The Space Between Before and After: A Novel

Prologue—December 2008

I watched my son lose his childhood. For some, the journey into the adult world occurs in gradual seasons. There is no single memory of where one begins, the other ends. But for Conner, it happened more quickly. What would you do if your son ran away with a girl whose life will likely end in her thirties—maybe even before? Conner fell in love, and I was helpless to save him from what followed.

Today, I will push through the holiday crowds to meet him for lunch in the city—at a restaurant just blocks from his Tribeca apartment. It’s something that mothers and sons do all the time, but I can’t bring myself to take it for granted. We’ve come too far. His wife won’t be with us. She carries with her the scars of all that has happened, and he says I need to give her some time.

How’s she feeling? I asked when I spoke with him on the phone.

Better than two months ago, he said, erring on the side of optimism. It’s hard not to be angry with her sometimes. She needs to accept that we can’t change this. But like I said, it’s better now than before. We’re moving in the right direction.

I am impatient. I want everything to be right for him now. But after those three days in Texas—the three days when all his choices were torn from him—I’ve learned to accept that the healing takes longer than the damage. You’d think with my history—my own damage—I would have learned that sooner, but it took me thirty years to come to terms with how my mother died and why my father betrayed me. Conner is a much quicker study at life than I will ever be, and this gives me hope.

I have learned something in my forty-six years. I’ve learned that our days build on the lives of those who came before us. And I’ve come to believe that the ones we miss are not necessarily gone. They occasionally inhabit the small cracks in time and space that we glimpse when we are at our weakest. In a moment, their spirits brush against us and make us aware that we are better because of them.

The subway is packed, even in the middle of the day. I forget, sometimes, the energy it takes to reach a single destination in Manhattan. But today, I celebrate humanity—even on a gritty, crowded train traveling under the earth. Because I am meeting my son for lunch, and we are able to look beyond all that it took to arrive here.

I think of those three days in Texas, and I marvel that what comes after can hold such promise.

Holli—February 1, 2003

I woke with a sense of being off-center—of having slipped out of gear—but with no clear notion of how to make things right. I put one of my ex-husband’s old dress shirts on over my pajamas and made my way into the kitchen.

As I made breakfast, I listened to the small TV on the counter. A view of the Hudson through the high vantage of my kitchen window showed the river to be calm. No cars passed on the street that ran into town. Nearly two years of living in the house, and it amazed me that such a quiet village existed just north of Manhattan.

On the television, I heard the music intro for a special news report, and I turned to watch as the network cut away from the weekend morning show. Something had gone wrong with the space shuttle. Early, unofficial accounts seemed to tell the story, though no one had confirmed it. NASA’s ship Columbia had been scheduled to land in Florida. Instead, people on the ground told of visible debris as it began to come apart in the air over Texas and Louisiana.

Dear God. Fear moved slowly into my conscious thought. In my neck, in my chest, I felt the weakening that came with an awareness of dread. I put my full weight against the counter to steady myself against the growing uneasiness—a discomfort that went well beyond a normal response to such a disaster.

Reports of loud noise and falling objects had come in from Texas. I pictured pieces of hard metal and torn insulation raining down on hardscrabble dirt and terrified livestock. I thought back to the day when Challenger had exploded nearly two decades before. At the time of that explosion, there had been nothing so concrete as metal—no immediate sections of wreckage to be found. In the early moments of that other shuttle’s dramatic demise, the spaceship had seemed to disappear in a trail of magician’s smoke.

There have been descriptions of a ‘sonic boom’ type sound and other freight train- or tornado-like noises from areas in the vicinity of Dallas, the newscaster said as he scanned papers in front of him, trolling for newsworthy comments to fill his airtime until more was known.

After the nation as a whole had taken ownership of the moon landing, it seemed only right that we should internalize NASA’s heartbreak, as well. The country would pause and wait. There was nothing else to do.

But it meant even more than that to my family. Things that happened in space inexplicably proved to be harbingers of raw, personal events in our lives. It seemed inconceivable that this would be true again. But still, I waited, wondering what would come.

I switched from channel to channel. On all of them, young television anchors, on hand for the lower profile, weekend segments, struggled with live coverage and tried to assume the gravitas of the senior anchors. The Brokaws and Jenningses of the news world were no doubt in transit from Long Island or Connecticut, caught off-guard when such astounding news inconveniently arrived before ten o’clock Saturday morning.

The TV screen flashed a map that simulated the path of the shuttle. Already the news had confirmed the reports: large pieces of the rocket ship lay in the fields and pastureland southeast of Dallas.

They didn’t name Thaxton, Texas on the maps they showed. Thaxton was almost too small to notice when driving through in a car. From the air, it very nearly didn’t exist. But I knew it was there. Somewhere along the line drawn to show the trajectory of the doomed ship, my hometown waited. Raine, the grandmother who raised me, was there along that line. With her, Conner, my only child. I marveled at the accident’s proximity to my childhood home and to the people I loved. Letting superstition take hold, I entertained the notion that the gods of fate had gotten bolder—then immediately dismissed the thought as ridiculous.

I poured a cup of coffee and dialed my grandmother’s house. Conner answered.

Are you watching the news? I asked.

Yeah, I just turned it on. He sounded unnerved. I could hear Raine in the background, talking to someone. Maybe Kilian, Conner’s girlfriend.

It happened right over you, I said. The shuttle came apart over Texas.

No shit. The whole damn place shook, Conner said. We’re with Gran now. We ran down from the trailer right after it happened. It sounded like a bomb exploded in the backyard.

Jesus, Conner, I said, for the first time comprehending just how very close it had come to my family. It must have scared Raine to death. I didn’t know where to focus my thoughts. They’re all dead. The people in the shuttle. They have to be, I said, the fact of it suddenly real.

Mom? Conner’s voice held a hesitance, as if he hadn’t decided exactly what to say next. Mom? he repeated. A general plea.

What is it, Conner?

Gran’s acting a little weird, he said.

Like what?

I don’t know, exactly, he said. Talking to herself. But like she’s really talking to somebody else. Not us, that’s for sure. Just somebody she thinks is there.

Conner’s name for his great-grandmother had evolved over the years. In his very young days when he was still a Texan, he called her Great-Granny Raine. As he got older and more impatient, he slurred the words together and it came out as G’Raine. Rain and Grain. The two names covered the spectrum of sustenance, which seemed fitting to me. But from middle school on, Conner has just called her Gran. I never told him that such an ordinary name didn’t seem to suit her.

It’s all the space stuff, Conner, I said, trying to reassure myself. The rockets and astronauts. You know how all that business freaks her out, even under normal circumstances.

Conner understood. He knew his family’s history as well as I did. I didn’t have to remind him that my mother—the grandmother he never knew—died as the entire world watched Neil Armstrong’s boot hit the surface of the moon. Thinking about my mother’s death brought up new worries of what the current disaster might send our way.

She’s talking to Kilian now, Conner said. She’s all right, I guess.

What’s she saying?

He paused, listening. She’s trying to get Kil to eat. I could tell he was smiling. "You got nothing between bones and flesh. Eat something, child." Conner mimicked his great-grandmother’s drawl. For a kid long removed from his Texas roots, he did pretty well.

She probably just got confused with that noise and then the TV reports. I wouldn’t worry too much about her. It’s such a horrible thing that’s happened.

You should have been here, Mom, he said. Loudest fucking sound I’ve ever heard. Gran’s radio was on in the kitchen when I got here. People are calling in, saying pieces of it are landing all over the place. In the middle of pastures and shit. It came apart right over our heads. NASA’s telling people not to touch anything we find. It’s crazy.

When Conner got agitated, he ceased to edit himself. Every small thought—these days laced with ample profanity—poured out with the momentum of a train.

Conn, do you need for me to come down there?

He didn’t answer. I knew my son. He wanted to handle both the physical reality of the crisis there and, apparently, the mental wanderings of my grandmother. He wanted to show me that he could be strong. But I could hear it—the undercurrent of panic in his tone.

Conner, I said. I can be there by tonight.

The hardest part for me to admit to myself was that my grandmother, a woman who had saved my life in a thousand ways, had become—over six or eight months time—a primary source of concern. That was a turn the world should never have taken. Regardless of where I’d gone when I left Thaxton, the reality of Raine had provided steady footing.

Conner?

Hold off for awhile, he said. This’ll all settle down, and Gran seems okay now. I overreacted. It’s just been a really fucked-up morning.

Fucked up could have described the previous months. Conner dropped out of Brown just after the semester started. Days later, he’d inexplicably called me from Thaxton stating the intention of finding a more authentic life with Kilian. So far, that meant living in a trailer and repairing electronics for a living.

Seriously, he said. She’s okay.

Let’s talk again tonight, I said. Should I say anything to Raine right now?

No, he said. I don’t think so. Kilian’s with her on the couch. They’re still talking. She seems better. I shouldn’t have brought it up.

I thought of Conner’s waif-like girlfriend, placating my grandmother. Maybe nothing beyond Raine’s troubled confusion would befall our family this time around. But I came by the concern honestly. Neil Armstrong’s moment of glory had been forever linked in my mind with my mother’s accident. Years later, when Challenger exploded, that tragedy had come in tandem with the loss of my second child. I knew the miscarriage coming at that very moment had to be coincidence, but in my gut—against all reason—I feared that my family would somehow suffer again with this latest horrible event. The news on the television was unthinkable, but we were all accounted for and overall things seemed fine. My breath settled to an easier measure.

Is that Hollyanne? Raine’s question came faintly from a distance away from the phone.

Yeah, it’s Mom, Conner told her. I’m telling her what happened. Stay with Kilian there. Mom said she’d call back later.

Raine must have agreed. Things are under control, Conner assured me. And he believed it. He sounded better, calmer. His voice had lost the manic quality it carried at the beginning of our conversation.

Just keep an eye on her, Conn. Part of me—the part that didn’t quite believe in coincidence—couldn’t help wonder about Raine’s slip into momentary confusion. If a little disorientation on her part was the extent of the blow this time around, we’d gotten off easy. After so much time, maybe the gods weren’t as bold as I’d feared. Maybe they had gotten older, more tired, along with the rest of us.

You should call your dad, I said, thinking of Harrison, sitting in his apartment, just miles from me, in Manhattan. He’d be up, I knew, probably watching the same stumbling news accounts that I’d been following.

Yeah, I bet he’s already left a message on my cell, Conner said. I’ll call him now.

I said good-bye to Conner, continued to watch the screen. Soon, a seasoned news anchor would arrive. The president would make a statement. The shock would settle. With nothing else to do, I began to work on dishes left the night before, tried—and failed—to keep my thoughts off of those people inside the spaceship. The seven of them, huddling and terrified in a cocoon that had become too damaged and fragile to hold them safely back to earth.

Hollyanne—July 20, 1969

No one had yet set foot on the moon. But that was going to change before the day was out. I heard Mama’s footsteps on the carpet, coming up the stairs. A second later, the door opened and she stood there, an armful of folded shorts, shirts, and underwear hiding her face. She balanced the stack on top of her belly—a belly, ridiculous and big, where inside lived a nearly full-grown baby. A brother or a sister, ready to breathe regular in less than a month, would share the room with me. I’d helped Mama free up a drawer and some closet space just the day before.

There you are, Mama said, putting the clothes on top of my chest of drawers. I wondered where you got off to. You’re usually right in the kitchen when I’m fixing to make dessert.

I was tired, I said, ashamed somehow to be sleeping in the day.

Mama sat on the bed beside me, put her cool hand on my forehead to feel for fever. Her skin smelled of Clorox.

You’re not one bit hot.

I’m not sick, I said. I’ve just been thinking so much about astronauts that my head got worn out, I guess.

She laughed. I stared at her pretty face. The baby had filled her cheeks too, along with her body.

I’m a little tired myself, she said. Since she’d had the baby inside her, I knew Mama to be hills of flesh in different sizes—cheeks, breasts, belly. As I pressed close, I felt her sweat through the cotton dress, imagined her salty skin. Salt gargle for a sore throat. Epsom salts for sore feet. Mama soothed everything.

The baby’s moving. Here, feel, she said.

I folded over her belly, like rolling myself around a beach ball. Mama’s clothes smelled of laundry steam.

I feel it. I heard her heartbeat, felt the squirming baby tucked inside all that cotton and skin.

Grandma Raine’s dog had puppies once. I wrapped all three of them in a blanket and held them in my arms. That’s what this baby was like, moving inside Mama. Puppies in a blanket, restless and small.

You’ll get born soon, I told the baby. I’ll help look after you then.

Mama stayed there for a long time. She was patient while I daydreamed, imagined the baby at two, walking, following me. I’d be eleven by then, nearly grown.

When I finally looked up, I realized Mama had dozed off leaning back against the headrest on my bed. The flutters against her stomach settled.

It’s almost three o’clock, she said, suddenly awake. "Your daddy’ll be home soon, wondering what in the world I’ve been doing. She mimicked Daddy’s low voice. ‘My God, Celia. We’ve got people coming in.’"

I laughed. But the part that wasn’t funny was that he might really be mad. It could be hard to tell with Daddy sometimes.

Come on, sugar, she said. You can help me get the den cleaned up before everybody gets here.

People were coming over to eat dessert and watch astronauts get out and walk on the moon. Earlier in the day, Mama got so excited talking about the astronauts that Daddy told her she better calm down or she was going to jiggle that baby right out before it was ready.

Today’s Sunday, I said, watching Mama squat down so she could put my clean shirts in the drawer. Is Daddy working?

No, sugar, she said, standing up and arching her back in a long stretch. He just went up to the shop to get some extra chairs in case we need them for people tonight.

Daddy owned Fielding’s TV Sales and Repair, but people just called it Fielding’s most of the time, or even The Zenith Shop, because that’s the kind of televisions he sold.

Mama left the room and I followed. Down the hall, from the den, I could hear the radio blaring. She had it turned up loud enough so she could keep up with what was going on inside the spaceship while she worked around the house. The voices of the astronauts had changed; they sounded fuzzy, far away and excited.

Hollyanne Fielding, hurry, come here, Mama called from the other room. They’re landing that thing now. When she was excited, she used my whole name, like a teacher during roll call. Let’s see what they’re running on TV.

Days before, we’d watched the rocket take off, headed for space. Even from far away on the television, the explosion underneath the rocket looked like it had to be some terrible accident, something that would kill any fool standing close enough to see it. But it didn’t hurt anybody. The astronauts on top of all that fire and smoke held on tight while it took them up and out of this world.

Watching that rocket, Mama had said, calls to mind what it means to have a baby. She laid her hand on top of her belly. The world cracks into pieces like that when you give birth. The beginning has to be violent, almost cruel. But after that—after you’re shaken down to your very bones—you’re left with miles and miles of lovely. She smiled at me. Then she looked at the television that showed the faint trail of the rocket in an empty sky, and her face had an expression that said she understood how glad those men must feel to be on their way after all that waiting.

After it took off, Walter Cronkite explained what would happen when they got to the moon. They’d land it, then sometime later the men would come out. After it was night, we’d get to watch them walk on the moon. But before all that, they had to get the landing capsule onto the ground.

I memorized the images of metal breaking from metal on the rocket, the smaller part floating down to the solid moon, not moving fast or straight, but slow, like it wasn’t sure it wanted to go through with it, after all. Mr. Cronkite and the other newspeople called the moon the lunar surface.

The voices on the radio got more excited. Mama stopped halfway to the television set and grabbed my hand. Her eyes stayed wide as she listened, and I found it hard to concentrate on the rocket ship. I liked looking at Mama’s face, all bright and excited like she’d just been handed a present.

I think they’re almost there. For some reason, she whispered this to me and I could barely hear her with the radio so loud.

I was glad it made her smile the way it did, but I didn’t see the point of it. Grandma Raine said it must have cost a lot of money to send a rocket up there, only to look at mostly nothing. They could have flown to Hawaii a whole lot easier and had more to see when they got there. But Mama seemed so happy. That was reason enough for them to fly anywhere in the universe, as far as I was concerned.

Pieces of sound kept cutting into the voices of the astronauts, making it hard to understand what they were saying. But then it came clear.

Houston, Tranquility Base here, the man said. The Eagle has landed.

Roger, Tranquility, we copy you on the ground, the man in Houston said.

The bug thing had settled on the moon. Mama clapped, hugged me and then sat down on the couch like she’d worn herself out listening. Isn’t that something? Mama laughed. "Can you imagine, sugar? The moon! Those men are on the moon! Just think of that!"

Holli—April 27, 2003

Hollyanne? Grandma Raine’s voice sounded strange and crackly on my cell phone. We’d spoken every few days in the three months since the shuttle accident, but she always called my home phone. She had both my numbers, but I couldn’t remember her ever actually dialing my cell.

Is that you, darlin’? she asked.

I was standing on the street outside the beauty salon, my hair still damp and inches shorter than it had been an hour before. The cool air made my scalp go cold.

It’s me, Grandma Raine. Is something wrong? I asked. Bread was baking at the local diner. The smell reminded me of Raine’s kitchen, momentarily giving her voice an all-consuming presence. Raine? Can you hear me?

Well, I should say so, she said. You’re talking loud enough to wake the dead.

Sorry. Hold on a second, okay? I spotted an empty bench outside the wine shop. Let me get out of the middle of the street so I can talk. Why are you calling me on this phone? As I moved to a different spot, the static cleared.

Conner showed me a button to push on my phone. He said dialing that, plus a six and a nine would get me to the last person who called. Since I talked to you yesterday, I thought I’d try it.

That sounded logical. If she was still sharp enough to try new tricks with the phone, I probably didn’t need to be that concerned about the small bouts of confusion she’d been having here and there. She was eighty-eight years old, for Christ’s sake.

What’s that noise around you? she asked. Is somebody working on something in your house?

No, I’m on the street right now. That’s just a car going by.

The small town where I lived—a village, they called it—on the Hudson just north of Manhattan was a world away from the place I grew up. But standing in town with Raine’s voice so close in my ear brought the two flush against each other. For the first time, I saw the similarities. The comparison brought to the surface the internal conflict I’d battled my entire life—a dual citizenship, of sorts.

Holli and Hollyanne—my irreconcilable selves confronting each other once again, like dogs locked in a yard. It was a split I should have outgrown by now. Hollyanne was a child, hurt by circumstances and resentful of things lost. Holli was a woman who had found more in life than Hollyanne could have imagined.

Grandma Raine? I said, settling on the bench.

I’m sorry, Hollyanne. I lost my train of thought for a minute, she said, as if she’d delayed the conversation, not me. I just thought I’d let you know, I had a little visit with your mama.

"My mama?"

That’s what I said, she told me. Celia. Your mama, darlin’. It was the most amazing thing.

Speaking of waking the dead. You mean you went to the cemetery? A man coming out of the wine shop scowled at me for allowing my life to spill out into such a public place. I ignored him. He wasn’t even local. You went out to her grave?

Lord, no, child, Grandma Raine laughed. Although I do need to get out there and clean things up. I bet that storm we had last week blew leaves and twigs all over the headstone. It must look a sight by now.

Grandma Raine? Where did you see Mama? I held the phone tight to my ear so that I wouldn’t misunderstand what she said.

Here, sweetheart, she said. I saw her here at the house.

Are you feeling all right? I asked.

I’m fine, she said. You and Conner have got to stop worrying so much.

With thoughts of my mother looming large, I felt suddenly small again, as small as I was on the day she died. But I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I was an adult, and I needed to reach Conner, get him to check on his great-grandmother.

There was a time before that I thought Celia was here—the day with all that noise and the awful explosion. Raine’s tone went uncertain. It seemed like she was for awhile, and then she wasn’t. But this time, I’m sure.

Grandma Raine, I said, panic rising, is someone with you? Where’s Conner?

Hold on. I hear somebody, she said, her voice going faint as if she’d moved her mouth far away from the receiver. Maybe those NASA fellows. They’re still coming around right regular, looking for pieces of that thing. Wait a second, hon.

She was silent on the other end. I could hear someone off in the background calling out.

Raine? Where are you? Are you at home?

I’m out in the backyard. This phone you bought me will let me walk all around outside and talk. She stopped. Again, I could still hear some kind of yelling. Maybe she had the television on full volume in the house.

What’s going on? I asked.

I’ve got to go, Hollyanne, she said. Her voice shifted to an urgent tone, the singsong quality replaced by a sense of purpose. Something’s going on out back. I’ll talk to you again later.

Grandma Raine… The line clicked as she ended the call. I dialed her number, but got only a continuous ring. I waited for the answering machine I’d sent her for Christmas to come on, but it didn’t. She must have turned it off. It didn’t matter. She was wandering around the yard anyway. Dammit, Raine. What’s going on with you?

I pushed speed-dial for Conner’s cell phone, but his voicemail came on after a few rings. I looked at the time, realized he’d probably be at work, but if I could reach him, he could run home and check on her for me—let me know everything was okay.

I needed to get out of the sun. The bright day bathed the odd conversation in exaggerated discomfort. I walked back across the street to the diner, trying to decide who else I could call to check on Raine. Maybe a neighbor. Dragging someone over from town seemed like an overreaction. I decided that with a cup of coffee and a little something in my stomach, I could think.

The diner smelled of pancakes and stewed meat. The proximity of ample food hit me like a blessing. I wasn’t really hungry, but the act of meal preparation struck me as something normal and known. I used the moment to calm myself as I moved toward a booth and sat down. I tried to picture my grandmother—to divine through all the images filed away in memory what might be going on with her at that very moment.

Raine. Pronounced, but not spelled, like water from the clouds. People who have only known her a short time think that’s her first name, the one she was given. But she was born Dorothea Dotson—was never Raine until she married. I thought of my resilient grandmother, widowed early in her fifties. When Lawrence Raine died so young, she became both of them, in a way. So I guess she didn’t mind when people took his last name as her proper one. It made sense, given the way she’d loved him. Now the only time she used Dorothea was to sign her checks.

Whoa. Lou, the owner of the diner, startled me. I think I need a passport to read that mind of yours. An aging man who limped from an old war wound, Lou still had the spirit of a teenage boy.

Sorry? I smiled. A weird phone call from Texas.

Your son again? he asked. The one who left school?

I didn’t recall having a conversation with Lou about Conner.

Janey, over at the dry cleaners mentioned you was having a rough time with your boy, he said by way of explanation. I don’t mean to pry.

It’s okay, Lou, I told him. Conner’s big adventure isn’t a secret. But that’s not the problem, for a change. My grandmother just called me. She didn’t sound like herself.

Well, Lou said, she’s giving you something other than the kid to worry about, right? Small favors, eh?

Lou was right. Conner’s defection from academic life had certainly taken a backseat.

I wish I knew what the hell is going on. She’s eighty-eight. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised that she seems to be slipping a little.

I’d been telling myself that the news reports about the space program’s disaster had stirred up old business for Grandma Raine. I hoped that was it.

It’s hard, he said. Getting old. Lou scratched absently at his temple, leaving his thin, gray hair askew. My memory isn’t what it used to be.

It’s not her memory I’m worried about at the moment, I said. She’s seeing things, people, that aren’t really there. Even as I said it, I thought of my own visions of my mother, occurring years before. In the decades since, I had learned to dismiss the episodes as products of a distraught state of mind. I’m worried about her being all alone at her house.

Ah, he said, nodding. That’s a tough one. I’ve got a cousin, a real academic type. He did a study on the aging mind. Had this theory that as we let go of reality, we tap back into other, more primitive parts of our brain. It allows us to reconnect to things we felt and understood as children—things that our sophisticated, adult minds can’t handle. So this intuitive part of the brain gets smarter, while the rest of it basically goes to hell.

Really? I felt the hairs on my neck prickle. Did anyone ever follow up on his work?

No, he smiled broadly. Everybody thought he was a whack job, including me. And I loved the guy. I mean, if I was religious, I might even think he was right. Maybe that’s part of the Big Plan and all. He straightened the empty chair at my table as if someone might be joining me. But I’m not a religious man, so…

You think he was a whack job.

Exactly. So what can I get for you?

Just coffee, I think.

Can do, he said. Nothing else?

Not just yet, I told him. I want to settle my nerves first and figure out who I can call.

He smiled, headed off toward the counter. A moment later, he was back with a steaming cup. The mug, a thick ceramic diner variety, felt hefty in my hands.

He stood at my table, unconcerned with other customers. But as I looked around, the few late morning stragglers still sitting at their tables looked content enough.

Your son, Lou said. Janey tells me he’s down there, where your grandmother lives.

Yeah, I said. I’ve tried to reach him, but I only get voicemail.

Is anybody else around who might be able to help out with her? he asked.

I don’t know too many people there anymore, I said. I hadn’t thought about it before, but it was true. My physical ties to Thaxton had dwindled down to almost no one. I don’t even know if anything is really wrong. I have a stepmother who’s in town. If I can’t reach Conner, I’ll have her ride over. My half-sister moved to San Antonio a couple of years ago, so she can’t really get there. I thought of Tina as my sister. A whole person. Calling her my half-sister implied something unfinished, and she was entirely complete to me.

You should call her and let her know, he said. It’s her grandmother, too. Right?

No, I told him, wishing it could be that simple. She’s not related to my grandmother at all. Lou’s expression spoke to the confusion of the situation, but he was nice enough not to press with more questions.

So your son, I guess he’s all grown? He pulled out the empty chair across from me and sat down. I forget how old you said he is.

Not really grown. Well, I guess he is, sort of… Was he grown? I never thought of him that way, but maybe that was my problem, not his. He’s twenty. Still seems young to me.

I’ve got a granddaughter about that age, he said. A couple walked in, seated themselves. Lou waved and nodded, but made no move to get up. We should get ’em together. She could use a little nudge in the right direction when it comes to boys. Terrible taste, that one. Two years at that Sarah Lawrence College has already ruined her for normal boys. She only has eyes for the hippies. Don’t know what they’re teaching her, but she can’t look at a fella who don’t have holes in his clothes. Holes in his ears, for that matter. Your boy’s not a hippie, is he?

No, he’s not a hippie. I couldn’t help but smile.

Think about it, he said. My granddaughter’s a looker. Might give him a good reason to come back from Texas, eh? He raised his eyebrows and nodded as if we’d hatched the plan together.

Janey at the drycleaners clearly hadn’t spilled the entire story about Conner. That he hadn’t gone to Texas alone. Lou might not be so keen on a granddaughter/Conner fix-up if he heard it all. My brilliant son, college dropout, now