I didn’t tell Joanna for eight days. I was afraid of hurting her, but I also didn’t want to surrender the little independence I had finally found. Then Wesley spotted my Buick outside the new house, and that evening Joanna called. “You would rather pay a stranger than your own family?” she demanded. I had rehearsed several answers, but only one came out. “I would rather be your mother than your renter.” She hung up, and silence followed.
For ten days, I heard nothing from her. I moved my belongings one carload at a time and spent my evenings sitting on the porch swing, watching trucks line up at the grain elevator. I had my own door, but I missed my grandchildren terribly. Then, one Thursday evening, a pickup stopped outside. Joanna climbed out looking as though she had been crying for hours. Wesley followed, carrying a yellow legal pad covered in handwriting. He stepped into my kitchen, placed it on the table, and said, “Lorraine, I wrote that number. Not her.”
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