A Most Excellent Midlife Crisis - Robyn Peterman Page 0,44

the porch light is on and nobody’s home, but he’s awful cute. Have to be careful with him though, seein’ as how he cries all the time.”

Looking up at the ceiling, I smiled. Reality was a relative word in my happy home. “Awesome. However, you didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Can fish cry underwater?”

“Do man-eatin’ sharks eat women too?” she shot back.

“That’s your answer?”

“You betcha,” Gram said with a cackle as she flew up the stairs to my bedroom.

“It’s no wonder I turned out strange,” I said to no one as I took the stairs two at a time. I needed armor and a lightsaber for my meeting this morning.

However, a spiffy outfit would have to do.

“You know what’s weird?” I asked, slipping into black suede boots.

Gram tilted her head to the side and waited for the punchline. It didn’t come.

“Was that an actual question?” Gram asked. “Cause if it was, I can think of about a hundred million things that ain’t quite right.”

I laughed. She was correct. The fact that I was having a conversation with my dead grandmother was definitely one of them.

“Do you have something specific on your mind, sweetie?” she inquired.

I did. Upsetting her was the last thing I wanted to do, but the question had lived in my head for many years.

“Why didn’t we ever talk about my mom much?” I asked.

My words lay heavily in the air.

My head felt light and I kept on with my task of getting dressed to avoid the fact that I’d possibly just pulled the pin out of a grenade.

Checking myself in the mirror and trying to decide if the outfit was right was a mindless thing to do. I never really thought much about what I put on, but even I knew the outer layer was important today. Sweatpants and a t-shirt were sadly not an option.

I’d tried on a few dresses, and then decided on black pants and a fitted cashmere sweater instead. Gram had vetoed jeans. I kind of liked the disrespect jeans showed, but I wasn’t a child acting out. I was a woman who needed answers from a man who might or might not give them to me. Looking like an adult was a smart start.

“You gonna cover those eyes?” Gram asked, referring to my sparkling gold peepers.

“Nope, and you didn’t answer my question.”

Gram hovered next to me and wrung her hands. “At first, we did talk about your mama, but you would cry for days on end. You didn’t eat—barely talked. After a while, I stopped. Couldn’t stand to see you so sad.”

“I don’t remember that,” I said with a shake of my head. “Why don’t I remember?”

Gram shrugged and gave me a hug. “Don’t rightly know, Daisy girl. You were only five. The brain does funny things to protect us from pain.”

“You think I subconsciously pushed all of it away?” I asked, walking over to my dresser to choose earrings and a necklace.

It was odd how distant I felt talking about the woman who had given birth to me—Alana. Neither Gram nor I ever said her name. Maybe I had pushed memories away because they’d been too hard to handle for someone so young.

“Possible,” Gram said, pointing to a pair of small silver hoop earrings and a thin silver chain necklace with a diamond drop. “Wasn’t until the day you met Missy that you seemed to calm down and come back to life.”

“Missy and I met around the time my mother died, right?”

Gram nodded. “Yep. Didn’t care much for Missy’s parents—they were as mean as snakes and as worthless as gum on a boot heel, but that little girl was a dang ray of sunshine. She made you smile through your tears and you’ve been as thick as thieves ever since. I just love that little gal.”

“I do too,” I said, absently putting the jewelry on and wondering why I didn’t recall what Gram was talking about. “Can I ask another question?”

“Daisy girl, you can ask whatever you want,” she said, kissing the top of my head. “If you’d like, we can sit down sometime and I’ll tell you all about your mama.”

“Say her name, Gram.”

“Will that hurt you?” she asked, more serious than I’d ever seen her.

“No. I think maybe it hurts more to pretend she didn’t exist.”

“Alana,” Gram said quietly. “Means valuable and precious. Maybe it’s time you got to know her.”

I nodded and something in my heart broke. Maybe it was time. I had no clue how long Gram would