Her hands find a loose ball of roving from her bag and begin working it automatically, fingers pulling and rolling the fiber without conscious direction, the way other people breathe.
“Well,” she says, “I’m happy to be here. And whatever’s got you so jumpy, you can tell me whenever you’re ready.”She smiles, easy and open, and her thumbs press the wool flat. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I blow on my coffee and try to calculate how long I can keep Gram in this one chair.
The bedroom door is closed, at least.
I think I closed it.
Did I close it?
I was too busy panicking to remember.
Gram’s fingers work the roving into a small oval shape, her hands moving like they have their own agenda.
“This house smells different,” she says. “What’s that? Mineral, almost. Like creek stones. A new ingredient?”
My stomach drops.
“Yup,” I say quickly. “I’m experimenting with kaolin clay bases. Very earthy.”
“Mm.” She doesn’t look up from her felting. “Smells nice. Clean.”
Something creaks down the hall.
Gram’s eyes flick toward the sound.
“Plumbing,” I say. “The pipes make noises. Old house.”
A soft thump from under the bedroom door, like someone adjusting their weight.
Gram’s head tilts.
I set my mug down too hard and coffee sloshes over the rim. “Wow, these pipes sure are chatty today! Must be the temperature change.”
Gram watches me mop up the spill with my bathrobe sleeve.
Her expression is unreadable.
Then she returns to her wool, humming something that might be a hymn.
The bedroom door nudges open about two inches.
I catch it in my peripheral vision and my entire body goes rigid.
Gram’s back is to the hallway.
She can’t see it.
She can’t see the faint iridescent shimmer on the edge of the doorframe, or the way the door seems to be holding itself ajar.
“Gram,” I say, my voice climbing, “would you like breakfast? I could make eggs. Ihave eggs.”
She looks up at me, her eyebrows raised at my sudden enthusiasm for domestic labor.
“You don’t even like eggs. It’s always pancakes with you.”
Wow. I’m so nervous, I’ve forgotten my own breakfast preferences.
