“Carly,” she said. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“My mother
isn’t a person who says things,” Susan said. “You’ve probably noticed. She was a school principal for twenty-eight years. She ran that school like a navy ship. She loved us, my dadand me. But she never said it much. She showed it. In very, very small ways.” She looked at me. “I just want you to know. She talks about you. On the phone. Every week.”
I stopped wiping.
Plan Gardens
“She does?”
“Every Sunday when I call. ‘Carly found my pearl earring.’ ‘Carly fixed the sticky drawer.’ ‘Carly’s daughter counted the windows.’” Susan smiled. “I know more about you than I know about some
of my own cousins.”
I didn’t know what to say.
