an honest try and stop battling the staff. The shift in our conversation is leading me to suspect that she’s not as addled as she’s been pretending to be.
She smoothly ignores my implication and changes the subject. “I believe I knew her. Your grandmother. We shared bridge club, I think.” She points the knuckle of a bent, craggy finger in my direction. “You favor her quite a bit.”
“People say so. Yes. I have her hair. My sisters don’t, but I do.”
“And her eyes.” Things turn intimate. She looks through me to the very marrow of my bones.
What is happening here?
“I—I’ll ask her about you when I see her. But she may not remember. She has good days and bad days.”
“Don’t we all, though?” May’s lips twitch upward, and I catch myself chuckling nervously.
Shifting, I hit the bedside lamp with my elbow, then catch it, knocking the frame this time. I grab it before it can fall, hold it, and try to resist taking a closer look.
“They’re always bumping that. The girls here.”
“I could put it over on the dresser.”
“I want it close to me.”
“Oh…okay.” I wish I could sneak a new phone photo. At this angle, there’s no glare, and the face looks even more like my grandmother’s. Could it be her…maybe dressed up for a play? She was president of the drama club in prep school. “I was wondering about this, actually, when you came in.” Now that we’re on friendlier terms, it seems permissible to ask. “The woman in the picture reminds me of my grandmother, a little.”
My phone buzzes, still on silent from the town hall forum. I’m reminded that I’ve left Ian waiting in the car all this time. The message is from my mother, though. She wants me to call her.
“Same hair,” May Crandall agrees blandly. “But that’s not so uncommon.”
“No, I suppose not.” She doesn’t offer any more information. Reluctantly, I put the frame back on the nightstand.
May watches my phone as it buzzes a second time, my mother’s text message demanding acknowledgment. I know better than to leave it unanswered.
“It was lovely meeting you.” I attempt to excuse myself.
“Do you have to go?”
“I’m afraid I do. But I’ll ask my grandmother if she recognizes your name.”
She moistens her lips, emits a small cluck as they part. “You’ll come back, and I’ll share the story of the photo then.” Pivoting with surprising agility and without using her cane, she starts toward the door, adding, “Perhaps.”
She’s gone before I can answer.
I grab a better shot of the picture, then hurry off.
In the lobby, Ian is scrolling through emails on his cellphone. Apparently, he gave up on waiting in the car.
“Sorry that took so long,” I say.
“Oh, hey, no problem at all. It gave me the chance to sort my inbox.”
The nursing home director walks by and frowns, probably wondering why I’m still here. If I weren’t a Stafford, she’d undoubtedly stop and ask questions. As it is, she pointedly looks away and moves on. Even after two months back in South Carolina, it’s still strange, getting the rock-star treatment just because of my family name. In Maryland, I often knew people for months before they even realized my father was a senator. It was nice having the chance to prove myself as myself.
Ian and I proceed to the car, and we’re quickly bogged down in road construction traffic, so I use the time to call my mother. There will be no getting answers from her at home, with the DAR meeting being hosted there. After it’s over, she’ll be busy making sure every china plate and punch glass is back in its rightful place. That’s Honeybee. She’s an organizational whiz.
She also never forgets a name.
“Do we know a May Crandall?” I ask after she has requested that I “happen by” the DAR gathering so as to make an appearance, shake hands, and score a few points with all the right wives. Get the women, and you’ve got the vote, my father always says. Only foolish men underestimate their power.
“I don’t think so,” my mother muses. “Crandall…Crandall…”
“May Crandall. She’s around Grandma Judy’s age. Maybe they played bridge together?”
“Oh, goodness, no. The women Grandma Judy played bridge with are friends.” By friends, she means long-term acquaintances of the family with ties that are generations old for the most part. People of our social circle. “Lois Heartstein, Dot Greeley, Mini Clarkson…they’re all people you already know.”
“Okay.” Perhaps May Crandall really is just an addled old woman with a