Chapter 4: Grandma

Clara's POV

I looked up at him, staring into those pale blue eyes.

He looked away first.

"Don't do that again," he said quietly. "Stay out of things like this."

I stared at him for another second.

Heat rushed to my face.

"I wasn't helping you," I shot back. "Don't flatter yourself."

Without waiting for an answer, I turned away and crossed the street toward 217 Maple Street.

Grandma Irene's house.

The numbers beside the door were slightly crooked, the bottom screw on the seven having given up at some point and let the whole thing tilt.

The front yard was overgrown, dead grass pushing through the gravel, but the porch light was on.

Someone was home.

My heart pounded in my chest again.

But I'd come this far.

I climbed the porch steps and reached for the doorbell. The plastic casing was cracked open, the edges jagged, and when I pressed the button nothing happened.

I pressed it again. Still nothing. I looked closer—the wiring inside had gone dark with rust, the copper stripped and exposed. It had been broken for a long time.

So I knocked.

Three soft raps with my knuckles, careful and polite. Grandma? Mrs. Bennett? It's me. It's Clara.

The words were in my head but I couldn't get them out yet, because saying them out loud meant this was real, and if she didn't answer it meant—

I knocked again. Harder this time. My knuckles ached from the cold.

Nothing.

The rain came down steadily. The gutter at the corner of the porch was running fast, a thin curtain of water pouring off the edge.

I pressed my ear closer to the door and heard nothing from inside—no footsteps.

My father's voice came back, unbidden. She's an old woman living in the middle of nowhere. What do you think she's going to do for you?

I pressed my hand flat against the door and leaned my forehead against it.

Please.

I didn't say it out loud. I just thought it, hard, into the wood.

Someone stepped onto the porch behind me.

I spun around.

The rude boy who'd told me to mind my own business was standing beside me.

He walked up the steps past me, raised his fist, and knocked.

Three hard, deliberate slams that made the door shake in its frame and sent a shudder through the porch boards under my feet.

The sound was loud enough that I took a step back.

From inside the house, a voice cut through—sharp and scratchy, clearly annoyed: "Who's there? Stop banging on my door!"

I looked at him.

He didn't look back. "She's hard of hearing. You need to knock harder."

The rain was making me light-headed.

She wasn't refusing to answer. She wasn't standing on the other side of the door deciding I wasn't worth opening it for. She just—hadn't heard me.

Something in my chest came loose so fast it almost made me dizzy.

I opened my mouth. "Thank—"

He was already stepping back off the porch, already pulling his hood up against the rain, already turning away.

I watched him until his figure disappeared into the rain, heading back toward the repair shop.

Behind me, a door creaked open.

I turned instinctively.

Grandma Irene was standing in the doorway.

She was smaller than I'd imagined. White-haired, thin-shouldered, wearing a cardigan buttoned to the collar and a long skirt that brushed her ankles.

Her glasses were pushed up on her nose and she was looking at me the way you look at something unexpected.

Her eyes slowly traveled over me.

I suddenly became aware of what I must look like.

My hair was dripping wet.

Water ran from the sleeves of my jacket.

My broken suitcase stood beside me, scratched and worn from the journey.

"I'm Clara," I said. My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. "My mom was Linda Bennett. She used to write to you. She said—" I swallowed. "She said if I ever needed help, I could come to you."

The old woman didn't move.

I kept going, because stopping felt worse. "I didn't have anywhere else to go. I know you don't know me. I know this is—a lot. I just—"

"You had a good life in the city." Her voice was dry and a little rough, like gravel. "Why come to a poor little town like this? Did your father send you here?"

The question knocked the rest of my sentence clean out of my head.

Did your father send you. Like I was a package. Like I was something to be delivered.

I stood there in the rain with water running down the back of my neck and my face going hot despite the cold.

I blinked hard. The porch light was too bright. Or maybe it was the rain.

"What are you just standing there for? Come inside!"

Her voice was sharp.

"You planning on getting sick so I have to look after you next?"

She disappeared into the house, muttering something I couldn't quite catch.

I stood on the threshold for half a second and wiped the rain from my face.

Then I tightened around the suitcase handle and followed her inside.

The room smelled faintly of burning wood.

A dark wooden table stood in the center of the room.

Against the wall sat an old sewing machine, a piece of fabric still caught beneath the needle, already half-finished.

Grandma Irene came out of the kitchen carrying a bowl, which she set on the table without ceremony. "Sit. Eat."

It was mac and cheese soup with a poached egg sitting on top and steam curling off the surface.

I swallowed hard and looked at Grandma Irene.

Her green eyes met mine.

I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

She frowned. "Do I need to say it again?"

"No, Grandma. Thank you!" I answered quickly, almost too quickly.

I pressed my palm flat against the side of the bowl and let the heat come through before I tried again.

The first spoonful hit the back of my throat and I had to press my lips together and stare at the table and breathe carefully through my nose until the feeling passed.

I ate slowly. The warmth spread down through my chest and into my stomach.

Grandma Irene settled herself at the sewing machine, threading a needle without looking at it.

The room was quiet except for the fire and the rain and the occasional soft sound of thread pulling through fabric.

"Why come here?" she said, without looking up.