Page 49

“Depends on the day.”

I shrugged. Just another thing I was going to have to dig out of him. “Head to Main Street all the way through town and turn right at the old hardware store. Then it's about four blocks down Elm."

"Elm Street."

"Little yellow house," I confirmed. "You can't miss it. It looks like a fairy tale cottage that threw up flowers."

"That's certainly a description."

"It's an accurate description."

James made a small sound in the back that was either agreement or a dinosaur noise.

Adam pulled up precisely at three o’clock. Must be the Spec-4 thing.

James pressed his nose against the truck window as Adam parked in the driveway.

"It has so many flowers," he breathed.

We were barely out of the truck before the front door opened, and there they were—Little Grandma in the doorway first, all white hair and sharp blue eyes and the smile that had been causing people to immediately confess their problems for over a century. Miss Gladiola was just behind her, moving a little slower, but she had just as wide a smile as Little Grandma when she spotted the kiddo.

"Oh," Miss Gladiola said. "Oh, would you look at that child."

James, to his enormous credit, walked up the front steps with great dignity and held out his hand.

"I'm James Beckett," he said. "I have dinosaurs."

Little Grandma's eyes lit up like she'd just placed the last marker on a winning bingo card. She shook his hand with complete seriousness. "My name is Esperance Magill, but you can call me Little Grandma," she said. "I have a book about dinosaurs."

James’ eyes lit up. “You do?”

Little Grandma nodded.

Miss Gladiola stepped up and introduced herself, then walked James inside, already asking him questions about which dinosaur was his favorite, and whether he preferred the ones with horns or the ones without. James launched into a detailed answer, which would probably last through dessert.

"Zoe," Little Grandma said, and she held both my hands and looked at me in that piercing way she had. "You look good, sugar."

"I feel pretty good," I said, and I mostly meant it.

Her eyes flicked once to Adam, then back to me, and her mouth curved. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

Once we were seated in the parlor, I wasn’t sure what had captured James’ attention the most, the book or the candy dish. I understood the dilemma. There were melt-in-your-mouth pastel mints. I could eat them by the handful, and Miss Gladiola knew it. She pushed the dish my way. I picked up one mint like a lady. Little Grandma laughed.

She picked up a book from a coffee table from beside the sofa. “Come sit beside me,” she patted the cushion next to her, and James practically bounced across the room. The book was enormous and old, with a cracked spine and pages so full of color they seemed to glow. It looked like a book that had been read by a thousand children and loved by every single one of them.

"This one," he said, pointing immediately at an illustration. "It’s an ally-saurus. It’s mean. He has really strong back legs, see? And his arms are small but they still can do a lot of—" he paused, searching for the word. “Struction. Grandma Sharon said so.”

He looked up and sideways at Little Grandma. You’re my grandma number three. I have Grandma Alice. She lives with Grandpa. I call him Grandpa Doug. Sometimes I call him Colonel on account of him being a colonel. Sometimes I salute him. Like this.”

James gave Little Grandma a salute.

Her lips twitched.

“I don’t salute my other Grandpa, because he wasn’t in the Army. Do you bake brownies? Both my other grandmas bake brownies.”

Miss Gladiola and Little Grandma were both laughing now and so was I.

“James, Little Grandma isn’t really your grandma, that’s just her name. You only have two grandmas,” Adam patiently explained.