Totally and Completely Fine(30)

I’d take him to the Finnish Line, one of the few non-chain coffee places in town. They had incredible hot chocolate and fun Finnish treats, like Shrove buns and munkki, a delicious type of donut. I wasn’t a coffee drinker, but Spencer had liked getting their traditional kaffeost, which involved dipping cheese into a light roast. I had a feeling Ben would be excited to try it.

He’d probably be up for anything I suggested.

Eventually, a green backpack was reluctantly chosen, and I was about to offer to buy Lena a hot chocolate when we were spotted by my mother-in-law. She was standing outside with Jessica, selling desserts under a banner that had their church’s name on it.

Lena’s shoulders tensed up to her ears as we walked toward them.

“You just have to say hello,” I told her.

I knew I probably should have been trying harder to encourage a relationship, but I honestly couldn’t blame Lena for wanting to avoid her grandmother. If Cooper—and Montana in general—was about five years behind the times, then Diana was a good thirty to forty.

She’d lost her goddamn mind when Spencer had told her that he wanted to take my last name. Which, to be fair, was pretty progressive of him, but she also had some extremely outdated views on just about everything regarding gender roles and sexuality.

I couldn’t prove it, but I had long suspected that she’d been behind quite a few of the rumors that had been spread about me.

I hadn’t slept with the entire baseball team.

Just three members of it.

We reached the table, and Diana immediately pulled Lena to her and pressed her against her chest, forcing my ever-growing daughter to hunch down. I was certain it was uncomfortable, for several reasons.

“Grandma…” Lena said, trying to wriggle out of her tight embrace.

For such a tiny woman she was strong as hell.

“Don’t I get a hug?” I asked.

Diana glared at me but released Lena.

I never got a hug.

“Look at you.” Diana was now holding Lena’s face in her hands, pushing her hair back from her face.

Lena’s discomfort radiated off her like a bird in distress.

“Such a pretty girl,” Diana said. “If only you’d get your hair out of your face.”

Lena shot me a glance.

“How are you, Diana?” I asked.

My mother-in-law finally released Lena, who took several large steps away.

“I’m as good as can be expected,” Diana said.

She glanced over at Jessica, who had been busying herself with the bake sale goods. Sometimes it seemed impossible that we’d ever been friends.

“I’d feel much better if I could see my granddaughter more often,” Diana said.

Lena looked down at her feet.

“That’s my fault,” I said. “I’m very strict about Lena’s free time.”

That was a lie, but Diana had probably stopped listening after I said it was my fault.

“Spencer always made sure I got to see Lena,” Diana said, more to Jessica than to me.

I felt a twinge of pity.

Lena was the last living reminder of Spencer that Diana had. And she had been devastated by his death—unable to leave her house for a month. The church had taken care of her, and I was grateful for that, because I had been in no shape to tend to anyone else’s needs but mine and Lena’s.

It was an ungenerous thought, but there were times I got the sense that Diana felt like she was the only one who’d lost Spencer. That her grief was greater than anyone else’s.

Her church had done exactly what they’d done when my dad had died. Offered prayers and invitations to services but nothing that we could use.

I minded it less this time around because we had other people taking care of us, but I had nearly lost it when I found out that they’d planted a tree in Spencer’s honor—without my permission or knowledge—in the back garden. They’d even held a celebration to unveil it.

Diana brought Lena. She’d told me they were just going shopping.

Whoever had been in charge of it, however, did a terrible job, because the tree died within a year. Last I heard, Diana had been given the shriveled-up trunk—barely wider than a pencil—so that she could bury it in her backyard. Instead, she put it on her mantel alongside all the pictures she had of Spencer.

Sometimes it was hard to stay mad at her.

Sometimes.

“The youth group is going to be volunteering to clean up the gully this spring,” Jessica said. “Maybe Lena could join them.”

Diana’s eyes lit up. “What a lovely idea,” she said. “What do you think, Lena?”

Lena was still staring at her shoes, and she was doing some sort of toe-in, toe-out movement that had her unable to answer.

“Lena!” Eve, ever our saving grace, appeared.

Diana’s lips puckered.

“Hey, Mrs. P!” she said. “Mrs. Garrison! Mrs. Lennard!”

Her timing was impeccable.

“How are you doing, Eve?” I asked.

“So good!” she said. “Lena, did you see that we have all of our classes together this semester?”

Lena’s entire face lit up like she’d swallowed a lightbulb.

“Cool,” she said, which was about as much enthusiasm as I could expect from her in this situation with so many adults around.