending enough time with her daughter?
“Well,” I said,