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Elise leans over the speaker. “How’d you guess?”
“Okay. Lily, we won’t tell him anything and send him on his way.”
If I have a complicated feeling, it’s this—I don’t recognize my grandpapa anymore. The man who took pictures of me on the first day of school and sanghappy birthdayto me and put me to bed at night would never do the things he’s apparently done, and is still doing. He never grounded me when I was anactualteenager. I can’t get rid of the nagging idea that I haven’t tried hard enough. That if I could just say the right words to him, he’d change back into the grandfather I’ve known and be appalled at his behavior and do everything he could to make it up to me.
“Does he seem…” I hear myself ask. I don’t want to be asking. The words are happening to me. “Does he seem like he means it? Is this…could he be trying to reconcile?”
“As far as I know, he hasn’t mentioned anything about that. The man who’s with him told me that he’s demanding to be let into the building to see his granddaughter. There’s a dulltap tap tap.The direct quote he sent is,I have the right to a conversation with my granddaughter and I have the right to give her a gift, and you don’t have the standing to stop me.”
“Okay, well, clearly your security guy does have the standing.” A bizarre argument for Grandpapa to make.
“I’ll tell him we’re not taking visitors. Us, as in the Hills. It’s already public knowledge that we live here, so we’re not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. You won’t come into it.”
“Okay,” I say. Charlotte leans forward and fusses with some of the lace. “Sounds great.”
“Perfect. Sweet thing, I’m bringing the baby down in a few minutes.”
Charlotte lets out a breath. “I was just about to text you and say my boobs are killing me.”
“Don’t let her get killed by her own boobs, Mason,” Elise says.
“I wouldnever,” he says. “Bye.”
Charlotte drops her phone with a soft laugh. “We can get this pinned by then. I believe in us.”
On the couch, Jameson breathes deep and even, one hand on his chest, the other arm over his head. The painkillers are good for getting some sleep, at least. He hasn’t seemed to have any nightmares.
I don’t think that’s going to last.
Charlotte pins.
Elise hovers.
I watch us in the mirror.
The premature excited hope I felt when we were talking about finding my mom evaporates.
“I think we should wait.”
“Yeah?” Charlotte’s blue eyes come up to mine.
“If she’s dead, then…that’s sad news.” If she’s dead, she’ll never see my wedding dress, or even a photo of it, and it’s already too late. “And if she’s alive, I don’t want to put her in danger, too.”
15
JAMESON
“How do you want me to do it?”
This photographer Gabriel knows for some reason cocks his head to the side. He puts his camera down on the picnic table a couple steps away, turns to his brother, and starts signing, his hands flying through the air so fast they almost blur.
His brother signs back.
More signing.
They’re twins, I guess. Our photographer’s the dark-haired one, and his brother is the sandy blond one, and other than that they’re identical, so the hair is helpful. Not that they’re wearing matching clothes or anything. The photographer, whose name is August, wears jeans and a black, long-sleeved T-shirt. It’s one of those expensive ones with no logo. His brother, who I guess is Julien the Journalist, wears sharp-looking slacks and a white button-down. I wonder if they wingman for each other or what.
Then August faces us again and keeps signing.
