Page 107 of Pin-up Girl

She scowled, and her sadness vanished.

“Donna…” Granny’s voice was kind and coaxing rather than chiding.

How much did they discuss before I showed up?

“I’m old,” Donna said. “I’ll be eighty next year, and it’s not easy for me to change.”

Was that her response to me or to Granny? It sounded mechanical regardless, like she was reading a script.

I wanted this conversation, this weird concession, to be real, but I couldn’t buy in. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll come back later.”

Donna pursed her lips so hard they almost vanished.

“Aubrey. Hear her out? We come from a different era, with different expectations,” Granny said. “As I watch you kids playing the way you want, selling what you want, and loving who you want, it’s beautiful, but it’s foreign. It’s not the kind of open life we were allowed to have.”

Great. But I knew Granny tried to understand, but I needed to hear it from my own grandmother for it to be news.

Donna nodded at Granny. “I’d like to use her words.”

“So you know this is the case.” I wasn’t feeling the warm fuzzies. “But you still told Sylvie to go back to an abusive asshole of a fiancé. What the actual fuck?”

The growl that Donna let out was startling and rumbled up from her chest. Her nostrils flared. “It’s not easy to break that indoctrination, especially when my first instinct is to double down. I’m where I am because I insist on being right even when I’m wrong, and you are an infuriating child when it comes to that.”

“Thanks.” I gave her a sickly-sweet smile.

She dragged in a deep breath. “I hear myself talk, and I know the words are wrong, but there are decades of external voices telling me there’s only one way the world works.”

Fuck. I understood that. I’d heard those same things. I still heard one of those voices when it came to Deacon. When it came to how I lived my life. One of those voices was Grandma’s. “You really envy me?” I was trying to meet her halfway, but she’d have to do the same.

“If I’d had the kind of freedom you have…” Donna trailed off.

Now I was thinking about the conversation with Clint and Brodie last night. About how we couldn’t—shouldn’t—change the past. “You wouldn’t have the insurance company. Possibly not this whole family. You wouldn’t be an icon.”

“No. And I might not have a frustrating granddaughter like you.”

I clenched my jaw.

“I might still live here,” Donna said.

I thought she meant Haddarville, but I realized she was looking around the yarn store, as if she meant this building specifically.

“I still would have kicked you out decades ago, you infuriating heifer.” Granny’s playful retort caught me off-guard.

What was I watching?

“And I would have made you take me back.” Donna’s voice had taken on an affectionate tilt.

Was my grandma flirting with Granny?

I kind of hated myself for thinking that was adorable.

“I might have done just that,” Granny said. “I guess we’ll never know.”

Donna frowned. “I guess not.”

Holy shit. Were they… together at one point?

Donna focused on me again. “I’m proud of you, Aubrey. Not that you need my permission or praise, you’ve never needed that from anyone, but I want to see you keep…” She let out a soft sigh.

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