the plucked-from-the-Dumpster presents she'd brought for everyone in
the shopping bags: rusting silverware, old books and magazines, a few
pieces of fine bone china from the twenties with only minor chips.
Brian had become a decorated sergeant detective, supervising a special
unit that investigated organized crime. He and his wife had split up
around the time Eric and I did, but he had consoled himself by buying
and renovating a wreck of a town house in Brooklyn. He put in new
wiring and plumbing, a new firebox, reinforced floor joists, and a new
porch all on his own. It was the second time he'd taken on a true dump
and restored it to perfection. Also, at least two women were after him to
marry them. He was doing pretty darn well.
We showed Mom and Lori the gardens, which were ready for winter.
John and I had done all the work ourselves: raked the leaves and
shredded them in the chipper, cut back the dead perennials and mulched
the beds, shoveled compost onto the vegetable garden and tilled it, and
dug up the dahlia bulbs and stored them in a bucket of sand in the
basement. John had also split and stacked the wood from a dead maple
we'd cut down, and climbed up on the roof to replace some rotted cedar
shingles.
Mom nodded at all our preparations; she'd always appreciated self-
sufficiency. She admired the wisteria that wrapped around the potting
shed, the trumpet vine on the arbor, and the big grove of bamboo in the
back. When she saw the pool, an impulse seized her, and she ran out onto
the green elastic cover to test its strength, Charlie the dog loping after
her. The cover sagged beneath them, and she fell down, shrieking with
laughter. John and Brian had to help pull her off as Brian's daughter,
Veronica—who hadn't seen Mom since she was a toddler—stared wide-
eyed.
"Grandma Walls is different from your other grandma," I told her.