“If you keep doing this, you’re going to tear this family apart.”
“Start putting it back.”
Lena spoke before I could.
“Which family?”
Mom turned toward her.
Lena didn’t look away.
Mom looked down at Grandma’s brown coat button in her palm.
Then she closed her fingers around it.
“Which family?”
Mom eventually opened her hand and gave me Grandma’s button.
“I need to go back inside.”
Nobody stopped her.
Lena watched her leave.
“Well.”
Phoebe looked at me.
“What happens now?”
Nobody stopped her.
“I don’t know.”
It was the first honest answer any of us had received all morning.
***
We went to Grandma’s house.
I needed to start sorting her things, and somehow my sisters came with me.
Phoebe found the patched brown coat hanging beside the back door.
We went to Grandma’s house.
“Grandma wore this at Christmas.”
“Every Christmas.”
She touched one patch.
“Why didn’t she buy another one?”
“She kept saying this one still worked.”
Lena was quiet.
“Grandma wore this at Christmas.”
Then she asked, “Why didn’t you ever come on vacation with us?”
“I didn’t know I was invited.”
Her head lifted.
“We asked Mom.”
“She never asked me,” I said.
Phoebe sat down.
“Mom said Grandma didn’t like us staying here.”
“I didn’t know I was invited.”
I stared at her.
“Grandma kept asking why you never did.”
Phoebe looked down at the table.
Eventually, Lena opened one of Grandma’s photo boxes.
We sat around the kitchen table looking through pictures.
It was awkward.
“Grandma kept asking why you never did.”
