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she said it, she wished she hadn’t. It sounded so inadequate. Work. So petty and selfish. It didn’t matter about work. She ought to have made the time for Granny Addie. She just hadn’t realized how frail she had become, how much she had deteriorated in the past months.
    Granny Addie’s throat worked. Her lips moved, producing the barest breath of sound.
    Clemmie leaned forward. “Granny?”
    She could feel her grandmother’s fingers flex, gripping hard at hers. “Bea,” she said.

 
    TWO
    New York, 1999
    “It’s Clementine, Mother,” Clemmie’s mother said sharply. “Your granddaughter. Clementine.”
    “She’s not really awake yet,” said the nurse soothingly. “She’s had a long day. That lunch party tired her out.”
    Granny Addie looked from Clementine to her mother and back again, giving herself a little shake, like someone coming out of a long sleep.
    “Clem-en-tine,” Granny Addie repeated slowly. She sounded out the syllables like someone repeating a lesson learned by rote a long time ago, only half-remembered. “Clem…?”
    Clemmie nodded vigorously, not trusting herself to speak.
    “Have a sip of water,” said the nurse, and held a glass to Granny Addie’s lips, helping her drink. When the nurse made to pat her lips with a cloth, Granny Addie objected.
    “’s fine,” she slurred, and took the cloth from the nurse in a hand that shook just enough to belie her words. She put the napkin down in her lap and contemplated Clemmie, studying her through her spectacles as though attempting to work out a puzzle.
    Granny Addie’s lips moved. Someone had made an effort to put lipstick on her. It looked unnaturally bright against her pale face, caking in the cracks. “Bobbed,” she said. “You’ve bobbed your hair.”
    Clemmie put her hand self-consciously to the bottom of her bob. “Yes. It kept getting all over the place the old way.”
    Dan always used to say that having her around was worse than keeping a cat. Her hair got everywhere. On the sofa, on his suits. He had been joking, of course.
    At least, she had thought he was.
    “Bea…” Granny Addie’s voice was slurred and unsteady. “What … will … say?”
    “What?” Clemmie looked to her mother for guidance, but she looked away. “Who?”
    “Won’t like it,” Granny Addie mumbled. “Bea…”
    “It’s the new medication,” said the nurse quietly, over Granny Addie’s head. “It doesn’t agree with her.”
    Clemmie stroked her grandmother’s thin hand, feeling the veins, like cording. “I love you, Granny.” As if that could bring her back to herself. “I’ve missed you.”
    It was the wrong thing to say. “Miss…” echoed Granny Addie. “Miss you…” A slow tear rolled down the side of her face, first just one, then another, making a track through the lined and papery skin of her face. She cried soundlessly, her eyes open and her mouth closed.
    “Granny.” Clemmie chafed her hands. “Granny, please don’t cry.”
    The tears continued, soundlessly.
    “Excuse me.” Shifting Clemmie out of the way, the nurse leaned over Granny Addie, efficiently blotting her tears, saying, “There, there. You’re just all tired out, aren’t you? Time for your nap, Mrs. Desborough.”
    “I’ll talk to her doctor tomorrow morning,” said Clemmie’s mother, her voice strained.
    Clemmie stumbled awkwardly to her feet. “Will she be okay?”
    The nurse spared Clemmie a glance over her shoulder. “Don’t worry, miss. It’s just these new pills. It’s not anything you did.” She leaned back over Granny Addie, arranging a pillow behind her, making sure her diamond brooch wouldn’t poke her in the cheek.
    The woman in the wheelchair didn’t look like Granny Addie. Her face was slack in sleep, the skin hanging loosely from the bone. Like laundry, thought Clemmie, laundry left out in a heap, discarded. It was as if Granny Addie, the Granny Addie she knew, had gone away, leaving her body behind like so many old