Chapter 15 - Becoming Grandma
Her name was Emma.
Seven pounds, six ounces.
A furious little voice and Justin's dark hair.
Virginia held her as if someone had placed the moon in her arms.
"Hello, sweetheart."
Emma opened one eye.
Virginia laughed through tears.
Then she looked at me.
"I won't make her responsible for needing me."
I understood immediately.
"That's a good promise."
"I wish someone had taught me sooner."
"You learned."
She kissed Emma's forehead.
"Eventually."
Motherhood changed my understanding of Virginia without excusing her past.
I suddenly understood how terrifying it could feel to love someone whose entire purpose was eventually to leave your arms.
Babies grow.
Children become adults.
Adults build lives.
Parents either expand their definition of love or begin trying to hold on.
Virginia had held on too tightly.
Now she was learning to open her hands.
Justin was learning something too.
He spoke.
When something bothered him, he said it.
When we disagreed, he stayed in the conversation.
Sometimes badly.
Sometimes awkwardly.
But he stayed.
Walter changed too.
At family dinners, when Virginia became overly opinionated, he'd grin and say, "Are we advising or controlling?"
She hated that sentence.
Which was precisely why everyone loved it.
Emma's first birthday brought all three sisters together.
Virginia.
Brenda.
Margaret.
At one point I saw them laughing in the kitchen.
Eleven years of silence hadn't disappeared.
But it was no longer growing.
That evening, after everyone left, I found the decorative plate Brenda had given Virginia sitting in a gift bag.
"What's this?"
Justin read it.
GUESTS COMPLIMENT THE COOK.
There was a note attached.
For Chloe. She earned custody. —Virginia
I laughed until I cried.
I hung it in our kitchen.
Right above the cabinet containing my new nonstick pan.
I thought that might be the perfect ending to our story.
It wasn't.
Because on Emma's second birthday, Virginia asked me a question I never expected.
"Do you think you can forgive me completely?"
May you like
And for the first time, I had to decide what forgiveness actually meant.
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