“Can you get the days off work?” Emme asked.
“I think I can manage it. I’ll have to reschedule a bunch of clients, but I have some vacation time built up at the clinic.” I frowned. “And what else do I have to do with it, right? It’s not like there’s a tropical honeymoon in my future. Might as well go spend time with my ninety-two-year-old granny who’s probably pretending to be senile so she can have company at happy hour.”
Emme laughed. “Maybe you can find your fuck fling up there.”
“In Hadley Harbor, Michigan, in October? Population one hundred and ten? Average age sixty-five-point-two? Not likely.”
“Probably not, but you never know,” she said. “Pack your skimpiest knickers.”
“I don’t own any skimpy knickers.”
She sighed. “We really need to go shopping.”
Three
Grams
Well, of course I was pretending.
My eyesight was just fine, and my hearing was even better. I still drove myself around town nearly every day of the week, and I hadn’t gotten a ticket since 1975. In fact, I was probably a better driver than half the bozos on the road. And though my heart broke a little every time I thought of it, of course I knew my beloved Frank had been gone for ten years. Oh, I still talked to him from time to time, but I wasn’t losing my mind.
But the boy I mentioned, the one that lived next door who put in my fancy new phone? His mind I was worried about.
He’d moved in four months ago, and I hadn’t seen one person come or go from that house in all that time. No wife, no kids, no family or friends … At first, it didn’t make sense to me at all. He was handsome as the devil, built nice and strong, and a real gentleman—he started taking care of my yard work whenever he did his own without my asking, and he wouldn’t take a penny for it!
He was handy indoors, too. He was doing all kinds of work on that big old house next door, which had fallen into disrepair after the previous owner died a few years back and the family had been unable to sell it. Mary Jane at the beauty parlor told me she heard from her cousin Darlene, who’s married to the real estate agent who had the listing, that Mr. Woods—that’s the handsome fellow’s name—was only renting the house, and that he’d agreed to do some refurbishing on it in exchange for lower monthly rent.
Mary Jane also heard that he’d gotten a job as a groundskeeper at Cloverleigh Farms, which used to be just a family farm but was now a winery, an inn, a restaurant, and a place for big, fancy weddings. (In my day, you went down to the courthouse in the morning, had a champagne brunch if you were lucky, and hooray, you were married. Now people have such elaborate weddings they have to take out loans to pay for them! But everything was simpler back then. Even boy meets girl.)
Mary Jane said she didn’t want to spread gossip—since when, I nearly asked her—but she’d also heard that he was a former Marine who’d had trouble readjusting to civilian life, and his wife had left him. That’s why he’d moved up here all by himself.
Well, once I heard that, things made more sense. No wonder he seemed so melancholy—the poor dear was lonely.
I’d tried to draw him out a little, but so far I hadn’t had too much luck. Oh, he’d do any little chore I asked him to, but he’d be silent the whole time, and he never stayed for dinner, no matter how often I invited him. I’d taken to sending him home with cookies or brownies or some other little treat.
But I knew what he really needed, and it wasn’t dessert. You don’t get to be my age without living through some tough times, and I’d known my share of shell-shocked men.
What he needed was a sympathetic ear and a warm hug. Someone to tell him he was okay. Someone beautiful and kind, inquisitive but sensitive. Someone who understood the complexities of the human mind and could make him feel good about himself, war wounds and all.
Someone like my Stella.
She was all those things and more, and now she was single too. But I knew my darling granddaughter, and she wasn’t going to come running up here just to meet a man. She was far too sensible for that. She was far too sensible, period.
But I’d fix that, even if I had to fake dementia to do it.
Never underestimate a granny on a mission.
Especially the matchmaking kind.
Four
Ryan
It was warm for October, upper seventies. The late afternoon sun was beating down hard, and sweat dripped down my chest, dampening my shirt. I whipped it off, tossed it aside, and wiped my forehead on the back of my arm. Then I pushed the mower a little faster. The sooner I finished Mrs. Gardner’s yard, the sooner I could get home and crack open a cold beer.
Twenty minutes later, I’d just shut the mower off when I heard my next door neighbor’s little old lady voice.
“Yoo-hoo! Mr. Woods!” she called from the top of the steps just outside the back door. She waved excitedly. “Are you finished, dear? Could I ask you to come here for just a moment?”
I nodded, pushing the mower over toward her driveway. On my way to the steps, I stopped to scoop up my sweaty shirt from the ground and shake the grass clippings from it before pulling it over my head.
“My,” she said, fanning herself as I approached. “Sure is warm today, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you so much for taking care of the leaves and the lawn again. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t moved in next door. You’re an angel.”
“No problem.”
“I’m sure you’ve got much better ways to spend your Sunday afternoon. And since you won’t take any money for all the things you do for me, I’ve made you some more cookies, and I have a nice tall pitcher of iced tea as well. It’s just inside.”
I didn’t want to go in, not because I had anything against Mrs. Gardner, but because I wasn’t much for small talk. Or any kind of talk. “That’s okay. I—”
“Now hush.” She came down the steps and took me by the arm, leading me up to the kitchen door. “You need a cold drink after your hard work, and I don’t have anyone around to eat the little treats I make.” She was short but spry, although she had to be close to ninety, if not older. She reminded me of Betty White. Her hair was poufy like a cloud. Her face was deeply wrinkled, but she had surprisingly nice teeth, and she smiled a lot.
I didn’t want to be rude, so I let her lead me through the screen door inside the kitchen, which was too warm but smelled heavenly.
On the table there was a pitcher of iced tea, two tall glasses, and a plate piled with chocolate-chip cookies. My stomach moaned hungrily. “Now you sit there and eat,” she directed, nearly pushing me into one of four wooden chairs, “and I’ll pour the tea.”
While she plunked ice into the glasses and poured, I sat stiffly at the edge of my seat and eyeballed the cookies. I’d been in her house several times doing small chores for her, but this was the first time I’d ever sat down. Normally I refused the meals and snacks and cold drinks she offered, and she’d send me home with a plate of brownies or lemon bars or banana bread—delicious homemade things I devoured within a day. I never could resist sweets.
A memory floated close to the surface of my mind, my mother taking fresh-baked cookies from the oven, the aroma drifting through the house, making my sisters and I come running for the kitchen only to be told we had to wait for them to cool a little, and then staring at those cookies on the sheet, our eyes big, our mouths watering. My mouth was watering now, and something tugged at my chest.
But before it could even register as a feeling, I flipped a switch and it was gone.
“I’ve had the best news this afternoon, and I’ve simply got to share it with someone.” Mrs. Gardner set the pitcher down and beamed at me. “My granddaughter Stella is coming to visit.”
Too hot and thirsty to resist, I picked up the glass of iced tea she’d poured for me and drank half of it down.
“She’s probably about your age, and she’s always so busy, I hardly ever get to see her.” Mrs. Gardner pushed the plate of cookies toward me. “Help yourself, dear.”
I picked one up and bit into it—it was soft and sweet and tasted like childhood. I finished it in three bites and looked longingly at the rest.