On the drive to Grandma’s, I kept glancing at the girls asleep in their car seats. I knew Archie was their father, but I couldn’t stop wondering whether there was something about my own family that nobody had thought to tell me.
Grandma would know more than Mom. She still remembered relatives I’d only seen in photographs, and she’d lived long enough to hear the stories that never reached my generation.
Then I thought of her mother, Alice, and all the questions she used to brush aside whenever I asked about her travels.
I wondered whether she’d been afraid of telling me too much.
As a child, I’d assumed she had nothing interesting to tell.
Now I wondered whether she’d been afraid of telling me too much.
“Put your bag down,” Grandma said as soon as we arrived. “You’re not carrying anything else today.”
“I can manage one bag.”
“You can manage it tomorrow. Today, you’re sitting.”
She hadn’t examined the babies’ faces for clues.
She guided me to the sofa, then lifted one of the twins from his carrier. The other slept in the bassinet beside us.
“Look at you,” she murmured to her. “You’ve already got your whole family running around after you.”
I watched her rock her. She hadn’t asked a single question about Archie or the paternity test. She hadn’t examined the babies’ faces for clues. She just held them close.
“Thank you,” I said.
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“For what?”
“For not asking.”
Grandma looked up. “You don’t owe me an explanation. And neither do those babies.”
I swallowed and looked away before my eyes could fill.
After a while, she handed the baby back and went to put the kettle on. I followed her into the kitchen.
“What do you want to know?”
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