Circle of Three by Patricia Gaffney

Author:Patricia Gaffney [Gaffney, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

15

Blah Blah, etc., etc.

SPRING’S HERE. MOM let me skip school on Friday, and the three of us, me, her, and Gram, drove up to D.C. for the weekend. I got to drive, but only as far as Gainesville, because after that comes I-66 and then—gasp!—the Beltway, and God knows I’d have killed us all if I’d been the one driving on—faint!—the Beltway. So Mom and I had to switch around in the front seat while Gram ran into the ladies’ room at the Exxon and peed for like the fourth time since we left home. I wonder if she’s got something wrong with her, but she says no, she’s always like this.

It was fun driving up, actually. I’ve done a lot of stuff with my mom and my grandmother before, but this was the first time I ever felt like I was one of them, not a little girl among the grown-ups. Like we were three women going on an adventure together. Part of it was because Gram said things in the car she usually waits until I’m not around to say, things I don’t even necessarily want to hear, like how this trip was the longest time she’d been away from home in two years because Grampa never wants to go anywhere. And how what she thought would be their nice retirement, traveling around and doing things together, etc., etc., was apparently just a dream and is never going to happen. She didn’t laugh or make it a joke, either, the way she usually does. Her voice got high and thin, and nobody said anything for a long time, and then I heard her blow her nose, and that was the end of that.

Mom looked miserable. I wonder what she’d have said if I hadn’t been there. I mean, it was her own father Gram was dissing. It’s true Grampa can be sort of a drag, and I can see how being married to him would bring you down sometimes, especially if you wanted somebody who’d talk to you. But I never liked it when Mom used to say bad things about Dad. She didn’t do it very often (and now she never does, just the opposite, I never even knew she liked him so much), and even then it was only little things, like how he left his beard hairs in the sink or he was too negative or he didn’t try hard enough to be sociable to their friends. I hated it, though, and I’d leave the room when she started, I’d never stick around and sympathize, even if I could see her point. I didn’t know who I was supposed to be being loyal to, her or him. When they’d fight, I’d get scared and think, what if this argument keeps going and going and doesn’t stop, what if it goes on to its natural conclusion and they decide they don’t like each other and split up? So I’d always leave, get the hell out, and try to think about something else.

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