7.20 a.m.
I fall asleep cuddling the bottle of bleach Ajita gave me. After crying for roughly eight millennia I wake up with my standard raccoon eyes and scarecrow hair, but I wake up. And things feel a little brighter.
Pulling on a crumpled sweater and some jeans, I deliberately avoid my reflection in the mirror, knowing I probably look a bit Wicked Witch of the West. The apartment is silent. Betty must be out, or still in bed. I grab my phone and purse and head for the door.
I know where I need to go. Somewhere I haven’t been since I was thirteen; since Betty let me stay off school because of a paper cut.
Outside it smells of wet grass. The sun is weak and watery, but there’s no wind. The streets are that kind of Sunday morning quiet – barely any cars, barely any people, just the odd jogger and dog-walker. And pigeons. Lots and lots of pigeons.
My bike’s ancient gears clank and groan as I pedal almost robotically, staring two feet in front of the handlebars at all times. The odd thought flits into my mind, but I let each one fizzle out, not engaging with it on any real level. I feel tapped out, emotionally and physically, and it’s sort of nice just focusing on the slight ache in my legs as I crest a hill I haven’t mounted in so, so long.
The cemetery sits on the only hill in our town, which is generally as flat as the Netherlands. There’s a tiny church, which seems empty – I think it’s too early for morning mass – and one giant oak tree shading the oldest tombstones in the graveyard, most of which are covered in thick moss. They’ve all been tended to immaculately, though, and the grass is neatly trimmed. One fresh grave near the entrance is swarmed with bouquets of flowers and notes. It makes me sad to look at, so I turn away. I’ve got enough grief of my own without absorbing a stranger’s.
There’s a bench I used to come to a lot when I was eleven or twelve and I first got my bike. It was the first time I was really allowed to go out alone, without my grandma with me, and I used the opportunity to visit my parents a lot. I know I could’ve done it when I was younger, with Betty by my side, but I always got the sense she dealt with things by not thinking about them and just pushing through. Seeing the spot where her dead daughter was buried in the dirt would make it pretty hard to do that.
Overlooking my parents’ gravestones – modest and plain, side by side, the exact same death date – is a memorial bench, made of a dark stained wood. It’s not covered by the oak tree. Instead it sits with its back to a low stone wall, basking in the low autumn sun. Far enough from my parents that I don’t have to read their names and birth dates, but close enough that I can still feel their presence.
Everything looks exactly the same as I remember it; exactly as I pictured it would be. Except for one thing.
Betty is sitting in the spot I used to, right in the middle of the bench where the plaque is. Her white-gray hair is wrapped in a purple paisley scarf, and she’s leaning her arm on a walking stick I haven’t seen her use in years. I’ve always suspected she used it when nobody was watching; when nobody could witness her needing help. She’s as stubborn as me.
She doesn’t look up as I approach and prop my bike against the wall, nor when I perch next to her on the bench. If she’s surprised to see me here, she doesn’t show it.
“How you doing, kiddo?” she asks, cradling a Thermos of coffee in her hands. She’s wearing at least three silver rings on each finger, kooky old bat that she is.
“Concerned that my grandmother is wearing more rings than, I don’t know, Saturn. But other than that, fine.” [I know, it’s incredibly frustrating that I just had an epiphany about needing the people I love, and yet I’m cracking jokes and masking the hurt like I always do. Hey. Old habits die hard.]
The lie is not in the least bit convincing. She snorts. “Right. Sure. And I’m Harrison Ford.”
“I wish,” I say.
“Me too. Then I could have sex with myself.”
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, this would’ve given me a laughter-induced stomach ulcer. But not today.
I sneak a sideways glance at her face, on the hunt for signs of crying, but her cheeks are dry and her eyes aren’t red-rimmed. She just looks tired.
I sigh. Here goes. “I’m just . . . overwhelmed. So overwhelmed it’s hard to process everything.”
Preparing for her usual up-by-the-bootstraps, bravado-boosting pep talk, I square my shoulders. But it never comes.
After a long pause, she says in a small voice, “Me too.”
And then the unthinkable happens. She lays down her stick and her Thermos, and wraps her arms around me, kissing the side of my head. Then she tucks a lock of my hair behind my ears, and strokes my cheek with her thumb. She smells how she always smells: of whiskey and cocoa.
“It hasn’t been easy, has it?” she says thickly.
I don’t know whether she means the last few weeks or the last thirteen years, but either way the answer is the same.
“No,” I admit. “I guess it hasn’t.”
Letting go of the embrace, but leaving one arm draped over my shoulders, she picks up the Thermos again, offering me a sip. I gratefully accept.
“I feel like I’ve failed you, Izzy,” she says, voice full of a regret I hate to hear.
“Absolutely not,” I insist. “You’ve given up everything for me. I’ll never be able to repay you. I’m so grateful to have you.”
A tight smile. “But I’ve never given you an environment in which you could talk about your emotions. You’ve felt like you always had to put on a brave face, always had to be cracking jokes, because that’s the way I dealt with my pain. And you had no choice but to do the same.”
I let these words sink in for a while. I guess it’s true. I’ve never thought Betty made me the way I am, but I suppose I learned a lot from watching her. Every single part of my personality contains elements of her, including her flaws.
Finally I say, “Well, every kid is screwed up somehow by whoever raises them. And if I had to be screwed up by anyone, I’m glad it was you.”
We both laugh at this, but it’s different to our usual defiant laughter. Softer. More real.
“We’re going to do better, okay?” she says, gazing not at me but at my mom’s grave. “We’re going to talk to each other about how we’re feeling. And we’re going to cry when we need to. And we’re going to admit that sometimes life just isn’t fucking funny.”
I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Okay. Agreed.”
We both watch as a cleaner leaves the back door of the church with a mop and bucket, emptying the dirty water over a wall and into the field behind.
“I miss them,” Betty says quietly. “Your parents. They were wonderful people.” Her voice is even thicker now, and this time not with mucus. A tear slides down her cheek. And then another. And then her shoulders are shaking and it’s me with my arms around her. “I could use their advice sometimes, you know? Their reassurance that I’m doing right by them. With you. With everything.”
A massive lump forms in my throat and before I can help it I’m sobbing too. But it actually feels good. We hug each other tight.
She sniffs. “You’re a wonderful person, Izzy. And I’m just . . . proud. To call you my granddaughter. And I know your parents would be proud of you too.”
More tears spill down my cheeks against my will. “But I messed up, Grandma.”
She shakes her head fiercely. “No. You didn’t. The fact that everyone is so damn interested in the sex life of an innocent teenage girl is more a reflection on them than you.”
I snivel pathetically into her purple tunic. A pigeon watches with interest. “I know, but . . . I haven’t told you the worst part. About Ajita.”
“I already know, sweetheart,” she says softly, which is not usually something she’s capable of due to the eternal coughing.
I’m genuinely shocked. “You do?”
“Yes. Mrs Dutta rang me.”
A coil of anxiety tightens in my belly. “Oh God. What did she say?”
“She was mad. Of course, she had to explain everything from beginning to end because as you know I do not understand the interweb, and hadn’t seen the article in question.” A pause. “Is it true? About Ajita?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “That’s the problem.”
Betty strokes my hair and takes a sip of coffee from the flask. “Mmmm. Mrs Dutta seemed to think it was impossible. Literally beyond the realms of possibility. I tried reasoning with her – saying she should be open to the idea that it might be true, and try to have an honest conversation with her daughter – but . . . well. I didn’t get the impression that would happen somehow.”
I rub my eyes, which have finally stopped leaking involuntarily. “I wish I could be there for her. Ajita. In case it is true.”
Betty frowns. “You can be.”
“How? Mrs Dutta won’t let me see her.”
A disappointed tsk noise. “You and Ajita have been best pals for so long. Are you really going to let her homophobic mother dictate your friendship?”
I pause. “I feel like you want me to say no here, but have you met the woman? She’s terrifying.”
She glares at me sternly, which she has literally never done before in my whole life. “Izzy.”
“I know.”
And I do.