“Which one?”
“I’m Dani O’Hara. Daniella was my mother. She—”
“My daughter’s dead. I know that much.” Sandra gestured to Phyliss. “I’ll visit with my granddaughter in the reading room. Can you get Lawrence out of there?”
Phyliss patted Sandra on the arm. “Of course. Of course.”
“How’d you know I was here?”
“I heard you were crazy.”
Sandra barked out a laugh. “Oh—I’m crazy. Crazy, senile, and old, just not today.” She raised her head to Dani. “You’re my granddaughter. Spitting image of your momma.” She turned and sat in a chair. “Let’s hope you ain’t nothing like your momma.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because she had awful taste in men, that’s what. She died, leaving you young’uns alone. And because she wasn’t alright in the head either. A little cuckoo, and that’s coming from a crazy lady.” Sandra leaned back in her chair. “So, what are you doing here?”
“I found out about you from Mrs. Bendsfield. I never knew you were alive.”
Phyliss knocked on the door. “The reading room is open, Sandra. I told the kitchen where you’ll be, and I ordered an extra tray.”
Sandra heaved a deep breath, standing up. “Come here.” She waved impatiently for Dani to move closer and clasped her arm. “You can help walk me there. Make sure I don’t go face first and break a hip.”
Dani was looking for the craziness. She was looking for why her grandmother was locked up and never spoken of, but the elder who sat before her was sane, logical, and a little too intelligent.
She said, “You don’t seem crazy.”
Sandra snorted and patted her granddaughter’s arm. “I am, girly. I am. You’re just seeing me on a good day. Trust me. These days don’t come by so often. Believe it or not, I’m needed behind these white-ass walls.”
“You talk like Mae.”
The smile vanished from Sandra’s face. “Yeah. Guess I do.”
The reading room was a small library with two coral plush couches on one side. Three bookcases framed the walls with a narrow window above them. In one corner, a light-stained wooden desk stood bare with two moss-green lounging chairs placed before them. The upholstery’s stitches were coming apart at the seams, but Sandra didn’t mind as she dropped down on one of the chairs. She motioned with a brisk hand to the other chair. “Sit.”
“The couches look more comfortable.”
Sandra shook her head, a grimace adding more wrinkles to her face. “I can’t get up when I sit on those. I’d rather be able to stand than look like a fool when I break a hip.”
Dani sat. “I have your eyes. And you’re short like Erica.”
“She’s the one who died? Philly read me the obituary. She was young, wasn’t she?”
“She had just turned twenty-two.”
Sandra clasped her seemingly frail hands together. “I got two daughters who don’t speak to me. The one who did is in the ground. And I used to have three granddaughters who didn’t know I existed. One of them’s already dead.” She laughed to herself. “How is it that the crazy grandmother is outlasting them all?”
“Why don’t they talk to you? Kathryn never talked about you. Neither did Mae.”
Sandra studied Dani for a moment. Her eyes seemed to pierce straight through, like her grandmother was trying to read inside of her.
“Let me guess,” Sandra mused, her lips pursed. “You’re closest to Mae, huh?”
“How’d you know?”
“Because I know my daughters. And I know how they don’t enjoy each other. You talk to Mae. That means you don’t talk to Kathryn.”
“I thought my mother got along with Kathryn.” They always had. She could remember Sundays spent together. Holidays. Birthday parties.
“Nuh huh.” Sandra leaned forward and grabbed a pencil awkwardly. Her hands shook, but she managed to keep a hold on it. “Kathryn, Danny, and Mae hated each other. No, that’s not right. Mae loved Danny, but Danny knew who she could be around and who she couldn’t. Your Aunt Mae was wild back in her day. Too wild, but she never listened to me. Hated me, she did.”
“But Aunt Kathryn and Momma…”
“No.” She waved the pencil at her. “Kathy and Danny had two things in common. Presentation. And their taste in men. Their taste in men was awful.” Sandra sounded disgusted. The loose skin under her chin was wiggling as she kept waving the pencil in the air. She nodded to Dani. “I see how you been raised. You been raised like Mae. You look like your momma, but you handle like Mae. Not much Kathryn in you.”
“Why didn’t I know about you?”
Her grandmomma lowered the pencil to her lap. “You have to come for a second visit for that one.”
Dani leaned forward. This grandmother spoke of ‘Danny,’ not ‘Dani.’ Dani knew Mae was careful when she talked about her mother, but they shared the same name. She knew they shared the same nickname, but it felt different coming from this woman. This was almost a stranger, and in a way, Dani hadn’t felt closer to her mother than she did at that moment. She wanted to hear more about ‘Danny.’
“Why were you kept a secret if my mom came to visit?”
She snorted. “I’d like to know why your momma stopped coming to visit. I’d like to know what my granddaughters were like. I’d like to know how my daughters are doing, if they’re happy or miserable. I’d even like to know if they’re living on the streets. There’s a whole hell of a lot more that I’d like to know than you, I guarantee that.” She paused, then abruptly asked, “You a drinker?”