adopted, yet the closer Thaddeus looks the more he senses something vaguely familiar in her face, maybe somewhere around the hairline, and for a moment he entertains the notion that Stevie, Peter, and Cheryl have colluded in a lie about her adoption in hopes of keeping him away for these past three years, but it seems too outlandish even for Stevie, so he dismisses the thought and just like that it’s gone entirely, as if he’d never even thought it.
They must’ve exchanged greetings because Thaddeus feels words form in his mouth. From the end of a long velvet tunnel all Thaddeus hears is a deafening din until Peter asks a question that pulls him back into synch with the world around him. “Can you hold her?” Bogged down with grocery sacks and with Gertie, he can hardly move. Thaddeus manages a nod and holds out his hands. To think that last night he was just some old man beside a pool, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, he’s not only meeting his granddaughter but being given the opportunity to hold her. His eyes mist.
Peter slips her into his outstretched arms. “Say hi to your grandpa, baby.” And that’s as much ceremony as he puts into the exchange. Gertie continues to sleep uninterrupted.
“It’s okay. Don’t wake her,” Thaddeus whispers. “She’s probably had a big day.”
“Careful. She’s heavier than she looks.”
“She ain’t heavy. She’s my brother.”
Peter shoots him an odd look, which Thaddeus hardly notices.
“Just an old Hollies tune.”
How many nights beside the pool have been spent imagining this first meeting, rehearsing scores of scenarios? He had so many reservations, so many fears. What if he wasn’t cut out to be a grandpa? What if he dropped her? Would he even be able to love an adopted granddaughter? And now she slumbers in his arms, bigger than he could even imagine, a real person, but still tiny and vulnerable in every way. He could’ve saved himself the worry, he thinks. He’s a natural.
“It’s good to see you, Thaddeus.” Peter leads the way to the kitchen. “It’s been too long.”
“Three years.”
He stacks canned goods on the granite counter and slips a slab of something wrapped in pink butcher paper into the open refrigerator. For a while they don’t say anything else.
“Anyway, water under the bridge,” Thaddeus says at last. “You look different.”
Peter folds the empty grocery sacks and places them into a drawer. He looks down at himself and grins. “I can’t tell if that’s a compliment.”
In three years Peter’s look has changed completely. The wild dark dreads he wore in the past have been replaced by his natural shade of russet blond, trimmed close to the scalp and revealing a rather severe widow’s peak. In place of the grimy yellow glasses, which were always far too big for his small face, he’s substituted a stylish pair of wire frames. The clothes mark the biggest change. Peter used to wear lots of things with safety pins and ironed-on badges, a style far too youthful for him even five years ago when he and Stevie first started seeing each other. Now his patterned, understated button-up neatly tucks into a pair of pressed tan slacks. No more black boots either. Those he replaced with soft leather boat shoes.
“A compliment,” Thaddeus says. “You look good.”
Peter smiles. “I guess I grew up, huh? Who would’ve thought?”
Gertie squirms. Whimpering, she pushes against Thaddeus’s shoulder.
“Uh-oh, what’s the matter, beautiful, don’t you like your grandpa?”
“No, she loves her grandpa.” But Peter scoops her out of his arms all the same. Cooing, he kisses her on the head and she calms down. “She’s probably just having a bad dream. She gets them sometimes. Steven thinks she’s reliving something from the orphanage, but I think it’s just something she ate. It’s okay, Gertie, Daddy’s here. Shh.”
“Will you look at that...”
A new serenity washes over him seeing Peter with Gertie. He’s here now, in this house, with his family. A moment ago he held his granddaughter and later he’ll get to hold her again, and then maybe in a week Peter, Stevie, and Gertie will be at his house and they’ll all enjoy the pool together. Maybe they’ll even visit Disney World together, as a family. Cheryl will be kinder to him now. They can finally put the past behind them. For the first time in three years Thaddeus can envision a happy future.
Then Gertie screams so loudly she startles him.
She transforms into a dynamo of sleeping rage. Her fists pound into Peter’s shoulder and her feet slam into his hip. She wails. Thaddeus scrambles toward her. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s just a dream.” Calmly, Peter rocks her. “It’ll pass. We just have to stay calm.”
The staircase rattles in the adjacent room as Cheryl comes rushing down. “Wait!” she shouts. “It’s okay. I’m here. I’m coming!”
Her cries further agitate Gertie, who redoubles her tantrum, but Peter is able to wake her and as soon as he does she stops screaming. Her eyes immediately rest on Thaddeus, and at first she seems startled by this stranger and her mood threatens to spill over into anger again, but Peter kisses her cheek and tells her it’s okay. “Say hi to your grandpa, sweetie.”
Thaddeus playfully sticks out his tongue and makes a trumpet of his thumb pressed to the tip of his nose. Though she remains suspicious, she lets slip a hesitant grin that soon blossoms into a gregarious smile.
“Ha!” His granddaughter just smiled at him for the first time!
Cheryl charges into the kitchen, a stricken look on her face, but she stops short when she sees them all huddled by the breakfast bar. “Peter?” She grabs her chest and exhales. “What a relief. When I heard screaming I thought it was Steven—” She crosses Thaddeus with a withering gaze. “I thought something happened.”
“We’re fine,” Thaddeus says.
“Just a bad dream, is all,” Peter adds.
Gertie sucks her thumb, her gaze shifting back and forth between Thaddeus and Cheryl, a stranger and a friend. She’s done crying, for the moment at least, and Thaddeus decides it’s a good sign.
“What a relief,” Cheryl says. Turning to Gertie, she pouts and slips into baby talk. “Your grandma just got worked up over nothing.”
Gertie squirms, wanting out of her father’s arms. He sets her on the floor, then takes a seat at the breakfast bar. “It’s okay. We’re used to drama around here.”
“Nothing to worry about,” Thaddeus reiterates. “We’re all fine.” Then to Cheryl, he says, “Stevie isn’t here yet.”
“Wait,” Peter says. “What do you mean Steven isn’t here?”
HOW MANY MEALS WILL A CAN OF BLACK BEANS YIELD, realistically? Can two people subsist on sardines, peanuts, and sofrito bouillon for a week without killing each other? What if those people are siblings—does that make it better or worse? Laila shakes her head at the impoverished state of her pantry. “And what if one of those siblings is a selfish food hog?” she says, sifting through empty cartons of food that Alex couldn’t be bothered to throw away.
It’s bare bones. The Pop-Tarts she bought on Monday are gone (“What? I like having a midnight snack, yo!”), so are the tortilla chips (“I get hungry watching TV!”). A lonely pack of instant miso soup and a half brick of rice round out the supplies. Anything that requires cooking is safe from Alex’s ravenous maw. And it’s a good thing, too. The chicken legs and thighs in the freezer will go into the pressure cooker tonight along with a few frozen veggies. That way, at least, they’ll have one good meal before the storm knocks out the power and they have to eat like refugees.
Hurricane Natalie picked up speed overnight and the television playing in the background updates the storm’s