My mom brought her a box of tissues. The two grandmothers ended up sitting side by side on the carpet in front of the bouncy chair, and before I knew it they were arguing about whether Evelyn was going to be left-handed.
“She grabs with her left,” Diane said. “Look. Look at that.”
“She grabs with both,” my mom said. “She’s four months old. She grabs with her feet.”
Ben caught my eye from across the room. For the first time in months, I almost smiled at him.
Later, while Ben was changing Evelyn upstairs and my mom was making coffee, Diane came and found me in the kitchen.
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “And then I’ll never bring it up again unless you want me to.”
I waited.
“When I said ‘what a disappointment’ in that hospital room,” she said, “I wasn’t talking about Evelyn. I need you to know that. I could never, ever be disappointed in her. I was talking about you. I thought you’d betrayed him. And I was so angry, and so scared, and I wanted to hurt you.” She swallowed. “It was the cruelest thing I’ve ever said in my life. To a woman who had just given birth. To my daughter-in-law, whom I love. And it wasn’t even true. Not one word of it.”
