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“Nothing more than a thickened waist until the eighth month.”
    â€œAnd why won’t she tell us who the father is? She didn’t tell you, did she?”
    â€œNo. She didn’t.”
    â€œIt makes no sense. I’m not judgmental, am I? I might have been a little shocked at first, but I’d have gotten over it. Why didn’t she come to me … or you, for that matter? You of all people would know how she feels.”
    â€œYou know Neva,” I said. “It just takes her a little while. She’ll come around.”
    â€œMaybe. Maybe not.” Grace groaned. “It’s just so frustrating. Why doesn’t she come to me? Maybe if I was more like you—”
    â€œShe didn’t come to me either, remember?”
    â€œNo. I suppose not.” This sated her a little.
    â€œBesides,” I said, “Neva wouldn’t want you to change. She loves you.”
    â€œMaybe, but she doesn’t like me very much. My husband doesn’t either. You are my mother, so you have to love me—biology forces it.” A short pause followed. “Would my father have liked me, do you think?”
    I hesitated. Stupidly, I hadn’t expected that Grace would draw a parallel between her grandchild’s absent father and her own. Stupid, because I’d already made the connection myself. “I … yes. Of course he would.”
    Another silence ensued, this one long enough to unsettle me.
    â€œDid you ever love him, Mom?”
    Grace had asked a million questions about her father over the years. The color of his hair when the sun hit it. The lilt of his accent. Whether he was so tall he would’ve hit his head on the top of the doorway if he wore a top hat. She liked details. The one, single photograph I had of Bill, a wedding photo, was tattered and bent from spending so much time in Grace’s pocket or under her pillow. But this question, she’d never asked before.
    â€œYes, I did. Once.”
    She sighed and I wasn’t so deaf I didn’t hear her relief. I hoped we could leave it at that. Because when Grace needed answers, she didn’t leave a door unopened. And this particular door was one best left shut.
    â€œSo what should I do, then? About Neva, I mean.”
    â€œIt’s not for me to say.”
    â€œBut if you were me?”
    â€œI’m not you. But if you’re asking what I’m planning to do … I’m going to accept her at her word—that her baby has no father—and ask her how I can best support her.”
    I wondered if any of this was getting through. Hard to tell with Grace. One minute she could be all emotion, and the next—who knew? Robert had once described a date with her as an emotional bungee jump. Grace had thought it was hysterically funny at first, but once she thought more about it, had become cross with him. Case in point, I suppose.
    â€œYou’re right. As always. But…” Grace sounded unsatisfied. I could picture her by the phone, jiggling back and forth as she used to as a child when she couldn’t make sense of something.
    â€œBut what ?”
    â€œHow can you stand it? A secret like this? Isn’t it eating you alive?”
    I almost laughed. If only she knew.
    â€œSecrets are hard,” I said. “But if keeping the secret allows you to have a relationship with your daughter? I, for one, think it’s worth it.”

 
    4
    Neva
    When my mother doesn’t know what to do about something, she talks about it. I’ve got this problem, she’ll start, and then vault into whatever’s on her mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s a stranger, a client, my father, or my grandmother, she’s happy to air her linen, dirty or otherwise. Generally speaking, she already knows what she wants to do. I get the feeling she just likes the sound of her own voice.
    When I was twelve, Dad got a bonus. He’d promised me for years that