She made the right choice for the girl she was then.
One day Joy might have a granddaughter who played tennis – all her grandchildren would play, it was impossible to imagine otherwise – and it wouldn’t occur to that precious girl of the future to give up her dreams of competitive tennis, or anything else, for a boy.
Also Joy wouldn’t let her.
*
One morning, while Savannah was still asleep and Joy sat on the veranda and drank a cup of tea and watched the sun rise – it was the same sun, but it seemed to move so much more slowly and elegantly than it did at home – she thought: I didn’t send Harry away only for the sake of the children, I sent him away because I was angry with Stan for the times he walked out, and I was angry because I was tired and because I felt responsible for everything: from Troy’s drug-dealing to Brooke’s headaches to tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s laundry. It was secret petty marital point-scoring and she would never admit that to Stan, because if he was going to forgive her he would need to believe that her motives had been nothing but motherly, but there was relief in admitting it to herself.
Surely Joy’s clever granddaughter would know how to have it all without actually doing it all.
*
‘Why go away with her, of all people?’ asked her family. ‘After what she did to you? How could you forgive her?’’
Joy said, ‘She just happened to call at the right time.’
That was true but it was also true that Joy enjoyed not only her cooking but her company, and that Savannah’s intentions might not have been pure when she banged on their door that night, but most of her actions had been kind, excluding of course her unkind blackmail of poor Troy, but when Joy weighed that up against Savannah’s childhood and her family’s own actions that long-ago day when they’d all been so heedlessly cruel to a child in need, she found that she could forgive if not forget.
Forgiveness comes easier with age, Joy explained, full of her own wisdom and grace, but her children laughed at that and helpfully listed the many people Joy had still not forgiven, decades after the event, like that one very rude local council member and the teacher who only gave Joy seven out of ten for the Great Wall of China assignment she’d done for Troy.
The difference was that none of those people had ever made Joy minestrone or cinnamon toast.
There was only one time in the twenty-one days that Joy suddenly questioned why she was spending time with this person, and that was when Savannah admitted to other tiny, peculiar acts of revenge against Joy’s family.
For example, she’d called Logan’s college and complained about him.
‘I didn’t exactly accuse him of sexual harassment,’ she said, and she said she was pretty sure they hadn’t taken much notice. She’d also made a number of online bookings at Brooke’s physiotherapy practice so that she’d get a whole lot of no-shows.
Joy was incensed on behalf of both her children.
‘You were risking their livelihoods!’ she cried.
‘I could have done much worse,’ said Savannah. ‘I’ve done worse.’
‘Oh, well done to you, Savannah!’ snapped Joy. ‘Should I thank you for not doing worse?’
Savannah bowed her head as Joy continued, ‘So obviously you blackmailed Troy. What about Amy? What did you do to her?’
‘Nothing much. I just made brownies on Father’s Day,’ said Savannah, as if it were obvious.
‘But how in the world did you know that would upset her?’
‘You’d told me they were her signature dish,’ said Savannah.
Joy hadn’t remembered this. She’d been an old chook twittering away while Savannah took careful notes. She found herself unable to look at Savannah, because she felt, just for a moment, like slapping her.
‘And me?’ Joy suddenly remembered herself, because wasn’t she the worst offender on that day? She’d been the only grown-up.
‘I tried to seduce your husband,’ said Savannah. ‘While you were sick in hospital.’
‘Oh,’ said Joy. ‘That. But you wouldn’t have really . . .’
‘Yes, I would have,’ said Savannah. ‘Like I said, I’ve done worse, Joy. I’ve done far worse. I’m not a nice person.’ It was twilight and they were sitting on the balcony watching hundreds of black bats swoop across a huge orange sky. Joy breathed, and felt her anger rise and fall, and when she was calm again she said, ‘I think you are a nice person. You’re a nice person who has done some not so nice things. Like all of us.’