You Can Say You Knew Me When. K.M. Soehnlein

the home we wanted to put her in won’t take her because she’s not perambulatory.”

      “That’s no way to talk about your grandmother.”

      I regretted the lame joke as soon as she spoke again. Her voice, so tense throughout the conversation, seemed to crack open, raw and throaty. “I swear, Jamie, it’s like Dad all over again. Having this older person dependent on me. I need a break.”

      I’d never heard her complain like this, and it threw me into silence. She told me how the past ten days had been all struggle. Carly Fazio’s company had offered her a job right before Nana’s accident; now Dee was worried that they wouldn’t hold it for her. AJ had been getting picked on by some older kids in school and was acting out at home. On top of that there had been some legal trouble brewing with one of Dad’s neighbors. A year before, a tree from Dad’s property, that old oak I’d noticed missing, had fallen into the street. This woman swerved to miss it and wrecked her car. Andy had written her a check to cover the repair bill, but now she’d brought a lawsuit for further medical expenses plus emotional damages.

      “Who is this woman? Do I know her?”

      “No, someone new. Andy calls her the Angry White Lady.”

      We chuckled together about that (who knew Average Andy had a sense of humor?), and before the conversation ended she apologized for dumping on me. I told her I didn’t mind. I had considered bringing up the money I was owed, but at the moment, it seemed crass to do anything besides listen. She’d given me the benefit of her confidence, which was rare enough not to risk spoiling.

      The afternoon mail delivery brought a Visa statement: an eight-hundred-dollar plane ticket, a seventy-dollar car-service to Newark, a two-hundred-fifty-dollar cash advance (pot, groceries, knives), plus a thirty-nine-dollar overlimit fee. My noble silence on the phone suddenly seemed foolish.