You Should Have Known by Rebecca A. Keller

Author:Rebecca A. Keller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: CROOKED LANE BOOKS

CHAPTER

16

I DIDN’T GO DOWN to the dining room the next day. Why should I give Evan more opportunities to make me feel guilty and paranoid? I was doing just fine on my own in that department. I canceled my appointment at the beauty shop and skipped taking my books to the library, even though they were overdue. Too bad.

I was hungry, though. I went into the kitchen, intending to get a yogurt, but a package of chocolate chip cookies caught my eye. Why the hell not? I pulled at the stubborn cellophane package until it burst open and cookies went flying across the counter. I put a few on a plate and heated up the last of the coffee in the microwave. I’d clean up later. I sat by the window, eating cookies, drinking burnt coffee, and looking into the nature preserve.

The preserve was the best thing about being here. After I moved in, Charlie brought over a bird feeder Cal had made for our old house and hung it on the closest tree. I fretted over it—like a foolish old lady, wondering if it was okay, if we needed to get permission. Charlie snapped, “Mom, it’s a bird feeder. Why should they care? If they object, we can take it down.”

Of course, it was a stupid worry. I was still recovering from my fall then, and that day I was using a wheelchair. Charlie squatted down to talk to me. I could tell he felt guilty for snapping, because he became very gentle. “I’m sorry,” he said. His eyes were kind as he squeezed my hand. “I know today is a tough day.” Then he hugged me.

But I had forgotten. Until that moment I had forgotten that it was Cal’s birthday. In here, dates are unimportant. The outside world drops away, and one needs only remember the internal schedule—which day the van goes to the grocery, when they’ll serve the cake and ice cream for that week’s birthdays.

Now, looking back, I knew that I hadn’t forgotten, not really. Not in the deep part of myself. It was why I’d started crying when Charlie hugged me, and why I had felt so small and sad and helpless that I—a woman whose lifelong motto had been “ask forgiveness, not permission”—had worried about approval for a bird feeder.

The feeder stayed, and no one made any comment at all, and every few weeks Danny and Adam help me refill it. We huddle at the window and spy on the birds bickering over the new treats.

This morning I watched as a greedy squirrel tried to steal the seed. I have a grudge against squirrels. They tore up the attic in my old house and chewed through a box of family photos. Rats with fluffy tails. Now that Charlie and Pam live in that old house, it is their turn to complain about the squirrels. But they don’t do it in front of Adam, because he loves them. “Grams, look how funny they are,” he says.

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