She said: she must be very unhappy.
I said: probably.
She said: or very afraid.
I said: maybe.
She said: people say things like that when they’re afraid, I think.
She said: afraid of getting old.
She said: afraid of not mattering.
She said: and so they try to make other people feel small.
She said: like that makes them bigger.
I said: Grandma.
She said: yes.
I said: you had juice.
She was quiet for a moment.
Then she said: I had juice.
She said it with the specific quality of something that is technically true.
Then she said: and I may have been a little careless about holding the cup.
I said: you may have been.
She said: very slightly inattentive.
I said: possibly.
She said: the turbulence was unexpected.
I said: there was no turbulence.
She said: well. You never know when turbulence might happen.
She said this serenely.
She said it to the ocean.
She said: I wanted her to know that we were here. That we were going to see the ocean. That she wasn’t going to ruin it.
She said: sometimes you have to make a point in the language available to you.
She said: juice was available to me.
I said: Grandma.
She said: don’t tell your mother.
I said: I was absolutely going to call her tonight.
She said: Callie.
She said my name the way she has always said it.
The whole person in it.
She said: let’s not. Just for now.
She said: just for now, let this be ours.
She reached out and took my hand.
She had always had a good grip.
Even now.
The arthritis in her hands but the grip underneath it still there.
She said: you did this for me.
She said it simply.
Not with the weight of an enormous statement.
With the specific weight of something true and small and enough.
She said: you saved up and you found the tickets and you brought me here.
She said: because you knew I had never seen it.
She said: because you knew Edwin had wanted to.
She said: because you are the kind of person who notices what people need and does something about it.
She said: I wonder where you learned that.
I said: I learned it from you.
She said: yes.
She said it without false modesty.
Without performance.
