Mind Games

She let her grandchildren give each other comfort in shared grief, and she dealt with the milk, the eggs.

When she sat again, they came to her.

She held them both, kissed them both.

“Y’all sit down now. I’m going to make us some scrambled eggs on toast. That’ll go down easiest, I think.”

“I’m not hungry, Grammie.”

“I know.” She kissed Rem again. “But we need to eat a little.”

“Grammie, I need to know— We need to know,” Thea corrected. “What’s going to happen? What happens now?”

“Yes, you do. I’m going to make us some breakfast, and we’ll talk about that.”

Chapter Five

Thea ate what she could. Food didn’t stem the grief, but the soft scrambled eggs on a slice of sourdough toast helped lessen some of her fears.

Part of her thought it seemed wrong and selfish to even think about herself, but the other part knew she’d carry the fear and worry until she knew.

And Rem was two years younger, so she had to look out for him, too.

And Grammie—Grammie looked so tired, so sad. We all have to help each other, Thea remembered.

“All right.” Lucy reached out on both sides, to pat their hands. “I appreciate you ate a little. I know you have questions, so maybe you can try to eat a little more while I try to answer them. You want to know what happens now, and I can answer some of it.”

“Will they make us go back?” It blurted out, that fear. “And get fostered, even separated because—”

“Right off, no. No to all of that, so put that worry aside. Not long after you were born, Thea, your parents had wills drawn up. Because they had you. And they asked me then, and every time they’ve updated that will since, if I’d take care of you, and Rem, too. If anything happened to them, if you could live with me. So that’s what happens if you both want it to.”

“We can live here, with you?”

Lucy nodded at Rem. “I’m your grammie, and I’ll be your legal guardian, and you can live right here, live with me as long as you want.”

Thea’s shoulders shuddered as she looked down at her plate.

“Nobody’s going to take you away, my darlings. Nobody’s going to separate you. I promise you that, as solemn a promise as I’ve ever made.”

“I thought maybe we’d have to go with Dad’s parents, because they’re rich. They don’t even like us, so maybe they’d make us go to foster.”

“You’re mine. You’ll stay mine. Put that worry aside.”

“Cocoa, too?”

“Yes, Rem, Cocoa, too. Let me ask you, do you want to go back to Virginia, get your things? And anything else that you want to have here with you?”

“I don’t ever want to go back there.” Thea lifted her head again, eyes fierce as she snapped out the words. “I don’t ever want to go in the house again. He killed them there.”

“Then you don’t have to. Your uncles will go, and they’ll get all your things. They’ll get anything else you want. It’s yours now. Your mama and daddy looked out for you, always. The house, all of it, it’s yours, in a trust.”

“Can I have Dad’s drawing board?”

Everything in Lucy softened when she looked at Rem. “Of course you can. I think that would please him, very much. You take all the time you need, the both of you, to think about what you might want.”

“The house, it’ll just sit there empty?”

“It could, Thea, if that’s what you want. We could put everything in storage and rent it, if you want that. We could sell it, if you want that.”