“What?”
“Nothing.”
“What do I owe you? This is your third visit. I owe you something.”
“You promised to tell me who my father is.”
“Oh,” Sandra cursed under her breath. “I promised you that? Didn’t I let something slip last time? Does that count?”
“It doesn’t. You called him ‘Emmy’, but I don’t know any Emmy.”
“Sure you do. You just don’t know their full names.”
Dani’s eyebrows pinched forward. She frowned. “Are you going to tell me who my father is?”
“No.” Sandra plopped her foot onto Dani’s lap. “I need to raise my legs. My doc said something about elevating the edema.”
Her hands came to rest on her grandmother’s feet. “You promised me.”
“I’m a liar. Part of the reason why I’m in this place.”
“I deserve to know—”
“You don’t deserve a goddamn thing.” Sandra pulled her feet down and leaned forward. She shouted, “I deserve to have my daughters by my side, but where are they?!”
“One’s dead. Another’s dying. And who knows when Mae’s name is up.”
Sandra fell still.
Dani knew she was supposed to stop. She shouldn’t talk like that to her grandmother, but she couldn’t. The words spilled out in rhythm with her heartbeat. It was speeding up. She was fed up. “You already lost one daughter. Maybe you could begin bridging the gap with your family by starting with me.”
“By telling you who your daddy is?”
“Yes!” Dani shoved out of her chair. It screeched across the floor and hit against the wall with a bang. “Shit.” She bit down on her lip. She hadn’t meant to do that.
“If you pick it up and slam it against the wall, it feels a lot better.”
“What?”
Her grandmother didn’t blink. “I’m serious. You could even throw it at the window—won’t do a darn good. They got ‘em covered with thick plastic or something so no one can throw themselves out the window. We just bounce off like rubber birds. It’s not a good feeling when you go splat on the floor.”
“Are you insane?”
Sandra gave her a ‘duh’ look. “Yeah.”
“You’re impossible.”
“Impossible and crazy should be synonyms of each other.” Sandra tipped her head back and chuckled. “Henri’s impossible. Thinks she sees damn angels.”
Dani’s chest was heaving. No one came to check on the noise, so she retrieved her chair and pulled it back in front of her grandmother.
Sandra murmured as she sat back down, “Henrietta tells me every day that my girls are around. Daniella and Erica. Can you imagine that? Talk about delusional. I don’t see things that don’t exist. When I’m out of it, I see people from my past. More possible than Henri. She’s nuts.”
“I’d like to know who my father is.”
Sandra sobered, her eyes flicking to Dani’s. “You can’t handle that yet.”
“I can, too.”
“No, you can’t. It’s rolled up in a whole other slew of barrels, and you’re barely holding it together as it is. You think this lie is bad? There’s a whole bunch more when you find out who he is and his twisted story.”
“What do you mean?”
Sandra plopped her feet onto Dani’s lap again and settled back once more. “Don’t worry about your daddy. He’ll come to you when you’re ready. I know that much, if I don’t know a lot else. Let me tell you about your granddaddy. How about that? He’s another story.” Sandra chuckled. “Your granddaddy’s name is Oscar Bendsfield. Oscar Senior.”
Mr. Bendsfield. Dani’s eyes lit up.
“That’s right.” Sandra chuckled again. “Nanery Bendsfield used to be my best friend until her husband up and left her. He didn’t leave her for me, so she never suspected a thing, but I hope you don’t got the O’Hara curse for stupidity.”
“What do you mean?” Dani repeated.
As she talked, her fingers began moving on her lap. Sandra was making the motions like she was crocheting. There was nothing in her hands, but that’s what she was doing. “I was stupid. I went back around for more and more. He got me pregnant again and again. I lost the last kid—which is what I think set off my crazy spells. He never made no promises with pretty words and such, and we were never together in the ‘official’ sense, but I loved him. I kept going back for more and more.”
“Does…”
“Does Nanery know?” Sandra nodded her head and grinned wickedly. “She sure does, but she didn’t find that out until years later. It took her nearly twenty years before she got told what her precious Oscar was up to outside their cold bed, long before their marriage went stale.”
“You ruined a marriage.”
She snorted, shaking her head. “The marriage was ruined long before Oscar came sniffing around.”
“You didn’t help it.”
That got her grandma, and Sandra sat back. “Huh. Got a point.”
“Marriage is sacred.”
“Theirs wasn’t. Theirs was just wrong.” Sandra’s fingers went back to air crocheting. “Sometimes partnerships aren’t meant to be. And sometimes they only do bad more than good. Theirs was one of those. They weren’t meant to be married, and Oscar knew that.”