As I trudged up my driveway in bare feet and let myself in the side door, I couldn’t help thinking how easy it was for Emme to be so optimistic. She’d found her soul mate living right across the hall from her apartment—they’d already been friends. He’d discovered he was father to an adorable eight-week-old baby girl named Paisley right when they started dating, so Emme already had a kind of built-in family. And Maren had reunited with her first love over the summer. Now both my younger sisters were happily engaged, planning weddings and babies, and I couldn’t help feeling left out. Left behind. Left alone.
I made myself a kale salad and added leftover grilled chicken in my fridge from last night’s dinner for one, and I ate it standing at the counter in silence, feeling shitty about myself.
It didn’t seem fair that sex was so easy and natural and fun for some people, like my sisters, and so difficult to enjoy for someone like me. It’s not that I begrudged them their fun, but I did envy it. Clearly they’d inherited some sort of hedonistic pleasure gene that I hadn’t.
How could I learn to let go a little?
While I was thinking about it, my phone rang. Grams calling, it said.
I set down my fork and dutifully took the call. “Hello?”
“Is this the birthday girl?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound too happy about it.”
“I’m just … tired.”
“Tired? At your age? Tell me you’ve at least had a cocktail or two and that fella of yours is taking you out dancing.”
“Actually, Grams, there is no fella.” I walked over to the fridge and pulled out the bottle of wine I’d opened last night.
“What happened to that professor you were seeing, the one who was so gassed about the bees all the time?”
“He’s out of the picture.” I poured a glass of pinot grigio, adding a little extra for pain and suffering.
“Well, I don’t blame you for calling that off, honey. He seemed a bit dull, like he wouldn’t be too good in the feathers.”
I paused with the glass halfway to my mouth. “In the feathers?”
“You know. On the mattress. Between the sheets.”
Oh, Jesus. I took a gulp of wine. “So how are you, Grams?”
“Oh, fine. But I do get lonely up here. How about coming for a visit? I’m not getting any younger, you know.”
“I know.” My grandmother’s guilt trips were legendary. Next she’d remind me exactly how old she was.
“I’ll be ninety-three next month.”
“I know.” Then there’d be a jab at my mother.
“And it’s not like your mother ever comes to visit me.”
“Didn’t she just offer to fly you down to Florida to see her?”
“Florida? In the summertime? I’d die of heatstroke. And I don’t enjoy flying anymore.”
“No?”
“No. The seats are too close together and the drinks are terrible.”
“Right.” Next would come a list of ailments, although she was in perfectly good health as far as I knew. Still cooked for herself, still drove herself around, still drank a dry martini every night at five o’clock sharp.
“And anyway, I’ve been having some pain.”
“Pain? Where?”
“I think it’s my hips. But I’m sure it’s nothing, honey. Don’t you worry about me.”
“Have you been to the doctor, Grams?” She’d had both hips replaced years ago.
“Not for a while. I’m not driving anymore, see. So I have no way to get there.”
“What?” I set my wine glass down. “Why aren’t you driving anymore? Did something happen?”
“Not exactly. I just don’t think I should because … of my eyes. Yes, my eyesight has been worsening. And my hearing.”
“Your hearing, too?”
“What’s that, dear?”
I took a deep breath and spoke a little louder, although part of me suspected this was all an act to get me to come visit. “Do you need a ride to the doctor, Grams? Have you scheduled an appointment?”
“Yes, I have an appointment. It’s next week. But Frank will take me.”
For the first time, genuine worry sent chills up my spine. “Frank who?” I asked.
She laughed. “Your grandfather, you silly goose!” Then she lowered her voice. “I should be quiet, because he goes to sleep early these days.”
My grandfather, a World War II veteran, had died ten years ago at the age of eighty-eight after a long and happy life.
I spoke clearly and evenly. “Gramps isn’t there, Grams. He’s gone. We lost him ten years ago, remember?”
Silence. “Oh, of course we did. Silly me, I get so confused sometimes. I think I hear him talking to me, and it’s just the wind. Anyway, don’t worry about me, honey. I’ll find a way to the doctor’s office. I can always ride my bike.”
“Grams! You can’t ride your bike there if you’re in pain.” I tipped my forehead into my hand. “Listen, let me see if I can rearrange some things on my schedule, get some appointments moved. I might be able to come up there this week and take you. What day is your appointment?”
“What appointment?”
“Your doctor’s appointment,” I said loudly. “The one you said you made for your hips.”
“Oh, that! Right. That’s, uh, Thursday. This Thursday.”
“Okay. I’ll try to get up there by then.”
“Thank you, dear. That will be lovely. I’ll tell Gramps you’re coming. He’s so fond of his granddaughters, he’ll be tickled pink.”
Another deep breath. “Right. Listen, I’ll check in with you tomorrow and let you know for sure. Do you have a phone in your room in case you need to call for help at night?”
“Yes. And it’s one of those newfangled ones, you know, that doesn’t have a cord like the one in the kitchen. You can walk around with it. The boy next door helped me install it. He’s very good to me. Just a darling.”
“That’s nice,” I said distractedly, already trying to rearrange my week so I could make the four-hour trip to the sleepy northern Michigan town where she lived. “We’ll talk tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay, dear. See you soon.”
As soon as we hung up, I called my mother. She didn’t answer, and then I remembered that when she’d called earlier in the day to wish me happy birthday, she’d mentioned dinner plans with Phil, her longtime companion. I left her a message asking her to call me and dialed Emme.
“Hello?”
“Hi, it’s me.”
“You doing okay?”
“Yes, but have you talked to Grams lately?”
“Grams? Yes, I had to call her a couple weeks ago to get some family addresses for invitations.”
“Did she seem odd to you? Say anything strange?”
“No. She guilt-tripped me about not visiting her, but she seemed sharp as a tack. Had all the information I wanted and rattled off decades-old stories about every relative on the list. Why?”
“Because I just spoke with her, and she seemed … off.”
“Off how?”
“She said she’s not driving anymore because she’s losing her eyesight and her hearing.”
“What? She didn’t mention that to me. And Mom talks to her almost every day, doesn’t she? Wouldn’t we have heard that by now?”
“She also said she had to speak quietly because Gramps was asleep in the bedroom.”
Silence. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“That’s weird.”
“I know. And she said she’s in pain, and she wants me to come up there and drive her to her doctor’s appointment, which is Thursday.”
“Can you do it?”
“I think I have to. She said there’s no one else to take her.” For a second, I remembered the neighbor she mentioned, the one who’d installed her “newfangled” cordless phone. But she’d called him a boy. Maybe he wasn’t old enough to drive yet.