Page 51 of Home Tears

She was short, like Erica.

“Who are you?”

Dani saw intelligence then. She heard it in her voice. Clear and strong. “I’m your granddaughter.” She tried to match it.

“Which one?”

“I’m Dani O’Hara. Daniella was my mother. She—”

“My daughter’s dead. I know that much.” Sandra gestured to Phyliss. “I’ll visit with my granddaughter in the reading room. Can you get Lawrence out of there?”

Phyliss patted Sandra on the arm. “Of course. Of course.”

“How’d you know I was here?”

“I heard you were crazy.”

Sandra barked out a laugh. “Oh—I’m crazy. Crazy, senile, and old, just not today.” She raised her head to Dani. “You’re my granddaughter. Spitting image of your momma.” She turned and sat in a chair. “Let’s hope you ain’t nothing like your momma.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because she had awful taste in men, that’s what. She died, leaving you young’uns alone. And because she wasn’t alright in the head either. A little cuckoo, and that’s coming from a crazy lady.” Sandra leaned back in her chair. “So, what are you doing here?”

“I found out about you from Mrs. Bendsfield. I never knew you were alive.”

Phyliss knocked on the door. “The reading room is open, Sandra. I told the kitchen where you’ll be, and I ordered an extra tray.”

Sandra heaved a deep breath, standing up. “Come here.” She waved impatiently for Dani to move closer and clasped her arm. “You can help walk me there. Make sure I don’t go face first and break a hip.”

Dani was looking for the craziness. She was looking for why her grandmother was locked up and never spoken of, but the elder who sat before her was sane, logical, and a little too intelligent.

She said, “You don’t seem crazy.”

Sandra snorted and patted her granddaughter’s arm. “I am, girly. I am. You’re just seeing me on a good day. Trust me. These days don’t come by so often. Believe it or not, I’m needed behind these white-ass walls.”

“You talk like Mae.”

The smile vanished from Sandra’s face. “Yeah. Guess I do.”

The reading room was a small library with two coral plush couches on one side. Three bookcases framed the walls with a narrow window above them. In one corner, a light-stained wooden desk stood bare with two moss-green lounging chairs placed before them. The upholstery’s stitches were coming apart at the seams, but Sandra didn’t mind as she dropped down on one of the chairs. She motioned with a brisk hand to the other chair. “Sit.”

“The couches look more comfortable.”

Sandra shook her head, a grimace adding more wrinkles to her face. “I can’t get up when I sit on those. I’d rather be able to stand than look like a fool when I break a hip.”

Dani sat. “I have your eyes. And you’re short like Erica.”

“She’s the one who died? Philly read me the obituary. She was young, wasn’t she?”

“She had just turned twenty-two.”

Sandra clasped her seemingly frail hands together. “I got two daughters who don’t speak to me. The one who did is in the ground. And I used to have three granddaughters who didn’t know I existed. One of them’s already dead.” She laughed to herself. “How is it that the crazy grandmother is outlasting them all?”

“Why don’t they talk to you? Kathryn never talked about you. Neither did Mae.”

Sandra studied Dani for a moment. Her eyes seemed to pierce straight through, like her grandmother was trying to read inside of her.

“Let me guess,” Sandra mused, her lips pursed. “You’re closest to Mae, huh?”

---