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SPRING BEFORE SUMMER fteen, Mummy made me write to Granddad. Nothing blatant. “Thinking of you and your loss today.
Hoping you are well.”
I sent actual cards—heavy cream stock with Cadence Sinclair Eastman printed across the top. Dear Granddad, I just rode in a 5K bike ride for cancer research. Tennis team starts up next week. Our book club is reading Brideshead Revisited. Love you.
“Just remind him that you care,” said Mummy. “And that you’re a good person. Well-rounded and a credit to the family.”
I complained. Writing the letters seemed false. Of course I cared. I loved Granddad and I did think about him. But I didn’t want to write these reminders of my excellence every two weeks.
“He’s very impressionable right now,” said Mummy. “He’s suering. Thinking about the future. You’re the rst grandchild.”
“Johnny’s only three weeks younger.”
“That’s my point. Johnny’s a boy and he’s only three weeks
younger. So write the letter.”
I did as she asked.
ON BEECHWOOD SUMMER fteen, the aunties lled in for Gran, making slumps and fussing around Granddad as if he hadn’t been living alone in Boston since Tipper died in October. But they were quarrelsome. They no longer had the glue of Gran keeping them together, and they fought over their memories, her jewelry, the
clothes in her closet, her shoes, even. These aairs had not been settled in October. People’s feelings had been too delicate then. It had all been left for the summer. When we got to Beechwood in late June, Bess had already inventoried Gran’s Boston possessions and now began with those in Clairmont. The aunts had copies on their tablets and pulled them up regularly.
“I always loved that jade tree ornament.”
“I’m surprised you remember it. You never helped decorate.”
“Who do you think took the tree down? Every year I wrapped all
the ornaments in tissue paper.”
“Martyr.”
“Here are the pearl earrings Mother promised me.”
“The black pearls? She said I could have them.”
The aunts began to blur into one another as the days of the summer ticked past. Argument after argument, old injuries were
rehashed and threaded through new ones.
Variations.
“Tell Granddad how much you love the embroidered tablecloths,”
Mummy told me.
“I don’t love them.”
“He won’t say no to you.” The two of us were alone in the Windemere kitchen. She was drunk. “You love me, don’t you, Cadence? You’re all I have now. You’re not like Dad.”
“I just don’t care about tablecloths.”
“So lie. Tell him the ones from the Boston house. The cream ones
with the embroidery.”
It was easiest to tell her I would.
And later, I told her I had.
But Bess had asked Mirren to do the same thing,
and neither one of us
begged Granddad for the fucking tablecloths.
