Before I left that night, I asked her one more question.
“Did you ever tell Margaret how grateful you were? Out loud, I mean.”
“Once,” Nadine said. “She told me not to. She said gratitude spoken out loud starts to feel like a debt, and she never wanted either of us carrying one.”
“That sounds exactly like her,” I said.
“It does,” Nadine said, smiling for the first time all evening. “It really does.”
I sold my apartment eventually.
Moved into the house myself.
A decision that took me almost a year to fully commit to.
Daniel helped me move in.
The same way he’d helped Grandma with everything else.
Without ever once treating the house like anything other than mine.
We’re close now.
In a way I genuinely didn’t expect, given how the whole story began.
Not romantic.
Not anything that needs a tidy label, really.
Just two people who ended up, through a woman neither of us fully understood until she was already gone, tied together by something that outlasted her.
He still comes by most Sundays.
We work through boxes I still haven’t opened.
Or sit in the backyard where Grandma used to grow tomatoes badly on purpose.
She always said perfect tomatoes felt like showing off.
I think about that first afternoon often.
Walking into the kitchen.
Seeing a stranger’s arms around my grandmother.
