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My laugh breaks the tension in my shoulders. Grandma has always had a cutting sense of humor. Difficult situations only sharpen it.
“You can stay—”
“I can already stay—”
“No, sweetheart, this is my house,” she says. “You can only stay in it if I allow you to stay in it.”
“You’ll kick me out of your house?”
“You know I’m good for it.” She refers to my mother. She kicked her out of the house when she refused to get clean. Cutting her off seemed like the only way to help her.
Grandma didn’t know she was pregnant.
How would she have bargained if she knew? Would she have offered Mom money to leave me with her?
Why is that such an obvious solution?
No. Grandma’s illness is enough trauma for one summer. I don’t need to dive into my mommy issues, too.
She’s bluffing, though. That’s the thing she doesn’t realize. I know she’s bluffing. She kicked my mother out because it was the only solution she saw, the only way she could help with Mom’s drug addiction.
Grandma acts tough, but deep down, she wants us here as much as we want to be here.
“You promise to give this thing with Deanna your all, and I won’t object to you staying here as long as you want,” she says.
“What if she ends things tonight?”
“You talk her out of it.”
I raise a brow.
“Did you have sex?” she asks.
“Grandma.”
“She’s not going to end things before then. Or after. She’s not her sister. She’s a woman who wants a real relationship.”
“Hypothetically,” I say.
“Wouldn’t you want to talk her out of ending things?”
Yes. The desire overwhelms me. I need the spark I have with Deanna. The brightness of it.
Not the too-harsh light of the sun, but the soft shimmer of the moon.
Fuck logic.
She’s logical enough for the both of us.
“If she ended things, I’d respect her choice,” I say. “Whether I liked it or not.”
“As long as you give it your all.”
“You have to stay out of it.”
“Of course,” she says.
“I mean it.”
