I’d almost forgotten how much a part of Landon’s life Mima had been. The concern in his voice made me wish he was there with me so we could worry about my grandmother together.
“Is she OK?” he asked again.
“She has an apartment she’s renting for the time being. It’s hard to tell if she’s OK, really. She has a hard shell and acts like nothing gets to her, even though I know it does. She doesn’t show weakness ever, and when she’s broken, I don’t think I’d even notice. She’s been our family’s rock from day one. I don’t know who she leans on when she’s hurting, because we’ve all spent so much time leaning on her. I just worry she’s struggling with all of this and she’ll never admit it. She doesn’t show her emotions like that.”
“The people who show the least emotions are normally the ones who hurt the most,” he stated.
My chest tightened. “Personal experience?”
“Something like that.” The tone of his voice made it clear he didn’t want to dive deeper into the subject. “Maria means a lot to me. Even though she’s my housekeeper, she’s been there for me through some of the hardest days.”
“Housekeeper?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah. She comes over every Sunday. She has for the past forever years.”
“Landon, my grandmother hasn’t been a housekeeper foryears. She opened her yoga studio about four years ago...” My heart skipped as I thought about Mima and what she always said she was doing on Sunday afternoons. “She said her Sundays were meant for a dear friend of hers.”
Landon went quiet on the line. I imagined his bushy brows pushed together and the confusion swirling in his mind as the silence stretched across the call.
“She isn’t a housekeeper anymore?”
“No. Not for a long time now.”
More silence. Then, “I don’t get it...” he confessed. “I don’t get how she’s such a good person.”
“Yeah, neither do I.”
“Is that why you can’t sleep? Because you’re worried about Maria?”
“Yes.” I shifted around in my bed. “Why are you up?”
“Kind of what I do.”
“You need sleep, Landon.”
“I know, but just because you need something doesn’t mean it comes easily.”
True.
“I can stay on the phone with you until you fall asleep if that helps.”
“I don’t know if it will, but it’s worth a try. And Chick?”
“Yes?”
“Stop chewing on your shirt.”
I dropped the fabric from between my lips and shifted around. “What should we talk about?”
“Anything you want... everything.”
So that was exactly what we did. We talked about stupid things. Favorite things. Sports. I didn’t have much to say about sports, but he shared his favorite teams. Even though he was from Illinois, he loved the Green Bay Packers.
I called him a traitor even if I knew nothing about football. He called me beautiful just because.
His favorite candy was Reese’s Cups. His favorite soda was Mountain Dew. If he could visit any state, he’d want to go to California. He was afraid of snakes and loved dogs. His favorite movie wasHome Alone.
“I love the part when he plays the movie clip and it says, ‘Merry Christmas, ya filthy animal.’ I swear, when I was ten, I said that to anyone and everyone for a year straight. I still think it’s the funniest shit,” he explained, snickering to himself. I loved his laugh the most.