“No, sweetheart. I didn’t.”
He looked at the piles scattered across the floor, and for a moment, I saw something almost like embarrassment cross his face. He had watched his wife bring those bags into my house every weekend. He had watched me carry them downstairs, sometimes two trips at a time because my knees wouldn’t allow me to manage more. He had never once asked whether I wanted to spend my Saturdays that way.
I left them standing beside the laundry table and went upstairs.
My grandchildren were in the kitchen, searching through the cabinets for the cookies I usually kept above the refrigerator. Eleven-year-old Emma was balancing on a chair while her younger brother, Noah, stood below giving instructions that were unlikely to improve her chances.
“Get down from there,” I told her. “I’ll get them.”
Emma climbed off the chair and brushed her hair out of her eyes. She had Derek’s brown eyes and Sabrina’s serious little mouth, although lately she had begun wearing an expression that reminded me of my late husband whenever someone interrupted him during a baseball game.
“Grandma, is Mom mad?” she asked.
“Your parents are having a conversation.”
“She sounded really mad.”
I took the cookie tin down and set it on the counter. “Sometimes grown-ups need to talk about things that upset them. It doesn’t mean you need to worry.”
