Read True for Free Online Page B

attention.
    â€œI’m just teasing. Besides, I gave them a good one last year.”
    â€œOh, yeah. The nuclear family. That was a good headline. ‘Researcher Denounces the Nuclear Family’!”
    Grandma laughs again.
    â€œI didn’t even say that. I just said that the ideal of the nuclear family should be looked at critically. Has the ideal strayed too far from reality, since people nowadays are faced with every imaginable family configuration and are forced to adjust to it, and live quite happily? The world always comes between people, in every kind of family, which is how it should be. No one can deny their origins, their circumstances. Everyone has to survive their childhood and change the circumstances into something else. It’s the only way to get through it, to become happy.”
    She laughs, gentleness in her eyes, as if the world is a clumsy thing with flaws that she forgives out of sheer tenderheartedness.
    The interview had been purposely confrontational. The photograph was an old one, with grandma looking proudly straight into the camera. The summary insert made her sound like a radical in her day, a trailblazer in the jungles of academia. She snorted after she read it: I wasn’t a radical. They’ll believe anything. I just wanted to do research and help people in the process and keep my wits about me. If they want to call practicality and love for humanity radicalism, then fine, I guess I fit the criteria.
    The nightingale on the branch hears them but doesn’t say anything. Its eye is a shining black point in the universe. The bird is watching over them, mute and knowing, waiting until evening to disclose its counsel in a clear song.
    Grandma cuts a thick slice of brie and spreads it on a piece of bread.
    Anna can’t help but think about the growth lurking somewhere among her cells. It’s devouring her whole life, the same life that gave birth to Anna’s mother and, in a way, Anna, too. A ghoulishly rational and coherent thought pierces Anna: life gives birth to life and life gives birth to death.
    Grandma doesn’t know Anna’s thoughts. Suddenly, without warning, she says, “I’ve been thinking about you. What’s going on in your life? Or what was going on last year, the year before? We didn’t see each other much. But your mother was worried.”
    Anna turns her head. It’s easy to turn her head and look at the apple blossoms, the climbing rose on the side of the house. Soon it, too, will push out buds and everything will start at the beginning again.
    Grandma doesn’t give up. “What exactly happened? What was going on?”
    Anna reaches for the cheese too quickly. The knife falls to the ground with a clink.
    She’s spilled wine on the dress. One drop runs between her thumb and forefinger as if it knows the way. The stain begins to spread over the dress. If she doesn’t put salt on it quickly it will never come out. It will never leave, no matter how much you wash it. It’s already growing.
    â€œThere was something going on for years, wasn’t there?” Grandma asks.
    â€œNow I’ve ruined this dress,” Anna says, upset.
    She’s still holding her glass. The glass is shaking. Grandma is looking closely at her.
    â€œWhat of it?” she says. “So what? It’s just a dress.”
    â€œBut it’s yours, and I’ve gone and ruined it. Do you have any salt? Should I get some from upstairs?”
    Grandma is thoughtful, as if she were looking right through her. She opens her mouth to say something, closes it again, gazing steadily until she finally makes up her mind to say what she’s thinking.
    â€œActually, it’s not mine.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œIt’s Eeva’s. I didn’t know it had been hanging in that closet all these years. I was surprised when I saw you wearing it.”
    She says the name dispassionately, as if she were