Lost in Paris by Elizabeth Thompson (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

“Do you want some tea?” she asks. “I just put the kettle on and I was going to brew a cup. I brought back some Biscoff cookies—the ones Cressida likes.”

“Sure,” I say. I’m cold and her busying herself in the kitchen will buy me some time to figure out what I want to say. How to say it.

By the time she returns with tea and all the fixings on a tray, I have three thoughts lined up.

“First, we absolutely need to set some boundaries. I’m usually happy to share, but you have to ask before you help yourself to my stuff.”

She sets the tray on a cocktail table and nods earnestly. “I’m sorry.”

“Second, you said there are a lot of things I don’t know about your relationship with Gram. Will you tell me?”

She looks resistant.

“I need to know. I know you said it wouldn’t necessarily make things better, but really, anything is better than being kept in the dark.”

Marla leans forward on the damask-covered wingback chair and squeezes a lemon wedge into her teacup. She lifts the cup and saucer and tucks her leg under her body. She takes her time blowing on the hot liquid and slurping at it.

I let her form her thoughts.

Finally, she says, “You never knew your Grandfather William. My dad.”

I nod.

“I’m sorry you didn’t, because he was a hell of a man. We were so close.”

Marla has a faraway look in her eyes. I don’t say a word. I almost don’t even want to breathe for fear she’ll stopping talking.

“I guess you could say I was the ultimate daddy’s girl. I had him wrapped around my little finger. At least that’s what Gram used to say.”

She pauses and I can see the sadness closing in.

“One night, I decided I wanted ice cream. I thought I couldn’t go on if I didn’t have some cookies-and-cream ice cream from this place in Winter Park. But Gram said no, absolutely not. I was grounded and she saw right through the ice-cream ploy that was really an excuse to get out of the house and hang out with my friends for a while. She had me pegged. There was a boy who worked at the ice-cream shop that I had a crush on—now I don’t even remember his name… Ricky or Robby or something like that. I’d just gotten my driver’s license and the day after that I got the worst report card of my school career. Gram grounded me and she was not letting me get out of it—even for a few hours. I pitched a big fit. There was a lot of door slamming and tears and teeth gnashing. But she wouldn’t budge. Not even after Daddy tried to win me a reprieve. In fact, he got a little mad at Gram, saying she was being too harsh. He wanted a compromise. If I did my homework, then I should be able to get ice cream. He believed in positive reinforcement. So then the fight transferred from Gram and me to Daddy and Gram.

“He ended up saying if she wasn’t going to let me get ice cream, he was going to go get me some.”

A tear slips from the corner of her eye and meanders down her cheek.

“He got in a bad wreck. Someone blew through a red light and hit him broadside. And he didn’t—” She hiccups. “He didn’t make it.”

My breath hitches. I knew Grandpa William died in a car accident, but I’d never heard the circumstances surrounding it.

“After he died, I went off the deep end and Gram didn’t know how to handle me or how to go on without him. After Daddy’s accident, something broke between us. Our relationship already felt like a fraying thread. That day, it snapped. She blamed me. Not outright. It was one of those passive-aggressive grudges. From then on, Gram didn’t care what I did. Before, it sometimes felt as if she and I were in a competition for Daddy’s attention—not in a creepy way. Daddy was the most generous gentleman you’d ever meet. But I always felt like Mama turned things into a competition. Or maybe I did. I don’t know. I didn’t mean to.”

It’s the first time I can remember her referring to Gram as Mama.

“It was as if she’d checked out. So, that summer, I went to Europe and followed the Wellies. When I came home pregnant with you, even that didn’t wake her up from her sleepwalking. Until you were born. Then, it was as if she showered you with all the love she couldn’t give me but that she’d been storing up. Not too long after that, Grandpa Tom died and Ivy moved in with Gram. The three of you were as tight as three peas. There was no place for me.

“Hannah, at least when I left you with her, I was sure you were with someone who loved you. When Daddy died, he left me all alone. Mama was just as happy for me to stay away.

“I know this might sound like a lame excuse, but I didn’t know how to be a mother because I’d never had a very good example to follow.”

We sit there in silence as dusk settles over the apartment, making the shadows long and the light dim.

“I’m trying to reconcile the Gram who raised me, the woman who was so loving and caring, even if she wasn’t very outwardly demonstrative,” I say, “with someone who iced out her own daughter.”

“That’s why I said me telling you this might not help things,” Marla says. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”

I shake my head. “Not telling me doesn’t change the way things were. I’m not quite sure what to do with this information right now. I need time to process it.”

“I know you do, and that’s fine. If it helps at all, I think that you—the way you acted, the way you loved her—you were the person Gram always wished I would’ve been. That’s why you, Gram,