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This is not the time to think about Gideon, I told myself, shutting those thoughts down. I didn’t know why I was putting this off. I wanted to know about Wilma Allen. It was part of the reason I’d come to Little Beach, yet I continued to make excuses. That wasn’t like me, and I was tired of it being me, so after making sure to get at least a half day’s work in, I’d gone home, showered, and walked over.
Now I just needed to knock.
The door opened before I had the chance, and there he was, Gene, the man who had loved my grandmother.
“The steps are holding up,” was the first thing I said. “Sorry again for fixing them without asking. It was a hazard, and at your age, not very safe.”
Gene chuckled. “Most things aren’t very safe at my age. I’m older than your grandmother.”
Crap. That was probably rude. People didn’t like to be reminded of their ages. “Would you like to invite me in?” I asked.
“Of course.” Gene stepped aside. “Come in.”
I went into the house. It was clean and homey, if slightly cluttered for my taste. I didn’t like a lot of extra stuff, like knickknacks. The furniture was older but in good shape. My mom would hate it, but she was picky in a different way than I was. I wondered if Wilma Allen had been as well.
“Are you my biological grandfather?” My brain told me it was maybe not the best way to ask and that I should work up to it, but I wasn’t always good at listening to those thoughts reminding me how I should act or react. Most of the time, I just did what felt right.
“I wish I could say I was, but no, I’m not.”
“Oh.” I walked through the living room, looking at photos on the walls of Gene with Wilma Allen. “Did you know my biological grandfather?”
“No. Are you thirsty? I have tea and orange juice.”
“Orange juice is for breakfast. Tea, please. Unsweet.”
Gene grinned.
“What?”
“Wilma hated sugar in her tea too.”
“Oh,” I said again. It was becoming my favorite word lately. It seemed like Wilma Allen and I had a lot in common…well, two things. So far, we had two things in common.
“I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared into the kitchen. When he was gone, I plucked a photo of Wilma Allen on the beach off the wall. She was beautiful. Her hair was like milk chocolate the way Mom’s was. They had the same smile, but where Mom’s face was clear, Wilma Allen had freckles like me.
“I can put it back,” I told Gene when he came back into the room.
“It’s fine. You can look at whatever you want. It would make Wilma happy.”
I took the glass from him. “My mom is very upset with her. She didn’t want to come… She never wanted to stay in Little Beach or to come back. I didn’t understand it until I heard about Wilma Allen.”
He nodded, sad understanding in his eyes. “She’s entitled to her feelings. I’m sure it’s hard for her to understand. But Wilma loved her. She has always loved Beverly more than anything in this world. Life is complicated sometimes.”
“Can you tell me why? Why she gave Mom away?” I thought about my mom, how protective of me she was, how she’d chosen me over her husband. Sometimes she pushed too hard and wanted too much control, but I’d always known she loved me because of it.
“It wasn’t like that. Well, I guess that’s what she did, but it wasn’t what she wanted to do. All she wanted was what was best for your mom.”
I took a drink of the tea, looked down at the photo again. “Will you tell me? The story? I want…I want to feel close to her, even if she’s not here, but it’s hard for me because I don’t know or understand her. In my head she’s the person who hurt my mom, but she’s also the person who gave me a bookstore and watched me online, and she wouldn’t do that if she didn’t care.”
“She cared very much.” Gene walked slowly over to the couch and sat down. I took the armchair across from him, putting my drink on the table beside me. “Wilma was seventeen when your mom was born—sixteen when she got pregnant. Back then, people didn’t do those things. Her family was poor, and she hadn’t yet finished school. She couldn’t take care of herself, much less a baby. Her parents would have disowned her. They nearly did just because she’d gotten pregnant.”
That all made sense. My mom was sixty. She’d had me at thirty-six. It hadn’t been a planned pregnancy because she hadn’t thought she wanted kids. My father hadn’t either. She’d been on birth control, but apparently I was an eager swimmer, which was really gross to think about, so I nipped those thoughts in the bud. But Wilma had been seventy-seven when she died, and all those years ago, I couldn’t imagine it was acceptable for a sixteen-year-old to be pregnant.
