Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
I set the car seat and diaper bag down on the floor and crouched down to unbuckle Paisley, who was starting to wake up. “Hey you,” I said to her. “Want to meet your grandmother?”
“Oh my. Oh my goodness.” My mother came a little closer. “She’s so small.”
I unsnapped Paisley’s coat and carefully took her arms from her sleeves, then I scooped her up and stood so my mom could see her.
“Oh, look at her.” She reached out almost like she might touch Paisley’s foot but changed her mind. “I haven’t been around a baby this young in a long time. She’s so cute.”
“She is.” I felt proud of my daughter. “Would you like to hold her?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I should.” She shook her head as she backed away, repeatedly covering one hand with the other again. “I went to the salon a few days ago, and I’m telling you, everyone in there was sneezing and coughing and blowing their noses. I’m sure I picked up something terribly contagious. I wouldn’t want to give it to her.”
I thought about assuring her it was fine, but decided against it. If she wanted to hold her grandchild, she could. If she didn’t, I wasn’t going to force her. “Okay. Maybe later.”
“Maybe if I put on my gloves,” she began, but I cut her off.
“No, gloves aren’t necessary, Mom. I’m sure your hands are clean, but you don’t have to hold her. I’ll hold her.” I wandered into the living room, where framed school photos of my brother and me still hung on the hunter green walls. “Hey Emme, come look at these.”
Emme followed me into the large, high-ceilinged room, her arms crossed over her chest. She laughed when she saw my senior picture, a big eight-by-ten in a mahogany frame. “Oh my God, I’ve never seen you totally clean-shaven before. Look at your baby face! And your spiky hair!”
I winced. “Yeah, I’m not sure who I was trying to be with that hair.”
“Brad Pitt in Fight Club?” she suggested.
“Probably.”
“Nate was always so vain about his hair.” My mother, who had followed us into the room, continued to stare at Paisley in my arms and fidget. “It used to take him forever to get ready for school.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Emme laughed. “Really?”
“Yes.” My mother nodded and smiled. “It had to be just right or he’d be in a bad mood all day.”
“Okay. That’s enough.” Part of me was glad my mother was doing well enough to keep the mood light, even if she was poking fun at me. Another part was surprised she even remembered any of my moods, bad or otherwise, or what had caused them. She had always seemed so focused on herself. Then again, I’d been a typical surly, sullen teenager in those days. I probably hadn’t noticed that much about what was going on around me either.
“That’s hilarious,” Emme said, catching my eye and grinning delightedly.
“Can I get either of you something to drink?” my mother asked.
“No, thank you.” Emme smiled and shook her head.
“I’ll take a cup of coffee if you’ve got it,” I said. “But don’t go to any trouble.”
“It’s no trouble to make some. I’ll be right back.” She gave Paisley another lingering stare before heading into the kitchen.
“Your mom wants to hold Paisley so badly,” Emme whispered. “I can tell.”
“Me too. But I’m not playing her game about the germs. I don’t want to argue with her, and I don’t need to hear all her statistics about how dirty public places are or how easily viruses are spread.”
“Why not let her wear the gloves if it will make her feel better?”
“Because it’s ridiculous. She doesn’t need to wear gloves in the house. I don’t want to encourage that kind of behavior. Her therapist told her she had to stop doing it.”
“I just feel so bad for her. It must be terrible to be so afraid all the time. So afraid that you can’t even hold your own granddaughter. Can’t you let her do it this once?”
“No. Look, I feel bad for her too. And I used to give in to her all the time. When we ran out of milk and she wouldn’t go to the store to get it because the dairy aisle is too far from the store exit, I went and got the milk. When she wanted to attend my high school graduation wearing gloves and a surgical mask because there weren’t any windows in the auditorium so the air had to be full of contaminants, I said okay. When she was too scared to fly to North Carolina to see me graduate from college because she might have a panic attack on the plane, I told her it was fine. But I made a conscious decision a couple years ago to stop doing that. It wasn’t helping her.” I was probably being too hard on Emme, maybe even on my mother, but I’d been dealing with this for a long time, and I couldn’t be in this house without bad memories knocking at my psyche.