Anne recognized that look, no matter how hard he might be trying to hide it. James knew. Hell, maybe he’d known since Monday afternoon.
Well, that was fine. Why shouldn’t everyone know? Anne and Sadie were moving forward.
She slid her free arm through Sadie’s, feeling her heat, her light, her strength. The next forty years were about to begin.
Chapter 22
The brunch was perfect.
Oh, things went terribly wrong. Half of the mini pancakes Claire had made were burned at the edges. Somehow, the waffle iron set off the smoke detector, making Kaisley shriek even louder than she had that morning. They’d had to toss the parfaits, since the Greek yogurt tasted just a bit off. And right before Hal had finished the frittatas, Colton ran face-first into the kitchen counter and cut his lip open, subsequently requiring some quiet time on the couch with cotton gauze, his father, and his iPad.
But none of that mattered one bit because Anne couldn’t take her eyes off Sadie.
Sadie sat where she always did when they all gathered at Anne’s house, at the other end of the dining room table. In the middle of a passionate conversation with Arthur, her hands were fluttering in the air like birds.
Once she’d told Anne that it wasn’t just an ADHD thing, using your hands to talk; it was Jewish, too. Something about prayer and inherited memory. Anne had no reason to doubt her, but she suspected there was more to it than neurodivergence and ancestry. Sadie’s hands had to fly because they were an essential part of her personal language. She spoke not just in sentences, but with her dancing hands, her lifted chin, her crinkled nose, her keen eyes. With her full-bodied, volcanic, and beautiful laugh.
At Anne’s end of the table, Talisha and Brooke were intently debating the best way to get to Larchmont from Mar Vista. Sure, you could take the 10, but there was always so much trafficwhere it met the405, and honestly, Beverly Boulevard really wasn’t a bad through route, when you got right down to it—
“What’s your pick, Anne?” Talisha asked. “The freeway? Or streets?”
“I never go east of La Brea if I can help it,” Anne said vaguely and placed her fork down on her half-empty plate. She was staring at Sadie’s smile, which seemed even brighter than it normally did. And she was listening to Sadie’s deep laugh as she cracked up over something Arthur had said, threw her head back, displayed that long, lovely throat.
Sadie’s crow’s feet rayed out from her dark eyes. At this distance, Anne could only see them because Sadie was lit up with her delight, grinning widely. For years, Anne had wondered why Sadie wouldn’t try some remedy that would make time a little friendlier: Botox or a chemical peel or at least retinol. But Sadie had always dismissed those options.I love my crow’s feet,she’d told Anne once.They’re a history of my happiness. Thank God I’m marked by all that laughter. Thank God it stuck around.
Anne hadn’t been able to hear Sadie then, but she heard her now.
All that pleasure Sadie had etched into her skin over a lifetime: the proof of an existence filled with joy. Some of it she’d told Anne about, and some Anne had witnessed herself. The first time Sadie’s poetry had appeared in print. Hal’s high school debate team performances. A truly excellent burger. Hearing the lowest note in a handbell choir. The news of Talisha’s pregnancy. Rabbi Aviva’s best sermons. Her long-gone father’s bad jokes. How waves curled around stranded kelp and took it back home. A new fountain pen. Spinning in the desert.
When she kissed those lines, she’d kiss Sadie’s history, and her future joy, too.
Without knowing she was going to speak, Anne did, her voice raised. “Sadie.”
Instantly, the conversation around the table fell silent. Everyone looked in her direction, Sadie included, forks and glasses paused en route, as they waited for what came next.
“I love you,” Anne said simply. “I love you so much.”
Sadie stared at her, and in no more than a second, those red stains on her cheeks returned as her mouth opened with obvious astonishment.
Barely daring to let it out of her mouth, Anne whispered, “Sadie?”
Sadie burst into loud tears.
“Ohboy,” Claire said under her breath.
That broke the spell. A sudden clatter of noise joined Sadie’s sobs as everyone else stood, almost in unison, and Anne could hear, faintly, the sound of Brooke telling Maverick that everything was okay, that Sadie would be just fine, that she just needed some alone time with Grandma Anne—come on, let’s all go outside, let’s go, let’sgo.
Anne had said it. She’d finally said it. And she’d made Sadie cry. Anne’s limbs didn’t want to work—she was frozen, couldn’t get up from her chair.
“Mom,” Hal exclaimed and rushed over to Sadie. He was the only other person still at the table besides Anne. “Mom, what can I get you, what do you need?”
Sadie covered her face with her hands. She shook her head back and forth, wordless, cries jerking out of her bent body as Hal crouched down next to her.
Anne’s chest ached with distress. Why was Sadie crying? Didn’t she want to hear those words? Should Anne have said it differently?
“Hal,” Talisha said, from the French doors. “We need to let them be alone for a while, okay? Come outside. Please.”
Hal made a sound of protest. “But she needs me. You weren’t there when Dad left her—you don’t get it—”