Chapter 8: Gran Comes to Town

Evan's grandmother arrived on Saturday with a casserole dish on her lap and a bag of tomatoes between her feet.

Ethan sent the car for her.

Then, to Evan's surprise, he went down to the lobby himself and stood there in a soft grey sweater, waiting.

"Ethie," she said, when the lift doors opened, and held out both arms.

Nobody had called him that since his mother.

Evan watched Ethan's face go still, and then watched him bend down and let her hug him.

"Mrs. Green," Ethan said. "You didn't need to bring food."

"I did, though. I looked in your fridge on the video call. It's a crime."

She marched into the penthouse like an inspector.

She opened every cupboard and shook her head at the oat milk.

She found the tin of shortbread behind the coffee beans, and she laughed.

"You hid it," she said to Evan.

"I put it where he'd find it."

"He didn't."

"I did," Ethan said, behind them. "I ate six."

She turned to look at him with her hands on her hips.

"Six," she said. "In one night. And nothing else, I bet."

"There was stew."

"There was stew once. Sit."

Ethan sat.

He sat at his own kitchen island while an old woman in a church dress made him lunch.

He ate everything she gave him.

Evan stood in the corner, and he could not stop looking at the two of them.

His grandmother talked the whole time.

She told Ethan about the new roof on the Millbrook church and the stoplights and the neighbors' dog.

She told him his mother's roses were still alive along the fence, because she'd watered them every July.

Ethan put his fork down.

"You watered them," he said.

"Somebody had to. They'd have gone to nothing."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. Eat your beans."

He picked up the fork again, and his hand wasn't quite steady.

When Ethan went to take a call, she pulled Evan into the pantry and shut the door.

"He looks at you," she said, in a whisper that carried through the house.

"He looks at the exits."

"He looks at you when you're not looking."

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