A tiny, wet laugh echoed through the receiver. A sound so perfect and innocent it nearly broke me. “Yeah. Gerald the crab. I can’t mail the picture to you. I don’t know how the stamps work. But I’m hiding it under my mattress to keep it safe for you.”
“You keep it safe, sweetheart,” I promised, my voice breaking. “And someday, I will see it. I swear it.”
A sudden, muffled noise filtered through the background of the call. Tyler’s breathing hitched.
“I got to go,” he said, raw panic bleeding into his voice. “Mom’s coming upstairs. Bye, Grandma. I love you.”
“I love you too, my sweet b—”
The line went dead.
I slid down the front of the kitchen cabinets until I was sitting on the cold linoleum floor, and I wept in a primal, devastating way that I hadn’t experienced since they lowered Robert into the earth. I wept not for my own bruised ego, but for Tyler. For Madison. For the innocent casualties trapped in the crossfire of a war they did not initiate and could not possibly comprehend.
Sitting on the floor, the temptation to surrender was overwhelming. I thought about dialing Karen’s number. I thought about groveling, apologizing for being “unreasonable,” offering to immediately reinstate the Venmo transfers, resume the Wednesday pickups, and absorb whatever abuse was required just to regain access to those children.
But then, the memory of Ruth surfaced. I remembered her holding my hand in the freezing cemetery, looking me dead in the eye, and saying, Helen, you cannot continuously set yourself on fire just to keep other people warm. Not even the people you love the most. Especially not them.
I didn’t call Karen.
Instead, I pulled myself up off the floor and called Lillian.
Chapter 5: The Geography of Family
“Aunt Helen,” Lillian answered, her voice immediately radiating warmth. “I was just making tea and thinking about you.”
“How are you holding up, Lilly?”
“I’ve been better,” she admitted with a soft sigh. “I’ve been much worse. But how are you?”
“Lillian… can I please come visit you this weekend?” I asked, my voice thin. “I just desperately need to escape the gravity of this house for a few days.”
“Absolutely. The guest room is always made up for you. Pack that massive biography you’ve been talking about. We’ll sit on the back porch and pretend the universe makes logical sense for a while.”
I packed a small canvas duffel bag that Friday morning and drove the three hours north to Camden.
Lillian’s home was a modest, weather-beaten cottage nestled near the coastline that she and her husband, Frank, had lovingly restored over two decades. Heavy brass wind chimes hung from the wrap-around porch, and the front garden exploded with hydrangeas clearly tended by hands that understood patience.
When I reached the top step, she pulled me into a fierce, prolonged embrace. The kind of hug that requires no explanation and asks no intrusive questions.
“Welcome home, Aunt Helen,” she whispered into my hair.
