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Authors: Jessie L. Star
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Sinclair household; her visits had been some of the happiest times of my life. When she'd grabbed me to her bony chest and demanded that I call her Nan, just as Elliot did, I'd felt like I belonged in a way I never had before. So why hadn't I followed up on Elliot's weird little question about her sooner? This question led to: why didn't someone tell me what had happened? Then reached its natural conclusion: why didn't Elliot tell me?
"I can hear you thinking nasty things about my progeny, you know," the voice trembling down the phone distracted me from doing exactly what it accused me of. "I had hoped that finally working out your passions on each other would make you like each other a bit more."
"Despite what you might have heard, he's not that good in bed," I said dryly before finding myself choking in surprise as she replied tartly,
"From what I have heard, how would you know?"
"God, is there anything that boy doesn't tell you?" I groaned. "Your relationship is weird, you know that? Seriously weird. Why can't you have normal grandson to grandma interactions, where you make thinly veiled racist comments and he looks past them because you're old and don't know any better?"
Her chuckle was dry and raspy, but sounded genuine for which I was incredibly grateful.
"Darling, I was campaigning for equal rights long before my daughter became the inevitable consequence of the 'free love' movement. Elliot will have to talk to his parents if he's after unenlightened opinions." This kind of comment would usually have been delivered with the speed and cut of a whip, but no more. It took her a lot of stops, starts and stumbles, but she got there and her words still made me smile.
"You see that it's strange, though, right?" I asked, curling my legs up underneath me as I realised that, even though her allegiance was in Elliot's camp, I still wanted some reassurance from her about what had happened. "That Elliot and me...you know."
"I think what's strange is that you didn't do it earlier," she said, her tone definite despite the slight slur. "You were two moderately attractive teenagers who saw each other unsupervised every day in a house with multiple bedrooms, it should have been a foregone…thing…" She faltered, clearly searching for the word and then finished, "…conclusion. What happened was just statistical inevitability catching up with you."
I rolled my eyes, having heard this all before. All through our teenage years Nan had taken every opportunity to make cracks about Elliot and me getting it on; nothing gave her greater pleasure than to see us squirm in embarrassment. Knowing this, the first creep of an idea threaded its way into my head. Nan had always wanted us together and then pretty much the day she'd had a stroke...It all made a horrible sort of sense.
"I'm going to have to cut this short, darling." I was drawn back to the present by Nan's newly feeble voice. "There's some witch doctor of my daughter's coming to prod and poke me in a moment, as if there's any cure to being old."
I knew this was as much of a reference to her stroke as I was going to get out of her so I asked delicately, "Yeah, how's things, Nan? How do you feel?"
" Fine, and I'd be even better if people would stop asking me about it," she said, crabbiness clearly warring with fatigue now.
"Well , at least it hasn't impacted your manners," I said, trying to sound cheeky through the lump in my throat. "It was good to talk to you, Nan. You take care."
" You take care," she retorted. "I intend to do no such thing."
We said goodbye and , after I'd hung up the phone, I sat still for a while, feeling shaky and numb. My head churned with half-formed thoughts, accusations and fears, and when the door suddenly burst open, it took me a good couple of seconds to register the arrival of Abi and Jonah.
There's an expression that says 'no one knows what goes on in a relationship except the two who are in it'. I'd like an amendment to that which goes
"I can hear you thinking nasty things about my progeny, you know," the voice trembling down the phone distracted me from doing exactly what it accused me of. "I had hoped that finally working out your passions on each other would make you like each other a bit more."
"Despite what you might have heard, he's not that good in bed," I said dryly before finding myself choking in surprise as she replied tartly,
"From what I have heard, how would you know?"
"God, is there anything that boy doesn't tell you?" I groaned. "Your relationship is weird, you know that? Seriously weird. Why can't you have normal grandson to grandma interactions, where you make thinly veiled racist comments and he looks past them because you're old and don't know any better?"
Her chuckle was dry and raspy, but sounded genuine for which I was incredibly grateful.
"Darling, I was campaigning for equal rights long before my daughter became the inevitable consequence of the 'free love' movement. Elliot will have to talk to his parents if he's after unenlightened opinions." This kind of comment would usually have been delivered with the speed and cut of a whip, but no more. It took her a lot of stops, starts and stumbles, but she got there and her words still made me smile.
"You see that it's strange, though, right?" I asked, curling my legs up underneath me as I realised that, even though her allegiance was in Elliot's camp, I still wanted some reassurance from her about what had happened. "That Elliot and me...you know."
"I think what's strange is that you didn't do it earlier," she said, her tone definite despite the slight slur. "You were two moderately attractive teenagers who saw each other unsupervised every day in a house with multiple bedrooms, it should have been a foregone…thing…" She faltered, clearly searching for the word and then finished, "…conclusion. What happened was just statistical inevitability catching up with you."
I rolled my eyes, having heard this all before. All through our teenage years Nan had taken every opportunity to make cracks about Elliot and me getting it on; nothing gave her greater pleasure than to see us squirm in embarrassment. Knowing this, the first creep of an idea threaded its way into my head. Nan had always wanted us together and then pretty much the day she'd had a stroke...It all made a horrible sort of sense.
"I'm going to have to cut this short, darling." I was drawn back to the present by Nan's newly feeble voice. "There's some witch doctor of my daughter's coming to prod and poke me in a moment, as if there's any cure to being old."
I knew this was as much of a reference to her stroke as I was going to get out of her so I asked delicately, "Yeah, how's things, Nan? How do you feel?"
" Fine, and I'd be even better if people would stop asking me about it," she said, crabbiness clearly warring with fatigue now.
"Well , at least it hasn't impacted your manners," I said, trying to sound cheeky through the lump in my throat. "It was good to talk to you, Nan. You take care."
" You take care," she retorted. "I intend to do no such thing."
We said goodbye and , after I'd hung up the phone, I sat still for a while, feeling shaky and numb. My head churned with half-formed thoughts, accusations and fears, and when the door suddenly burst open, it took me a good couple of seconds to register the arrival of Abi and Jonah.
There's an expression that says 'no one knows what goes on in a relationship except the two who are in it'. I'd like an amendment to that which goes
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