Chapter 24

[vibe track: fantasy - alina baraz, galimatias]

Cameron braced as Gram launched into yet another story. They all featured Cameron, naturally, usually as a little girl or a rebellious teen. At first, Henry had seemed a little on edge during dinner, but Gram had apparently warmed him right up as the night went along.

They were still here, sitting at the little table in Gram’s kitchen where Cameron had spent so many nights as a kid, dinner long over.

All in all, that made Cameron ... happy. Happier than she probably had any business being. So she didn’t mind the embarrassment she felt as Gram worked her way through another Young Cameron story that, just like all the others, seemed like it had undergone some questionable rewrites over the years. But Cameron wasn’t going to spoil their fun.

“Now this wasn’t the first time they called me down to the school, even though she was only 7,” Gram recounted to Henry, who sipped his water. It was surreal to see him here, worlds collided. But he seemed to fit in just fine. “I figured somebody tried to kiss her again and she fed ‘em more woodchips!”

Henry stuck an unobtrusive finger into the air. “Ooh, let’s bookmark that one for later,” he said with a grin, looking back at Cameron. Gram laughed and Cameron shook her head.

I don’t remember that woodchips thing happening at all. Is she making that one up entirely, or is that just something I don’t remember because I was 7?

“So I get there,” Gram continued, “and sure enough, there’s my girl with the nurse, that little scowl she always has on her face, I’m sure you’ve seen it, Henry — mhm that one right there!” Cameron blushed again and rolled her eyes. “She got her arm in a sling, scrapes and bruises on her knees, and I say to her, ‘Cameron, come on now, you gotta stop doin’ this!’”

Still seated, Gram put her hands on her hips as if she were scolding 7-year-old Cameron all over again. “And the nurse looks at me, shocked.” Gram opened her eyes wide, imitating the nurse. “‘She’s done this before?’ But Cameron’s over there shakin’ her head. Well, I’m not gonna let her get away with that, so I say, ‘Oh yes you did, you got into a fight just last week with Jimmy Preston, don’t you try and pretend you didn’t!’”

“Gram, I never went to school with anybody named Jimmy Preston,” Cameron interjected, now more and more skeptical of how tall this tale was going to get.

“You hush now, who’s tellin’ this story, hmm?” Cameron snorted and put her hands up in surrender, letting Gram tell it how she wanted. “Now then, the nurse says ‘Oh, no, she didn’t get in no fight, she jumped off the top of the swing set!’”

Henry laughed, looking at Cameron like she’d just done it yesterday. She shook her head again, letting a smile grow a little. Henry always seemed to look at her a beat longer than usual when she was smiling.

Gram kept going. “I say, ‘Cameron, is this true? What’d you do that for!’ And she says to me, ‘Well, we found this cardboard box at recess, and we cut it up into wings,’” Gram flapped her arms like a bird, making even Cameron laugh out loud, “‘and some kid bet me I couldn’t fly over the fence!’”

Henry laughed, knowing what came next. So did Cameron. Unfortunately, this was shaping up to be a mostly true story.

“So,” Gram said, “‘I asked her, ‘Well ... did you make it?’ And she holds up the arm she’s got in the sling, and she says — real serious — ‘my wing did.’”

Henry and Gram exploded into uproarious laughter and Cameron chuckled, her cheeks heating. “Thought it would work,” she muttered in her defense, shrugging and locking eyes with Henry. “Saw it in a movie once.”

They were both beaming at Cameron now, which they seemed to do after every story Gram told. She didn’t actually mind it.

I guess she hasn’t really had a chance to tell them to anybody before.

Henry certainly didn’t either. He’d been grinning nonstop. That made Cameron smile, too.

This was apparently the last one Gram had at the ready, though.

“Well, I think that does it,” she said with a sigh that turned into a cough, sliding her chair back and getting up. She had to lean on the table when she got up now. That had surprised Cameron a little bit when she’d come to stay here a few nights ago. But it probably shouldn’t have. People got old. Even Gram.

“Can I help with the dishes?” Henry said, getting up, too.

Gram grinned at him, then looked to Cameron. “Hmph. How come you didn’t offer? Gonna make him think I didn’t raise you right!”

Cameron rolled her eyes, but started stacking their plates and silverware with the same beginnings of a smile that felt like had been on her face all night. Everything just seemed ... worth smiling about tonight.

Gram took Henry’s elbow and directed him to the living room instead. “No, no, you ain’t doin’ dishes, you’re comin’ with me, because I’ve got a photo album ain’t never been seen by nobody. You let her do the dishes,” she waved dismissively in the general direction of Cameron, which made her snort in amusement again.

Cameron felt like she was learning more about Gram tonight, too, seeing her in this completely new context for the first time.

She kept pictures of me? Where did she even get them? I don’t remember her ever taking photos ... did she?

Turning on the water, Cameron started washing the few dishes they’d used. There weren’t many, but she was in no hurry. The opposite, even.

She couldn’t hear what they were saying in the living room, just an occasional guffaw from both of them and a few of Gram’s hacking coughs. But there were more laughs than Cameron had heard from Gram in a long time. She took that as a very good sign.

The whole night had been going really well, actually. She’d been so anxious about it. First, that Gram had made her do this at all. She and Henry were barely dating, if that’s even what they were doing. They’d certainly ... skipped a few steps, so she wasn’t really sure where on the relationship spectrum they stood, not that she would have known anyway. All of this was new to her.

I know if he’d asked me to meet his mom, I would not have been as cool about it.

Now that she thought about it, though, she did wonder about Henry’s mother. She felt another pang of guilt that she still hadn’t shown the same interest in his life that he had in hers. Here they were at Gram’s place for dinner, after all.

I wonder if his mom is kind, like he is. Like how Gram is sorta like me. Is that where he gets it?

After he’d said he would come to dinner, she’d been even more nervous, she thought as she scrubbed away at a plate. What if Gram did something rude, or stupid, or embarrassing... like, more than the acceptable amount of embarrassing, I mean. Or what if Henry did?

Or what if Gram didn’t like Henry?

That thought tugged at the thread that threatened to unravel more than just tonight’s dinner. When Cameron looked at Henry, she knew she — to some degree, at least — only saw what she wanted to see. But Gram? Nobody could tell Gram what she had to see. She’d look for herself. And she always looked carefully.

What if she could only see the shit Cameron didn’t really want to dwell on?

You know, like how our personalities are completely different, how we barely know each other, how we don’t really have anything in common, and — oh yeah — how he’s still fucking married.

Cameron had told Gram that beforehand. She would’ve found out anyway — she always did — so better to head it off. Gram had actually taken it a little better than Cameron had expected. She’d stressed to Gram that, as much as the older woman might be concerned about it and feel like she’d be trying to protect Cameron or something, it was a completely forbidden topic. It was a really sensitive situation that she wasn’t even all that clear about herself, just that Henry was struggling with it.

So far, Gram hadn’t brought it up, which was a relief.

Eventually, Cameron couldn’t pretend to still be doing dishes. She sauntered into the living room in Gram’s tiny, two-bedroom condo. It only seemed tiny to Cameron now that she’d moved out and seen other homes, including Henry’s. When she was a kid, nothing about it had seemed small. Not even Gram.

Sitting down next to Henry on the couch, she wasn’t really sure how much she was supposed to touch him. They hadn’t ... they hadn’t actually sat on a couch together before, had they?

What a weird fucking milestone, she thought to herself. But that didn’t help her know what she was supposed to do. We haven’t done anything, like, mundane together.

She decided to just curl her legs up underneath herself and rest her head on her knee, removing any pressure to do something with her hands, and tried to put all that bullshit out of her head. Tonight, that was easier to do than usual.

They talked in the living room for a while longer, and through Gram’s questions, Cameron learned more about Henry, too. He had three sisters, two of whom had kids. The sisters had the same dad and mom, but only shared a mom with Henry, not their dad. He always wanted to be a teacher, he told Gram. And he got married to Mallory when he was 24. She hadn’t known that. He’d brought that up himself, and Gram hadn’t pushed, much to Cameron’s relief.

Geez, that’s basically my age. She couldn’t imagine getting married next year. Which was part of why she had such a hard time knowing what to say whenever Henry’s marriage came up.

Maybe ... maybe Gram could help. Cameron wasn’t sure how she could, but she didn’t put anything past Gram.

After a while, their conversation petered out, and they called it a night. It was a school night for Henry, so he had to get back home anyway. If tonight was anything like the past couple of nights, they’d text each other before he fell asleep.

Gram rested her hand on Henry’s shoulder after they got up and told him she was sure they’d see each other again.

“I hope so,” he said in return. Cameron couldn’t help but let her smile out a little more.

She led him to the door, just off the kitchen. While he slipped into his jacket, they both just smiled at each other. They didn’t need to say much. Cameron was actually glad he’d come, that Gram had forced this to happen. He looked like he was, too, although he seemed a little awkward now, as unsure as she’d been about what kind of physical contact was appropriate.

“Umm ... I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” he said, giving her that self-conscious half-smile.

She smiled wider. “Yeah.”

“Okay ... well, bye,” he said, still smiling and reaching for the door. But she stopped him, moving her hands up to his neck to pull him into a kiss. It was a little more than a peck on the lips, held just long enough so that it made her want more, but she pulled back.

“Bye,” she said, her grin all the way across her face now. His cheeks were a little flushed, but he was grinning too as he left, and she closed the door behind him.

Cameron carried her smile with her back into the living room, where Gram had opened the window and was lighting a cigarette with another cough. Her hair looked thinner than it used to, and more creases were etched into her face than Cameron remembered.

Maybe it was because of that. Or maybe it was because of the trips down memory lane Gram had taken her and Henry on. Maybe it was finding out about all the photos of her Gram had meticulously kept over the years. Or maybe it was just that things were going so well that Cameron felt like a weight had been lifted off her.

Whatever the reason, she surprised herself by kissing Gram on the cheek, just as tenderly as she had Henry, leaving Gram looking even more surprised than Cameron was. But the old woman didn’t say anything, just lit Cameron’s cigarette with the hint of a smile on her lined face. That meant she was gonna make Cameron say it out loud.