That line stayed with me longer than I expected. “She only wants immediate family around.”
I had been driving since before sunrise, the kind of long Western drive where one paper cup of coffee turns into three, the radio fades in and out, and you start measuring time by exit signs and gas stations. I left Phoenix with a trunk full of baby gifts, an overnight bag, and the kind of nervous happiness that makes a woman feel ten years younger.
My first grandchild was about to be born. Jessica had called me herself two nights earlier. Not texted.
Called. Her voice was bright and sweet in that careful way she used when she wanted something to sound sincere. “Linda, I think it’s happening soon,” she said.
“Matthew is nervous, and honestly, I would feel better if you were here.”
I was standing in my kitchen at the time, holding a damp dish towel, looking out at my little backyard where the grapefruit tree had dropped three yellow fruits into the gravel. I remember pressing the towel against my chest because my heart did this silly, hopeful lift. “You want me there?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “You’re his grandmother.”
Those four words carried me for fifteen hours. I packed like a woman being welcomed.
A soft blue blanket I had bought months earlier from a little shop in Scottsdale. A stuffed bear with satin ears. Two tiny outfits with clouds on them.
A silver picture frame engraved with his birth month, even though I had guessed wrong and ordered it too early. I also packed a small notebook where I had written down things I thought might help Jessica after delivery: which freezer meals kept best, how to calm a fussy baby, how not to panic at every little sound. I did not pack pride.
Pride would have told me to wait until I was invited twice. A grandmother’s heart told me to get in the car. Matthew was my only child.
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