had made it even worse. Phillip suddenly understood that now. Maribelle’s death was much more peaceful. No one was angry. There was no one to blame. She had just slipped away the way she herself would have wanted, peacefully, after an afternoon of playing cards.
“Did you call Cass?” Phillip asked her quietly after Liz arrived.
She nodded. “Of course. She’s flying in from Dallas. She’s on tour there with Danny Hell.”
“I hear he’s a big deal,” Phillip said, trying to distract his mother, and she smiled.
“So I’m told.” They were both acutely aware that it would be the first time Cass had come back into the fold in fourteen years. And it took Granibelle to do it. Olivia knew she would have been pleased. She couldn’t imagine a life without her, and neither could anyone else.
An hour later Sarah and John arrived, and Alex looked as devastated as they all felt. He went out to the kitchen with Liz, and they talked for a while. He said things were going better with his parents. They were still getting therapy, and he had gone with them once, to explain the way he felt. He said they were being more accepting, and trying hard, although his father had asked him if he thought he might change his mind one day about being gay, as though it were a choice, and they both smiled.
“Your father always was a little obtuse, even as a kid. I think it’s the artist in him. He just doesn’t get what goes on in the real world. He’s got his head up in the clouds, or up his ass,” Liz said, and Alex laughed. He always liked how outspoken she was, and how honest with her girls. His parents weren’t dishonest with him as much as they were with themselves. They saw the world as they wanted to perceive it, and as though everyone were like them. Liz had had some hard knocks, and was more realistic about the world and honest with herself. Alex wished his parents were more like her, but at least she was his aunt. And Olivia was his hero. She had handled his recent crisis perfectly, and he had loved staying with her. He was glad to be back in Bedford, but not about the reason why. Everyone was sad to lose Granibelle, no matter how old she was.
Phillip ordered dinner for all of them from a nearby take-out restaurant. The three siblings and Sarah, Olivia, and Alex sat down to dinner in the dining room. The housekeeper set the table and stayed to clean up. They talked about Maribelle all through dinner, and they told funny stories about her, and some of the outrageous things she’d done when they were kids. And this time Olivia added some stories of her own, which made them all laugh. It was a relief to remember the happy times. They all knew about Ansel Morris too, because of the hardware store he had left her. They thought he was a devoted beau she had never married, out of deference to her late husband, Olivia’s father. What they didn’t know was that he had been married for most of the time they were together. She had never told them, they didn’t need to know, and Olivia didn’t tell them now. It was a racy side to their grandmother that they were unaware of, that she had been the mistress of a married man. Olivia found herself thinking that maybe that kind of relationship was genetic, since she was now in the same situation herself, after being critical of her mother for it for a lifetime, until their recent conversation, which had cleared it up for her. She liked knowing that her mother had planned to marry him in the end, and that he had died before he could. It seemed more respectable to her, although she had no intention of marrying Peter.
When she called him to tell him the news, he expressed his deep sorrow for her loss and offered to drive out from the city, but she didn’t think he should be there. The children knew about him now, but he was still her lover and a married man, and the children weren’t close enough to him to warrant his being with them, and he understood. She didn’t need to explain.
Sophie arrived from Boston at ten o’clock, and they all sat around till midnight and decided to play cards, in honor of their grandmother. It had been