The Long Goodbye

Jesse tugged on her favorite sweater, the soft pink one with Ariel framed in bubble hearts. It was fall chilly—the good kind of chilly that meant school was back, the leaves were pretty reds and yellows, and there was a new season of Batman: The Animated Series to watch. There were never enough episodes with Catwoman in them, but whatever. 

Chuck, who Jesse’s parents claimed was her little sister but Jesse was pretty sure they adopted out of a wolf den (what kind of girl wants to go by Chuck instead of Charlotte?), appeared in the doorway of their shared bedroom and turned pleading eyes toward Jesse. “Just one?” she begged.

Mom wasn’t home yet and probably wouldn’t be for another hour. They could get away with it.

“Just one,” Jesse said. “If too many go missing at once, they’ll know.”

Chuck didn’t wait around. She shot down the hallway, into the kitchen, through the breezeway, and disappeared into the darkness of the garage. Jesse took a more dignified pace as she followed. She wasn’t going to run in her Flounder slippers. She traded them for a pair of tennis shoes in the breezeway. The garage floor was always dusty.

The faint smell of oil wafted through the open door. Their dad, actually a veterinarian the rest of the week, liked to think of himself as a mechanic every other Saturday afternoon. Jesse flipped on the light to reveal Chuck heaving her entire body backwards as she white-knuckle gripped the giant D-shaped handle of the ancient teal refrigerator. Coldpal was written in fancy letters in the upper left corner of the door and three little eight-pointed stars clustered near the last “L.” The whole thing had a sparkle to it, like the paint was full of glitter bits. It was prettier than the fridge inside their house, but Mom said it didn’t match and had to stay in the garage.

“Don’t just stand there,” Chuck said. “Help me!”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” The suction and weight of the fridge’s door was far mightier than the one in the kitchen and it took both of them to open it. She added her grip to Chuck’s. “One, two, three.” 

The fridge’s hum grew louder with the door open. The white light reflected off loose cans of Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, and 7-Up on the top shelf. On the shelf below, dull orange Tupperware containers filled with Grandma’s cookies were stacked two high and three deep. 

Chuck reached for the closest container. 

Jesse pushed her hand away. “Not that one. That’s the one we took from last time. Let’s do the one behind it.” 

The cookies were lumpy and mostly shades of brown and white, but they were just chewy enough without sticking to your teeth and the right amount of sweet. They called them mammoth cookies, which was apparently only a thing Grandma made because no one at school knew what Jesse was talking about when she brought them in her lunch. There were chocolate chips in the cookies, but also some kind of nut and five other things Jesse didn’t have a name for. Grandma’s cookie recipe was a secret. Grandma claimed she’d leave it to them when she joined Grandpa in heaven, but not before then. 

Jesse understood. She wanted to have a thing that was just hers too. Everything was hers and Chuck’s. No matter what new thing Jesse tried, whether it was sewing her own stuffed animal or playing basketball with Dad or memorizing the names of all the types of clouds, Chuck wanted to do it too.

Jesse put a cookie in her mouth so she had both hands to snap the lid back on the Tupperware. Chuck gnawed on her cookie like a wild animal as Jesse closed the fridge door. 

“You better not get any crumbs anywhere,” Jesse said. “Mom will see them.”

Chuck rolled her eyes. “I know, I know.” 

Jesse slid off her shoes in the breezeway and put her slippers back on. The kitchen clock was framed in the doorway. The minute hand ticked up: 3:57. 

Chuck looked the same direction. “It’s almost time for Batman! I’ll get Miss Piggy.” 

Their guinea pig didn’t care about Batman, but Chuck thought she did. 

Jesse turned the TV on, resting her hand on the remote the same way her Dad did—index finger between the + and – channel buttons—even though she was too scared to channel surf on the commercials in case she missed a second of her show. Dad called this position ergonomic, Mom called it his “dwindling attention span.” Jesse just liked being the one in charge of the remote.

The eerie music of the show’s opener built as bad guys blew up a bank and ran away, only to be caught quickly by a very disapproving-looking Batman. Chuck crawled onto the couch with Miss Piggy tucked in her shirt. 

“Jesse, I think there’s something wrong with Miss Piggy.”

“Mhmm, sure,” Jesse said, eyes glued to the screen. 

“I’m not making it up.”

“Can’t it wait until a commercial?”

Chuck started to sob. “No—ohh—oh.” 

“Okay, okay.” Jesse eased her hand off the remote and turned to her sister. “What’s wrong?” 

Chuck lifted up Miss Piggy. The little body sagged in all the wrong ways. Jesse had other pets that had come and gone before Miss Piggy, but it was Chuck’s first time seeing a pet like this. Jesse’s throat tightened. “I’m sorry, Chuck. You’re right. She’s not okay.”

Chuck sniffed hard, but snot still leaked out her nose. “What do we do? Can you call Dad?”

They were only supposed to call Dad’s clinic in an emergency and there was nothing he could do now. “Do you still have the shoebox from your new school shoes?” At Chuck’s nod, Jesse continued, “We’re going to make her a nice bed in there and then we’re going to put her in the fre—” The freezer was where her parents had put other dead pets before their funerals, but Jesse and Chuck weren’t allowed to get anything out of the freezer without an adult home because they’d need a stool to reach. And no way would Mom be okay with putting Miss Piggy in the kitchen fridge stacked on top of the carrots and yogurt. “We’ll put her in the garage fridge. The bottom shelf is empty.”

Chuck’s face was turning grayer by the moment. “Are you saying she’s…” Her voice dropped to a whisper: “…dead?”

Jesse nodded. Then she ruffled her sister’s hair the same way Dad did for her when Mabel, the guinea pig before Miss Piggy, died. She’d never done it to Chuck before. It made her feel a little better and Chuck looked calmer despite her hair sticking up in funny directions. 

Chuck sighed. “Okay.”

Chuck retrieved the shoebox and put her favorite t-shirt in the bottom. Jesse tried to talk her out of it, but Chuck wouldn’t hear it. “She liked snuggling with me best when I was wearing this shirt.”

Together they lay Miss Piggy in the bottom. Chuck tucked the t-shirt over her body. “It’s cold in the fridge,” she said.

Jesse almost told her that was the point. “Good idea,” she replied.

When they slid the uncovered shoebox along the metal grate of the bottom shelf, the light flickered and the fridge’s hum grew louder like it was full of bees. Had they done something to break it when they opened it for cookies? Maybe a can was knocked over and vibrating against the metal shelf… but all the cans were standing.

There was a clicking above them and then an even louder humming as the big garage door slid up. Jesse shut the fridge as Mom’s little blue car pulled in. 

Mom had had “a day,” Jesse could already tell. The corners of her mouth looked like they might give up and fall off her face. 

“What are you girls doing out here?” Mom said as she stepped out of the car. She shut the door so tiredly that it didn’t close right the first time and she had to try again. 

“Miss Piggy…” Chuck said, choking up as she pointed to the fridge.

Mom gave them her standard “I am not amused” look and yanked the fridge open. “Girls! You cannot put the guinea pig in the fridge.”

Jesse was about to explain that she only did it because she didn’t know when Mom would be back, and she wasn’t sure how long it took for a dead guinea pig to start to smell, and she was just trying to make sure that Chuck didn’t cry even more, when she heard it. The squeal. 

“You could have killed her!” Mom said. 

Chuck’s mouth fell open. Then she squealed louder than the guinea pig. “Miss Roast Piggy! You’re back!”

Jesse looked to Mom, then to the fridge, then to Miss Piggy in Chuck’s arms. “But she was—”

“I don’t want to hear it. Your grandmother is coming for dinner—heaven help me if she finds a speck of dust on the furniture or a water spot on a glass.” Mom closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. The ends of her mouth drooped farther down. “Both of you go to your room. And never put a living animal in the fridge again, do you hear me?”

Jesse and Chuck responded with a chorused “yes.”

Jesse pinched herself on the way back to her room. It hurt, so this wasn’t a dream. Had she imagined it? 

It was Thursday, one week from Miss Roast Piggy’s chilly time out, when it happened again. Mom had called to say she’d be several hours late so Dad would bring home pizza, but the clinic didn’t close for another hour. With Dad driving his “reliable steed,” his restored Ford Mustang (the only car name Jesse knew because Dad said it so many times), it took another twenty minutes after that to pick up pizza, even though it was barely out of the way. Jesse and Chuck were on their own.

“Miss Piggy’s dead again,” Chuck said, matter-of-fact. “We have to go put her in the fridge.”

“Mom said no.” Jesse didn’t look away from the TV. Chuck didn’t know what she was talking about. Jesse must have gotten it wrong last time. Maybe guinea pigs liked to play dead like possums. And anyway, Jesse really wanted to keep watching. Catwoman had just found her missing cat Isis at a place running cruel experiments on animals. Jesse wanted a cat way more than she wanted a guinea pig, but Mom said no cats until Jesse was responsible enough to clean the litter box herself. Therefore, the closest Jesse got to a cat was the TV and when Dad took her to visit the clinic.

Chuck huffed. “Mom doesn’t know that the fridge is magic. Come on.”

A commercial for Ring Pops took over the screen and Jesse blinked herself back into the real world. She looked down at Miss Piggy in Chuck’s lap. Oh. Oh no. Miss Piggy was not playing possum. “Chuck, I really don’t think—”

“Well I do,” Chuck said, cutting her off. “Don’t cry, Jesse. The fridge will fix her.”

But it wouldn’t, because Miss Piggy hadn’t really been dead before, and they’d just been lucky Mom came home when she did. If anything, being stored in the fridge like leftover meatloaf probably made her sick. Which meant that Miss Piggy being dead now was all Jesse’s fault. And she was so heartless she hadn’t even looked away from her show. 

“You have to help me open the door,” Chuck said, pulling on Jesse’s arm. 

Jesse allowed herself to be dragged through the kitchen and the breezeway and then into the garage. Chuck held Miss Piggy, all four feet pointed to the ceiling, in the crook of her other arm. 

Chuck set Miss Piggy on a dust-covered workbench, then the girls pried the fridge door open. Jesse reluctantly held the door while Chuck gathered Miss Piggy up and tried to set her on her feet on the metal grate of the shelf. The light stuttered as the guinea pig flopped over. Jesse tugged Chuck back and closed the door before Chuck could try a second time. The fridge was humming that extra-loud hum of a hundred bees again. 

“I’m going to wait two minutes,” Chuck declared, craning her neck to see the kitchen clock through the breezeway. “I think that’s how long before Mom opened it last time.”

Two minutes. Two minutes to figure out how to break it to Chuck that Miss Piggy wasn’t coming back. The clock tick, tick, ticked. Jesse’s shoulders slumped.

Chuck gave Jesse a pointed look as she grabbed the bottom of the D-shaped door handle exactly two minutes later. Jesse held onto the top of the handle. They pulled.

Miss Piggy was still on her back, but her feet were paddling the air like she was trying to swim. She twisted once, twice, then rolled over onto her feet. Her toes slipped through the metal grate. She squealed at them like she was an ambulance siren, Ree Ree Ree! 

Chuck hugged the guinea pig to her chest and rested her cheek against Miss Piggy’s furry head. “Good job, Miss Piggy. Good job, fridge.”

Jesse closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. She started to laugh. She was losing her mind, like all those poor people the Joker hit with his poisonous gas. “This doesn’t make any sense, Chuck.”

“Sure it does,” Chuck said. “The fridge makes food fresh. It just did the same thing for Miss Piggy.”

“The fridge can’t make food fresh once it’s gone bad and it definitely can’t bring anything back to life. What about all the times Mom’s bought chicken or turkeys?”

“They don’t even have heads. Maybe they’re super dead and Miss Piggy was only a little dead.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“You’re only three years older than me. Stop pretending like you know that much.”

“Ask Mom! Ask Dad!”

“Miss Piggy was dead and now she’s alive and it’s because of the fridge.” Chuck turned her nose up in her favorite “so there” move.

Everything she said was true. “You’re not wrong,” Jesse said.

Chuck beamed. “So I’m right!”

“But it doesn’t make any sense!”

“Maybe it will when we’re older,” Chuck said, repeating what their parents liked to say anytime they didn’t want to explain something.

“I don’t care anymore,” Jesse said. She really didn’t. Miss Piggy was alive. The commercial break was over by now and Jesse was missing her show. “Let’s go watch TV.”

Three weeks later Miss Piggy had died and been resurrected three more times. There was no denying it, but there was no explaining it to their parents either. Their parents were always at work when Miss Piggy died, and the girls didn’t want to risk waiting too long to stick her in the fridge after they’d tested the timing with dead bugs they’d found in the yard. Only a few of the bugs came back. If they’d been dead too long, the fridge was no help.

It was Saturday morning. Jesse and Chuck had just finished the latest episode of X-Men. Chuck was watching a squirrel from the big picture window and Jesse was debating whether she was going to ask for a yellow jacket like Jubilee’s for Christmas or more Nancy Drew books when they heard a familiar squeal of tires head down their block and then the skid of a car coming to a too-quick stop before lurching into the driveway. Grandma was here. 

“Grandma killed a chipmunk!” Chuck said with uncharacteristic delight. “We can show Mom and Dad the fridge!”

“Fat chance,” Jesse mumbled, both because her parents were currently fighting over who would drive on their anniversary getaway and because even their Dad, but especially their Mom, wouldn’t let them scrape bloody roadkill off the street and bring it inside. 

“I’m getting the shovel out of our sandbox,” Chuck said. “Keep Grandma from seeing.”

That would be hard. Grandma noticed everything. It was why she and Mom never seemed to get along, which was funny because according to Dad, Mom noticed everything and that was usually what got Dad in trouble. But even Chuck, who regularly wiped her boogers on the walls, thought Dad couldn’t wash a dish to save his life. 

Jesse put on her bucket hat and double-knotted her shoelaces even though she was going to come right back inside. According to her favorite movie Pagemaster, way too many accidents happened close to home because people were careless and had a false sense of security. Dad had told the girls to never walk in front of or behind Grandma’s car, because Grandma might see everything but that didn’t mean she always remembered to put the car in park. If Jesse went out there now to distract her, Grandma would expect her to help her with her bags. That meant standing behind the trunk of the car. So Jesse had to be ready to run and she wasn’t going to let the sun in her eyes or some loose shoelaces trip her up. 

Ready, Jesse pushed the protesting screen door open. “Hi Grandma!” she called.

“How are you doing, dear?” Grandma scooted out of the car one inch at a time before standing at her full four foot eleven height and patting her already-perfect hair into place. “Help me with my luggage, won’t you?”

“Of course.” From the corner of her eye, Jesse spotted Chuck sneaking across the yard with the yellow plastic shovel like she was Tom about to catch Jerry. It might have been effective if she wasn’t also sloshing through a foot of fallen leaves. Jesse started to sweat. “Did you bring us cookies, Grandma?”

“If I didn’t they would revoke my grandma license, honey.” Grandma winked.

Jesse smiled. “I would make them give it back. Even if you didn’t bring us any.”

Grandma laughed as she moved toward the trunk at a turtle’s pace. Chuck froze behind the tree between the sidewalk and the street. 

The screen door swung open and Dad strode across the lawn. “Good to see you, Helena. Let me help you with those.” He reoriented Jesse with one hand, guiding her back toward the house. Jesse turned around at the door and saw Chuck zip in and out of the street while Dad and Grandma dug Grandma’s pink leather bag and half a dozen reused grocery sacks filled with Tupperware containers out of the trunk.

Jesse met Chuck in the garage. Chuck raised the yellow shovel way too close to Jesse’s face and Jesse backed up a step. There wasn’t much of the chipmunk left. Half of it must still be stuck to Grandma’s tire. “Chuck…”

Predictably, snot and tears streamed down Chuck’s face, pooling at her chin. “I know…”

“Give it to me,” Jesse said.

Chuck held the handle out and hung her head once Jesse had taken it from her. “I really thought…”

Jesse ruffled her hair. It was becoming a habit. “Thanksgiving is a Thursday and  just a few weeks away. Mom and Dad will be home when Miss Piggy dies and you can prove it to them then. I’ll put this poor guy back outside.” 

When their parents left, Mom had a twitch under her eye thanks to Grandma, who said she’d clean the house from top to bottom while they were gone. But Mom hadn’t told Grandma no, which was how Jesse and Chuck ended up with bandanas covering their hair and rags in their hands for the rest of Saturday. 

Grandma squeezed Chuck into the crevices behind the heaviest furniture to dust and drive out spiders, and set Jesse to work on refolding all the kitchen linens into thirds instead of halves the way Mom liked. Then Grandma made them sort through the hodge podge of their empty Tupperware to match the lids to the bases before stacking them neatly in the cabinet. After that they threw out everything in the kitchen fridge that was past or nearing its expiration date. Then there was sweeping the sidewalks, driveway, and garage for the girls while Grandma vacuumed inside. On and on they went, until they were too tired and hungry to do anymore. 

Dinner was a lasagna Grandma had made the day before and brought in her matching Tupperware. They sat at the table, said their prayers, and dug in. After bath time they’d earned the TV again, but Grandma got to pick. Grandma wanted to watch a black and white movie, but it was about a fast-talking woman with a leopard named Baby, so that was okay. 

When a movie ended, Grandma always liked to give one big clap and say things like “That Cary Grant” or “Humphrey Bogart, what a man.” But tonight she kept staring at the TV, even after there was nothing to stare at. 

“Grandma?” Jesse said. “Are you okay?”

There was no answer. Jesse waved her hand in front of Grandma’s face, but she didn’t blink. Jesse shook Grandma’s shoulder quickly before pulling her hand back. Still nothing.

This wasn’t okay. Grandma couldn’t die like this. Jesse didn’t know how to reach her parents, and Mom would feel so awful, and seeing a dead guinea pig or chipmunk was one thing but Chuck was too young to see a dead person. She’d be scarred for life.

Chuck was unfolding a blanket. She tucked part of it behind Grandma’s shoulders. 

“What are you doing?” Jesse asked.

“It’ll be easier to move her if she’s on a blanket.” Chuck rounded the couch and shimmied one corner of the blanket under Grandma and toward her knees. She did the same with the other corner. 

“Chuck, Grandma is…”

“I know,” Chuck said. “She’s dead.”

Jesse wasn’t sure if this meant Chuck wasn’t scarred for life, that she was very, very scarred for life, or if this just figured, given Jesse’s theory that Mom and Dad adopted her sister from a pack of wolves. “We need to call 911.”

“We just need to put her in the fridge.”

“We can’t put Grandma in the fridge!”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s Grandma!” Her hair was already starting to look a little flat on the side. Grandma would hate that. 

“What does that mean?”

“It’s— it’s bad manners,” Jesse said, but she wasn’t sure herself. Her words sounded like an excuse. 

Chuck’s look said she wasn’t buying it, and it reminded Jesse so much of Mom’s very same look. Mom wouldn’t just feel awful that Grandma was dead, she’d be devastated. 

“Okay.” Jesse swallowed down every half-formed thought about why this was a bad idea. “Let’s put Grandma in the fridge.”

Helena Miller was following a golden light and the feeling of a warm hug when a deafening buzzing noise from behind her caught her attention. The golden light disappeared, replaced by the bluish-white illumination and stale, iffy smell of a seldom-cleaned fridge. Her cheek was pressed against the wall. Her arms and legs were going every which way, like she’d been crammed in by someone used to playing with dolls rather than an adult with a general knowledge of human anatomy. 

The door burst open and her granddaughters’ faces came into view. “Grandma!” they shouted as they tugged her out and hugged her. 

Around them, Tupperware and pop cans lay scattered on the floor with the wire shelves of the fridge. The girls had put her in the fridge. The girls. Had put her. In the fridge.

Jesse sobbed out: “You died!”

“But the fridge saved you!” Charlotte chimed in. “And now you have to come visit us every weekend, so when you die again we can bring you back.”

“That’s true,” Jesse said. “It only lasts a week.”

Helena Miller had been sober since her husband’s funeral. She’d shamefully chugged the entire bottle of port they’d been saving for their fiftieth wedding anniversary and told herself never again. But today, today she would have a drink.

Helena sent the girls to bed and poured herself a hearty glass of crisp white from the box Susan kept in the kitchen fridge. It was that or the foul-smelling gin Dave stocked in the cupboard. She shivered. What she wouldn’t give for a hot toddy...

She didn’t want to believe it, but she could sense it was true. She had died. She had died. When Eddie died she’d contemplated death often, written a will, put all her other affairs in order, and moved to an apartment in a “retirement village.” But that was all play-acting. Even though Eddie had gone and done it, she didn’t think she would honestly die. She hadn’t the time or inclination for it. Not that Eddie had either, but he’d always been less mindful than she—leaving change in his pockets and the gas cap loose, the oven on and the garden tools outside in the rain—so it didn’t feel surprising when he passed so much as irritating, as though he’d simply been too careless to remember to live. 

She had died, and that changed things. There was what needed doing today, like the baking and cleaning and mending, and there was what could be done tomorrow, like eating a chocolate croissant in Paris, driving down Highway 1 in a convertible with the top down, and smoothing things over with Susan. Helena had put off so many tomorrows.

The girls had explained all about their guinea pig and Helena had shared a look of understanding with Miss Roast Piggy. The pig, too, had had a glimpse of the other side. But unlike the guinea pig, Helena was free to choose the best way to spend the next six and a half days until the great beyond called for her return. In truth, Helena made a damn fine chocolate croissant herself and driving with the windows so much as cracked destroyed her coiffure, which meant there was only one thing she absolutely must do in the time she had left—make sure her daughter would be okay.

A night away had eased the set of Susan’s shoulders, but Helena’s request tensed them again. “May I stay a few more days?” she asked as she gathered the family at the dining table for late afternoon coffee cake paired with tea for the adults and hot cocoa for the girls. Food was the most effective bribery. “My apartment is being fumigated. A horrendous roach situation.”

Susan blanched. “Do you think you brought any with you?”

“I’ve checked my belongings and car thoroughly. They’re all roach-free, dear.” That sounded a little snotty, even to Helena’s ears. She softened her tone, “I promise, I would notice.” Which didn’t seem to be the right thing to say either as Susan heaved a sigh.

“Of course you’re welcome to stay,” Dave said, darting a glance to Susan. “As long as you wouldn’t be more comfortable in a hotel?” 

An impish part of her delighted, just a little, in dashing his hopes. “I’d like to stay here if you don’t mind. More time with the girls. We started their Halloween costumes—” untrue, but she looked to the girls and was satisfied they were paying enough attention to corroborate her story “—and there isn’t much time left to finish before the big day.”

“Oh yes, please let Grandma stay,” Charlotte said. “We need to finish our costumes.”

“Yep, costumes,” Jesse echoed, tucking her hands behind her back and staring at the ceiling as her face turned red. The girl was practically allergic to lies. 

“Well you’re already set up in the guest bedroom,” Susan said. Her words implied it wouldn’t be a problem, but her face said otherwise.

“Easy, peasy,” Helena said, knowing this would be anything but.

Monday passed with little fanfare. Susan’s work was meant to end in time for her to be with the girls right after school, but she was an hour late. Helena made meatloaf. Dave and the girls sang her praises. Susan picked at hers and went to bed early.

Tuesday, the temperature dropped another ten degrees. Helena couldn’t wear enough layers. Every time she went out of the house she thought she smelled the inside of the fridge. She worked on costumes for the girls—a puppy outfit for Charlotte and a cat for Jesse, who wanted to be Catwoman but would have to wait to fulfill that dream until she turned thirty if Helena had anything to say about it. Though she wouldn’t, would she? Helena had to put her sewing down for a good ten minutes after that awful thought.

Susan was late again and this time brought work home, shutting herself in the small office beside the girls’ room. Helena had several nightcaps of boxed white wine before giving up and going to bed.

Wednesday, Susan forgot her lunch. Helena drove to the office, intent on taking Susan out. The drab little building housing Briggs’ Insurance was a unique shade between gray and brown that managed to be depressing and forgettable all at once. Through one of the large windows, Susan was visible at her desk, her shoulders hunched as a man yelled and flapped his hands about, revealing the stains at the pits of his dress shirt. 

Helena hustled to the door, which is to say, she carefully put one foot in front of the other at the fastest pace that did not endanger her. She got her kicks out of driving like a bat out of hell, not trotting about like she had steel hips. The bell hung at the top of the door chimed as she entered. A gray-haired receptionist who had been leaning back in her chair to overhear the goings-on whipped her head toward Helena. “Hello, ma’am, how can we help you at Briggs’ Insurance today?”

“I’m here to take my daughter Susan out to lunch.”

“Oh, I don’t think today is a good day—”

Helena silenced her with a look and walked to the office door. The man’s voice grated through the flimsy manufactured panel: “Padding the numbers is how we pay the rent in this business, Susan! Put a little more flirtation in it with the single men, hell, the married ones too, and they’ll never notice a few extra bucks on their quarterlies.” 

Helena checked her coiffure in her hand mirror and called on Katherine Hepburn to give her strength, wit, and aplomb, then turned the knob and pushed the door open. 

“And another thing—” The man stopped mid-rant, jerking around toward Helena. “Ma’am?”

“I’ll say…” Helena said with her best Hepburn-drawl. “Surely you couldn’t be—”

Susan sliced a hand in slow motion across her throat, her eyes frantic.

Helena cleared her throat. “—Dougie Briggs, Howard’s boy? I remember when you… Well, I really don’t, now. My memory’s been a touch hazy lately. Do you mind if I take my daughter out to lunch, Dougie?”

Briggs sucked his teeth and stuck the edge of his tongue out between them. “Well…”

“It’s my birthday, you see,” Helena said with a hand to her chest. It wasn’t. She was lying an awful lot lately. Hopefully that wouldn’t count against her. “So it’s more like she’s taking me out. And I don’t have many birthdays left…” None, in fact. That, at least, was truthful.

“Of course, of course.” Briggs straightened his tie and thumped past her. “Back by one, Susan. The Dilworths are coming in.”

Susan sighed and grabbed the unflattering, shapeless sack with a strap she called a purse. Helena made a mental note to stop by the department store after lunch. She’d never elevate Susan’s fashion sense, but perhaps her daughter would use a new bag out of guilt after Helena passed. 

“I can handle it,” Susan said once they were seated at a white-clothed table at Clementine’s. “I am handling it. I know how it looks. But you need to trust me.”

“Of course I trust you,” Helena said. “But how is taking that abuse and participating in fraud handling it?” 

“If you trusted me, you wouldn’t question it.” 

“I’m worried about you. And I won’t be around forever—”

Susan said, “Only a few more days—” 

What? How did she know? Did one of the girls say something? Helena gently laid her fork on her plate. How could her own daughter know she was about to die and spend all this extra time working? 

“Sorry,” Susan said. “You were saying?”

“Never mind.” Helena wiped her mouth with her napkin. She’d overreacted. Such silliness, to think Susan would care so little. The dwindling days were frazzling her, that was all. 

Thursday the guinea pig died. Jesse and Charlotte were prepared. After two minutes in the fridge, Miss Piggy was back and very vocal about it. 

“You know, girls,” Helena said. “Miss Piggy has reached her time. It’s best that you let her go.”

Charlotte said, “No, thank you,” which was apparently what Ms. Jackson, her teacher, had been saying anytime the children behaved poorly. Charlotte had taken to saying it every time someone wanted her to do something she disagreed with. Helena could admire the polite firmness, perhaps, in a full-grown woman, but in a child it was downright obnoxious. 

Jesse stared at Helena, comprehension dawning in those young eyes. “But you’re saying…”

Helena nodded. Charlotte, oblivious to the conversation, tried to sneak a cookie out of the nearest Tupperware container in the still-open fridge. Helena let her. There would only be so many more cookies.

Jesse’s face twisted in sadness and a surprising amount of rage. “You and Mom are still fighting. You can’t die yet!”

“I wouldn’t say fighting, honey. We’ve always been… oil and water. Different. But she knows I love her.” 

“No, she doesn’t,” Jesse said. “You tell us all the time, but you never tell her. How is she supposed to know if you never tell her?” 

How did you explain to a child that telling their innocent, adorable face “I love you” was easy because they hadn’t yet packed decades of relationship baggage too large to stuff in an airplane’s cargo hold, never mind the overhead bin? 

Jesse was looking at her expectantly. 

“I’ll tell her,” Helena said. If her goal was to make sure she didn’t leave Susan with any regrets, she supposed it wasn’t the worst place to start, even if their “I love yous” were a bit dusty and moth-eaten.

Jesse crossed her arms. “As soon as she gets home, Grandma.” 

For heaven’s sake… little girls acting like they were adults when they barely knew how to tie their shoelaces.

“As soon as she gets home,” Helena agreed, crossing her arms too.

The large garage door opened and “as soon she gets home” became “right now,” which was too soon for Helena’s comfort. “I have to use the bathroom,” she said.

“Your pants are on fire,” Jesse called as Helena turned into the kitchen. Helena was almost proud of the audacious little thing.

Friday, Helena tried to say the three big words over a batch of her famous cinnamon rolls. Nothing greased the wheels of family accord like the smell of warm sugar and cinnamon, but Susan refused to sit down. 

Helena followed her to the car and presented her with a cinnamon roll wrapped in a square of aluminum foil. “I l—”

“I won’t have time to eat that, Mom,” Susan said as she turned the key in the ignition, then pushed the remote to open the garage. 

“I need to talk to you.” The door lurched over her head, the rapidly opening mouth of the garage reducing her odds.

“I can’t be late today.” Susan clenched the steering wheel, staring through the windshield.

“It’s an hour before you open.”

“Which today is right on time as long as I leave now.” Susan put the car in reverse and flung an arm over the passenger seat to look behind her, never once meeting Helena’s eyes. “Let’s talk tomorrow.”

There’d always be tomorrow—how could Helena complain? Susan had learned it from her.

“Tonight,” Helena bargained. Her voice cracked.

Susan’s head didn’t move but she went very still. “Okay, tonight. Watch your toes, Mom.”

Helena backed away. Susan’s retreat down the driveway was slow and cautious, just like Eddie had taught her. At the end of the drive, Susan raised a tentative hand. Helena lifted a hand too. Not quite waving, but something. Something that connected, no matter the distance. 

Susan was home two hours early and her smile nearly split her face. “It’s finally over,” she said, pouring herself white wine to the brim of her glass. School had yet to let out and they were alone in the kitchen. 

“What happened?” Helena plated a leftover cinnamon roll and popped into the microwave.

“Briggs has been arrested. He was overcharging customers and siphoning it to personal accounts. I’ve been helping the head office and the police gather evidence for weeks.”

The microwave beeped. Helena took the hot plate out and slid it in front of Susan. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Susan shoveled a forkful of cinnamon roll into her mouth and chewed with her eyes closed. Only after she’d savored it and swallowed did she answer. “Dave is as bad at keeping secrets as he is at washing dishes. This is the man who has to get presents on Christmas Eve because he’ll tell everyone what he bought before he’s even done the wrapping.” Susan twirled her wedding ring around her finger. “If he knew, he might not have told Briggs directly, but he would have let it slip out to someone, ‘Oh Susan can’t come to the PTA tonight, she’s staying late so they can throw the book at her no-good boss.’”

“You could have told me.”

“We don’t talk about anything except the girls and recipes, Mom.”

Helena thought back. It was true, with the addition of how to get stains out of various fabrics, which might as well be a subcategory of ‘the girls.’ “I’m— sorry,” Helena said. 

After taking a long drink of her wine, Susan shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not like I ask you what you’re up to at Seven Oak Village.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m a little afraid to.”

“Why?”

“It’s stupid.” Susan flushed. There was little wine left in the glass and it seemed the rest had rushed to her head. 

“I’m listening.”

“I don’t like to think of you as old. Retirement homes are for old people and you’re not. Old, that is. You can’t be, because that would mean you could… Like Dad… and Dad wasn’t even old, not really.” Susan turned her head away, her glass held in loose fingers. 

“I love you, Susan,” Helena said. The words were shaky but resonant. 

“I love you too, Mom.” Susan blinked wetly at her, her mouth twisting. 

Helena stood, then bent hesitantly before hugging her daughter. “I hope I never gave you reason to doubt it.”

Susan lay a hand across Helena’s back and tucked her face against Helena’s neck. “For a while there it felt like I didn’t matter anymore, not once the girls were around. I was just functional, the handler for the cute kids. Don’t get me wrong, I love them to pieces. But I stopped feeling like a person. And it wasn’t just with you. It was with everyone, even Dave sometimes. But I knew you loved me.” 

She pulled away from Helena and looked her in the eyes. “The girls adore your mammoth cookies, but oatmeal raisin is too refined for their palate,” she said with a snicker. “But you always bring a Tupperware of oatmeal raisin too, every time you visit.” 

Helena smiled as she sat back down. “And I’ve never been without the latest Mary Reeves novel for longer than a day after publication, thanks to you.”

“You know, I read one once. Those are very steamy novels, Mother.”

 “Well, your father and I—”

Susan spluttered over her last sip of wine. “That is one thing we do not need to talk about.” 

Dave, once he’d been made aware of the situation, wanted to take Susan out for a celebratory date on Saturday night. Susan wanted it to be a full family outing, but Helena insisted she watch the girls, and the girls, aware of the timing, insisted on staying too.

Helena hugged Dave with an extra squeeze for good measure, and knew he’d be there the way Susan would need when she was gone. Susan she held too tightly for too long, to the point that Susan knew something was up. 

“Is everything okay, Mom?” Susan asked, holding her back just as tightly.

“Just fine. Enjoy yourselves!” She released her daughter with a smile. “I love you.”

Susan echoed the words with another tight hug.

Jesse let out a deep breath and muttered something that sounded like “Finally.”

As Susan and Dave drove off, Helena took each girl by the hand and led them into the house. They tugged her into the kitchen and toward the breezeway. She planted her feet outside the garage. “No, girls. Let’s go sit on the sofa. I never did get to finish Bringing Up Baby.”

“But Grandma…” Tears gathered in Charlotte’s eyes.

“This kind of thing has a long-lasting impact on kids, you know,” Jesse said.

Helena smiled. “You’ll be fine.” She’d never once thought otherwise. If Susan would be okay, then Jesse and Charlotte would too. “I am very grateful for the extra time, girls. That was an unimaginable gift. But I have somewhere to go and your grandfather to see.”

She tucked a girl under each arm as they piled on the sofa. While the movie was as delightful as she remembered, Helena let her thoughts drift away to her first date with Eddie, their first night in their new house together—an evening not unlike a Mary Reeves novel, Susan’s birth and every milestone thereafter, the beautiful way the sun shone through the elm’s yellow leaves this morning… The sunshine was growing stronger, warm and golden…

Jesse had been watching Grandma carefully for the last few minutes. She shook Grandma’s shoulder. This time she didn’t pull away scared. 

“What do we do, Jesse?” Chuck asked. 

“She said no fridge.” Jesse’s lip wobbled. She didn’t care what Grandma said, she wasn’t fine. She wouldn’t be fine.

“What will we do when the cookies run out?” Chuck said, poking at the crumbs on her plate.

Jesse jumped up and ruffled Chuck’s hair. “Chuck, you’re a genius.”

Helena woke with her cheek vibrating against the fridge wall, surrounded by that deafening, otherworldly hum. She sighed. 

The door opened.

“You forgot to give us your cookie recipe,” Jesse said. “You promised.”

Mouth full of cookie, Charlotte said, “I’ll starve without it.”

Helena looked heavenward, or rather to the underside of the icebox, and sighed again in a way only grandmas can. “One more week, girls. That’s it.”