Page 17 of Rebound

Today, she is taking no shit. And when Granny Lucille decides to take no shit, she means it. At eighty-nine years old, she needs a cane to walk but is still fit and active. Her silver hair is in a short pixie cut, which suits her perfectly because she looks a little like a pixie at five foot nothing. There are signs of age, obviously—wrinkles and lines, liver spots on her skin, fingers twisted with arthritis—but she still gives off an amazing energy. She laughs easily and has a delicious Charleston accent that sounds like honey. I can’t say that I’m enjoying listening to it right now, though.

“You’ve got to stop feeling sorry for yourself, Bam-Bam,” she says, using the childhood nickname that she gave me. “I’ve let you hide away in your room long enough. It’s time to come out into the light, child.”

It is light, I think. The sky is streaked with pinks and reds as the sun slides down, the colors reflecting off the water. I wonder what it’s like in New York today. This time of year could mean anything from dazzling sunshine to a hailstorm. Of course, I then start to think about Elijah and what he might be doing. In the dazzling sunshine or the hailstorm. I have no clue how he is, because he respected my request and hasn’t contacted me. Or maybe he hasn’t contacted me because he hates my guts and has already moved on. Maybe his brothers are taking him to strip clubs and setting him up on dates with women named Sugar Lips or Busty. Maybe…No. Stop right now!

“Yes, Granny,” I say obediently, at least showing her that I’m listening. “I know.”

“Do you now, Bam-Bam? What is it that you know?”

“That I need to stop feeling sorry for myself. I get it. It’s deeply unattractive.”

She snorts with laughter and slaps her skinny thighs. “Unattractive? Who gives a damn about that? You’ve always cared way too much about what other people think. There’s a place for it, as long as they’re people whose opinions you value—but that’s not always the way with you, is it? You gave up ballet because that asshole Billy Kruger said you looked like a giraffe on pointe.”

“I was only fourteen. And anyway, he was right—I was already too tall.”

“Too tall for what? To be a prima ballerina, maybe, but to enjoy yourself? To love dancing? No such thing as too tall for that. You also listened to your mother when she said you needed to ‘drop a few pounds’ before your prom, and to your father when he told you men don’t like women to be too smart.”

I give her some side-eye. She’s absolutely right about all of those things.

“I also listened to you, Granny,” I say. “And I followed my heart. I believed in love. I married a man I adored. That didn’t work out so well.”

“Pah! Nonsense. Your marriage didn’t go wrong because you loved him too much. What a ridiculous thing to say. Although you still haven’t properly explained exactly did go wrong, have you? You’ve just been crying into your pillow for days on end.”

I sigh and stare at the sunset. It really is spectacular, like an abstract painting in the sky. If Verona were here, she would capture it beautifully. The wind is knocked out of me when I imagine her wearing the paint-spattered men’s dress shirt she favored—Elijah once told me about the time she absentmindedly grabbed one of Dalton’s thousand-dollar dress shirts when the urge to paint struck—one paintbrush caught between her teeth and another in her hand, the pineapple fountain splashing behind her. We had a trip planned. She and Granny Lucille met at the wedding but didn’t get to spend much time together. They would have gotten along like biscuits and gravy. But then the diagnosis came and the trip never did. I blow out a breath and force away the bittersweet memories.

“It’s complicated, Granny.”

She snorts again—it’s one of her favorite things. “I’m sure it is, Bam-Bam, I’m sure it is. I couldn’t possibly understand, could I, because your generation thinks they invented ‘complicated.’ Tell me one thing then. Do you still love him?”

“Yes,” I say matter-of-factly. “But I also can’t stand the way I feel when I’m around him.”

“What the fig does that mean? And look at me when I’m talking to you.”

I turn to face her, and her fierce expression softens when she sees my tears. She pats my cheek. “Oh, darling. Bless your heart. You’re really hurting, aren’t you?”

I nod, the gentleness of her tone making the tears spill. Sometimes, I only hold myself together with sheer will, and all it takes is a touch of sweetness to make me crumble. Come at me with an axe, I’ll fight you; come at me with a kind word and I’ll fall at your feet.

She holds my hand, and we sit together and watch a group of teenagers fly past on rollerblades. Once they are gone, she says, “What do you mean, you can’t stand the way you feel when you’re around him? What has he done to you? Because I might look frail and old, and he might be richer than Midas, but that doesn’t mean I can’t whoop his skinny New York ass.”

I giggle at the image. She is frail and old, but I don’t doubt she would try. And Elijah’s ass is far from skinny. Elijah’s ass is… a perfect manly peach of an ass.

How much do I reveal? She knows my story inside and out, apart from one particular part.

I’ll never forget that night, not as long as I live. I loved Verona James with all my heart—she was more of a mother to me than my own ever was. She was quick to find pleasure in life, full of warmth and humor. Elijah brought me home to meet his family when I was nineteen, and I was nervous as hell. She took me into her arms and gave me the kind of bear hug that her sons also specialized in. She made me feel welcome from day one, and when I married Elijah, I felt like I gained a mom as well as the love of my life.

That made it all so much worse. Not only was this precious woman dying, but she used up one of her last coherent conversations to tell me that I wasn’t good enough. To tell me I was broken—that’s the actual word she used.

“You shouldn’t have married my boy,” she said, “knowing that you were broken.”

I’ve tried to convince myself it wasn’t the real her. That it was the drugs and she didn’t mean those horrible words. But I’ve never quite managed to believe it. Part of me has always wondered if the drugs simply removed her inhibitions and allowed her to say the things that were in her heart.

The truth is, even if she didn’t really mean what she said, her words struck a chord. They echoed something I was already feeling. Elijah was supportive when we discovered I couldn’t have children, but I worried that was how he really felt deep down. For a man who wanted a whole tribe of kids, finding out his wife couldn’t give him any must have been a huge blow. I hated myself. Hated the fact that I couldn’t do what millions of women have done with ease throughout the history of humanity. Like Verona said, I was broken.

I never told Elijah. He was grieving, and so was I. The time never felt right to add to his already heavy load. That’s when the rot started to set in. I was wounded and started to pull away. Only a tiny bit at first, to give my pain some space. I hoped it would go away. Except it only got bigger and bigger, and he didn’t even notice. I forgive him for that. The loss of his mom was like a wrecking ball that swung through his whole family.

It was a messy and difficult time, and nothing was ever the same between us again. By extension, nothing was ever the same between me and his family either. Every time I visited their childhood home, I felt Dalton’s gray eyes on me and imagined I saw contempt and disappointment in them, like he felt cheated of the grandchildren he deserved. I got the feeling that when I walked into a room, they all went silent because they were talking about me. Poor barren Amber, the woman who trapped Elijah.

How much of this was real and how much was merely paranoia? I don’t know. But I kept withdrawing—from them and from him. It all hurt too much, and that was the only way I knew how to survive. Now I see how much worse it made everything. I should have told him. I should have reached out instead of closing down.

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