comment about the weather turning chilly.
I walked to the door, his gaze warming the back of my head. What a change, I thought, him watching me go. My head was still spinning when I got out to the parking lot and fumbled for my keys.
I opened the doors and Ellie climbed into the backseat. I turned left out of the lot instead of right, and got turned around on the winding Gladwyne streets. The street markers were the old-fashioned kind, bitter green and small, and I couldn’t see them in the darkness. I rubbed my temple; the red wine headache was starting now instead of in the morning.
“I hate driving at night,” I fumed. We were trapped in a web of cul-de-sacs; it was ten minutes before we finally stumbled out onto a main artery. Which main artery, I couldn’t say.
“Are you okay, Grandma?”
“Yes, yes, don’t worry, dear.”
“You should get a GPS.”
“Nonsense, oh good, there’s River Road ahead, we’ll cut over.”
I was halfway around the curve when the deer came from out of nowhere. Instead of slowing or braking, I swerved to the left, around it, missing it, but sending the car careening across the right lane and back left again, bouncing against the curb. Another car approached and Ellie screamed, “Grandma!” while I finally got the wheel to the right and back straight again. Overcorrection, they call it.
Ellie’s sniffling came up from the backseat and I gripped the wheel tighter to stop my hands from shaking. I pulled across the next intersection and parked at the base of someone’s driveway.
“We’re fine, Ellie,” I said, but my heart was racing. “Everything’s fine.”
“I know,” she said softly.
We sat in the strange driveway a few more minutes. When I leaned back to pat Ellie’s hand and tell her everything was truly okay, no harm done, I noticed she had her right hand in her pocket. I imagined at first that she was fingering a lucky penny, a marble, some talisman that calmed her.
But then she spoke: “Don’t worry, Grandma, I—I won’t tell my mother.”
“What? Why on earth?”
“She told me to call her if you ever get lost or forget anything.”
I breathed as lightly as I could, trying to regulate it, not let too much of anything out.
“Or if you drink more than one glass of wine,” she whispered.
“Everyone forgets now and then,” I said quietly.
“I forgot Meghan’s birthday last year.”
“See? We’re alike, then.”
As I pulled out and inched our way home, I imagined the small emergency phone nestled in her pocket, waiting to be put into service, waiting for something to go wrong. And I wondered what she would have said to Tinsley about it all—the phrases she would have used, the description of the deer, of the animal who crossed our path when it was too dark out to see.
September 14, 1967
no bath
HOW LONG DID I WAIT for Peter last night? I’m not sure, but I drank three glasses of beer. I only drink beer when I go to “our tavern”—something about the salty-sour scent of the place made me crave it. Beer is what I smell, beer is what I’ll have. And beer is the least lonely thing to drink when you’re waiting. A bottle of wine is something to be shared. Cocktails are for show—watch me sip daintily, let’s make a toast. But beer is acceptably solitary. It lasts a long time. So I drank, and I waited, and he didn’t come.
The bartender was beginning to know me; we were at the start of the bar relationship, when you recognize that he knows what you drink, and what you like to eat, and maybe, just maybe what your intentions are. Or the world’s intentions for you, I should say. After a half hour or so, he brought out a relish tray, a plastic dish of pickled cucumbers and wavy-edged carrots. A few minutes later, he was more pragmatic. He pulled a bag of chips off the metal clip on the bar and set them on the table.
Finally, he took complete charge. “If your, uh, friend is running late,” he sighed, “you may as well order. I can have them make you a small cheeseburger now, and you can order again when he comes.”
I nodded, smiled at his wisdom. When the cheeseburger came, I ordered one more beer, knowing it had to be my last. From where I sat, I could see the red phone on the bar. I tried watching it and not watching it. I’d noticed the first