how proud she was of me before she went to bed. No one has ever loved me as much as Grandma. I thought that Bryan did. I thought he was my Prince Charming, coming to take me away. But I was wrong. So wrong. But that’s a moment for another day.
The best part of our nightly routine was Grandma reading me a book. Of course, we said prayers, too. But the book always came first
“Got the book you want to read?” Grandma asked me, then five.
I grabbed a book from the bookshelf Grandma had found at a yard sale. She sanded and painted it and made it look like new. I loved my pink bookshelf.
“Didn’t we just read that book last night and the night before and the night before that?” Grandma asked.
I nodded and my pigtails laced with purple ribbons bounced.
“Well, OK then. Hop on up.”
I snuggled next to Grandma on the patched sofa. She slipped one arm around me and started to read, her index finger sliding under the words as she went.
I loved the story of Cinderella. How she went to the ball and met the prince and had mice for friends. Oh, and a fairy godmother who made all of her dreams come true. In my mind, the fairy godmother looked like Grandma, whose basic wardrobe was tan khakis and some sort of button-down blouse she made, usually a floral print.
Grandma tucked me in bed and placed a glass of water, half full, on my nightstand. I always liked to have a drink nearby so if I woke up and was thirsty, it would be right there.
I folded my hands and Grandma folded hers and we prayed together.
“Wait,” I said when we got to the “Amen” part.
“And God bless Rachel and Grandma. Oh, and can you make Matt happy and love me like he loved my mom?”
I heard Grandma gasp, and I opened my eyes to see her wiping her blotchy face on her pajama sleeve.
I prayed and prayed my whole life for Matt to be happy, but he never was. I wanted him to be happy more than I wanted him to love me. I gave up on him loving me when he stopped coming around after Grandma kicked him out of the house. I wasn’t mad that Grandma kicked him out. He kept wrecking things and made Grandma cry all of the time. It wasn’t long after Grandma kicked him out that we moved into a small apartment where the landlord mowed the yard and did other outside work. My bedroom wasn’t as big as it was in the house, but it was right next to Grandma’s instead of down the hall and I liked that.
Olivia sets her pink and purple princess table with her ceramic floral china set. There’s a setting for her and her best friend, Emma, and one for Olivia’s doll, Sadie, and one for Emma’s doll, Nellie.
“Is it time yet?” Olivia calls to her mother.
“Almost,” Elizabeth says.
Each week, the five-year-olds have a play date and this week it’s at Olivia’s house. The doorbell rings and Olivia races to the front door. The girls hug and Emma and Olivia run to the playroom where they’ll spend most of the afternoon. The room is packed with every toy a little girl could want – from a play kitchen to an immense dollhouse to a puppet theater complete with a red velvet curtain.
Elizabeth walks in with a plate filled with grapes, carrot sticks, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches cut into quarters, diagonally. She places a quarter on each girl’s plate.
“Don’t forget Sadie and Nellie,” Olivia says. “They’re hungry.”
Elizabeth puts a quarter on their plates, too, and sets the rest in the middle of the table.
The girls dig in Olivia’s sparkly pink dress-up trunk for hats and boas to wear. Olivia wears her Cinderella gown and Emma chooses the Snow White dress. Olivia picks the tea-party hat with the pink chandelle feathers and matching boa and short-sleeve gloves. Emma picks the tea-party hat with the ruffle trim and matching boa and long-sleeve gloves. They pull out the pink and purple chairs with heart-shaped cushions and place their dolls across the table from one another. Then they pull out the other two chairs and sit.
“What’s that, Sadie? You think this is good? Me, too,” Olivia says.
“Nellie thinks it’s good, too,” Emma says.
The girls’ giggles draw a curious Elizabeth, who peeks in the room and finds them changing their dolls’ diapers.
“You have a real baby sister to change,” Olivia says. “I wish I did.”
“Maybe you could ask Santa for one?”
Ever since Emma got a baby sister, Olivia’s been asking her parents for one. They’ve told her that she’s special, picked just for them and that even if she never has a baby sister, or brother, she can always have friends over to play. Olivia doesn’t quite understand the why behind it, but having Emma over always helps.
“You’re my bestest friend,” Rachel said, hugging me.
It was the first — and only — time Rachel was allowed to play at my house. We spread the blanket out on the living-room floor and pretended to have a picnic on the beach. The tan vinyl hassock was a sand dune and the sofa was our sailboat. We had so much fun pretending – until Matt came home.
It was in the middle of the afternoon and Grandma was in the kitchen baking chocolate-chip cookies. Matt opened the door and stumbled in with a woman whose top was cut so low that I thought her double-Ds would pop out. He knocked over the black tole-painted TV tray inside the front door where Grandma kept her keys. Grandma heard the noise and rushed into the hallway.
“Matt,” Grandma said. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Sarah has a friend over.”
Matt took a couple of steps toward Grandma, almost knocking her over. “I have a friend over, too.” His speech was slurred. “This here’s Candy.”
“Matt,” Grandma said. “Not now.”
“Get out of my way, old woman,” he said, swatting her with the back of his arm.
He looked at me. “What are you lookin’ at, kid?”
I swallowed hard and stepped in front of Rachel to protect her. “Go. Don’t hit Grandma.”
Rachel was holding onto the back of my shirt so tightly that I thought it was going to rip.
“Oh, Mattie,” the woman said. “Let’s just go to my place.”
Matt looked at Grandma, then at me.
They stumbled out the same door they came in and Grandma ran to the kitchen to take the burning cookies out of the oven. The kitchen filled with smoke and the fire alarm made a shrill sound, the kind that no matter how well you cover your ears, you still hear it.
“Want to play grown-ups?” Olivia asks.
Emma nods.
“I’m a dancer. What do you want to be?”
