Chapter 13: Grandma Margery

I did not ask to see the shoebox on Friday.

Margery had a lunch line to serve, and I had to be at the school gate at three.

On Saturday morning I walked Maisie up the hill to a narrow white house with a blue door and a bird feeder made from a milk jug.

"That's the soup lady's house," Maisie said. "She gave me two cookies on Tuesday."

"Did she say why?"

"She said I looked like I could use a second one."

Margery opened the door in a sweater instead of her apron.

She had brushed her hair and put on lipstick, and her hands were not steady.

"Hello, Maisie."

"Hello, soup lady."

"Outside of school it's Margery," she said. "Come in, both of you."

The kitchen smelled of lemon.

A cake sat on the table with a knife beside it and three plates.

Maisie climbed onto a chair without being asked and swung her feet.

I stayed in the doorway, because I had seen the wall behind the table.

It was covered in photographs.

They began at the top left with a newborn in a hospital blanket.

Next came a baby with dark curls sitting in a laundry basket.

Then a boy in a yellow bucket hat holding a plastic shovel on a beach.

The last one showed the same boy at about two years old, squinting on the bumper of a bread truck.

My parents' wall had started where this one stopped.

"That's Daddy!" Maisie pointed at the laundry basket. "He has my curls."

"He does," Margery said.

"Why do you have Daddy's baby pictures?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Brother, My Wife, and Their Son from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.