Page 54 of Find Me in California

“Emotional and melodramatic.”

“You’re not.”

“I’m normally a very private person. I don’t dump my problems on people I hardly know.”

“You aren’t. I’m not taking them on. I’m just listening. That’s all.” Matt waits for her to collect herself. “You still there?”

“I’m here. Okay, yes, I need to talk this through. She had an episode. She thought I was my mother, and she ... she hurt me.” Julia then tells him what happened, and he wishes he knew how to comfort someone over the phone. But for a guy who’s spent his entire adult life avoiding emotion, let alone meaningful relationships, he lacks the experience to connect. So he does what he told her he would and simply listens. “It was Liza who finally got her to calm down,” Julia explains. “I don’t know if it was her tone or that she called her Mags, but Mama Rose stopped screaming. Now I’m afraid if I can manage to meet the fee hike, Rosemont will cancel her contract anyway for behavioral issues.”

“They won’t,” Matt says. “From what you’ve told me, it sounds like they love your grandmother too much.”

“That’s the other thing. I don’t know where else I’ll find a place with a staff as wonderful as Rosemont’s. But you should have seen her, Matt. It was terrible. I was afraid of her, and I’ve never been afraid of her before. I hate feeling like this about her.”

“I’m sorry that happened to you.”

She’s quiet for a few beats. “After Trevor, her caretaker, wheeled her away, that’s when Liza said that about you. She said, and I quote, ‘That boy will never come through for the likes of me.’ I wanted to tell her she’s wrong. Please tell me she’s wrong.”

Matt pinches his nose bridge. At least Elizabeth’s expectations of him haven’t changed. He doesn’t have to live up to the impossible on top of everything else. “She isn’t wrong, Julia,” he says quietly.

“Why, Matt? Help me understand. She selected you as her secondary power of attorney. You. There has to be a reason.”

“That’s the thing, Julia. There isn’t a reason, none that I’ve come up with.” Other than Elizabeth wanting to torment him.

“You’re the only person who can help her.”

“I can’t be.” People swarmed her at her garden parties. She was always entertaining guests, buzzing off to some meeting. Anybody is a better option than him. This is his punishment for her daughter’s death.

“Whether or not you believe it shouldn’t matter. You mean something to her because she picked you. Yet you’re there, wherever you are, choosing not to be here, and I have to wonder—” She pauses. “Do you need help? I can call someone. I can ... I can come get you.”

“No, you have too much to worry about. I’m fine.” But a sliver of something bright, something that has been dormant for a long time, flickers to life. He’d call it hope. He wants to grab it and hold on to it, store it in a safe place. But any hope that he could be enough for someone abandoned him years ago.

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

She’s quiet again before she asks in a hesitant voice, “How did she hurt you?”

It takes a second to make sense of what she’s asking. “What’s your fascination with my grandmother? What is she to you?”

“I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t like anyone to feel lonely or unloved. But there’s something about Liza. Now that I know she and my grandmother were once friends, I feel sort of an affinity with her. Mama Rose had many friends, but most are old like her and in homes or have passed on. There isn’t anyone left who visits her. Nobody I can talk to about her.”

“You can talk to me.”

“Thank you for that.”

They’re quiet for a few moments, neither volunteering to get off the line. Matt guesses she’s as lonely as him. “Do you have your grandmother’s diary on you?” he asks to keep her on the line.

“I do.”

“Will you read it to me? That is, if you’re planning to read more of it.”

“Okay. Yeah, that’s a good idea. It’ll get my mind off today.” He hears rustling on her end and pages flipping. “August nineteenth, nineteen seventy-two. Matty was in between projects ...,” she starts, picking up where, presumably, she left off yesterday.

Matt cracks open a beer, drains half, and lights another joint, opening the door for fresh air as he listens to her read about their grandparents. He takes the joint and phone out on the balcony and deeply inhales the night’s air.

Below him, someone splashes in the pool, a woman swimming alone. Lithe limbs leisurely cut through the water. Long hair fans across the surface behind her. She reaches the far end and pushes off the wall, flipping onto her back. His breath catches. She’s nude.

The woman opens her eyes and looks straight up at him. She smiles and everything inside him tightens. Blood rushes to his center as he stares down at her, not quite believing his eyes. But his reaction doesn’t lie.

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