Chapter 8: What Eleanor Did Next
She called on a Sunday.
I was in the garden with Lily, who was pressing dandelions into the soft ground with great seriousness, convinced she was planting them.
My leg was still in a brace but I could sit in the garden chair now, and the afternoon light was warm, and for a few hours I had almost forgotten.
Then my phone rang.
Eleanor.
I almost let it go to voicemail.
Then I thought about what Patricia had said — *document everything* — and I answered.
"I'd like to speak with you," Eleanor said.
Her voice was different from the voice at the camera.
Quieter.
Controlled in a different way.
"You can speak with my lawyer."
"This isn't about the legal proceedings." A pause.
"It's about Lily."
I watched my daughter press another dandelion into the dirt.
"What about Lily?" I said.
"She's my granddaughter.
Whatever has happened between you and David, I don't want to lose access to her.
I'm asking you — as her grandmother — to consider that."
I was quiet for a moment.
"Eleanor," I said.
"You stood in my bedroom while I was in bed with a broken leg and fractured ribs.
You packed your son's bags.
You told me he would come back when I was functional."
Silence.
"You treated me like a problem to be managed," I said.
"Not a person.
Not the mother of your granddaughter.
A problem."
"I was trying to protect my son."
"From what?
From caring for his injured wife?
From being a father?"
"You don't understand the pressure he was under—"
"I was the one in the hospital bed," I said.
"I understand pressure."
Eleanor was quiet for a long moment.
"I made mistakes," she said finally.
The words came out stiff, like they had been rehearsed and still didn't fit right.
"I handled it badly."
"Yes," I said.
"You did."
"I'm asking for a chance to do better.
For Lily's sake."
I looked at my daughter.
She had moved on from dandelions and was now examining something in the grass with intense concentration, her small face serious and absorbed.
Lily loved her grandmother.
That was the truth I had been sitting with for weeks.
Whatever Eleanor had done to me, Lily ran to her at Christmas.
Lily asked for her on the phone.
Lily drew her pictures.
That was not nothing.
"I'm not going to make this easy for you," I said.
"I'm not asking for easy."
"If you want to be in Lily's life, you follow my rules.
You do not speak about David to her in ways that confuse her.
You do not undermine me in front of her.
You do not use her to carry messages or information between you and David." I paused.
"And you never speak to me the way you spoke to me that day.
Not ever again."
A long silence.
"Agreed," Eleanor said.
It was not forgiveness.
I was not ready for forgiveness, and I was not going to pretend otherwise.
But Lily was four years old, and she deserved a grandmother who showed up, and I was not going to take that from her because her grandmother had failed me.
"I'll have Patricia include a formal grandparent contact arrangement in the settlement documents," I said.
"Supervised initially.
We'll see how it goes."
"Thank you," Eleanor said.
Her voice had lost its shape entirely.
I hung up.
Lily looked up from the grass.
"Mama, there's a beetle," she said.
"A big one.
Come see."
I pushed myself up from the chair, brace and all, and went to look at the beetle.
It was, in fact, a big one.
May you like
"Very impressive," I said.
Lily beamed.
