Stupid things to say. I’d taken care of myself all my life without anyone telling me to do it, and in my experience, asking for help was a waste of time. Depending on people was just setting yourself up to be let down.
I reviewed Bob’s list again. I wasn’t excited to make the ninety-minute haul to the supply store, but the sooner the birds were laying eggs again, the better. If Joe Jared discovered that the birds had fallen mysteriously barren, I’d have a hell of a time convincing him to go through with the sale. I’d be left with no source of income and 142 birds to feed.
I wished I could ask Grandma Helen for advice. Not that she would be happy to help me sell the ranch to Joe Jared, but at least she would know what was going on with the birds. She always knew what to do.
I remembered when I first saw her, when I was thirteen, through the peephole in the door of my mother’s Oakland apartment. She was a thin woman with gray hair pulled into a low ponytail. Her narrow face, distorted by the fish-eye glass, had looked unnaturally stretched, her lips cut a pale line above her square chin. A series of deep wrinkles lined her forehead and traced down to encase her deep-set blue eyes. She wore jeans and a white, button-up shirt tucked in behind a large silver belt buckle. Even before I knew who she was, I knew she didn’t belong in Oakland.
She peered nervously down the hall to her left, then back at the door. She seemed downright ancient to me that day, but then, when I was thirteen, anyone over twenty counted as old. She looked surprised to see me when I opened the door, but she recovered quickly. “You must be Tallulah,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m your grandma Helen.”
Her hand was strong, the skin surprisingly smooth. Her thin lips spread upward in an easy smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
She asked for a glass of water, so I showed her in and filled one from the tap. On the kitchen table, my cornflakes crackled in their milk. I wondered if I should offer her food, but then the door to my mom’s room swung open and she emerged, dreadlocks sticking out in every direction. An oversize Raiders T-shirt hung almost to her knees. Her eyes, bleary with sleep, were circled with charcoal shadow that had smeared unevenly in the night.
“Hello, Laura,” Grandma Helen said.
My mom put her hand on the wall. She’d had a late night, and she’d brought someone home with her. I’d heard them stumble through the door around four. “What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Grandma Helen said, motioning to the round table where my breakfast sat turning soggy.
My mom wiped at her nose with the back of her wrist and sniffed. “I gotta take a piss,” she said and slipped into the bathroom.
I gave up on breakfast and waited in silence with Grandma Helen. She sat with her shoulders squared, her back perfectly straight, taking in the disarray that was our apartment.
We couldn’t afford two bedrooms, so the living room doubled as my bedroom and we didn’t have enough storage space. Things tended to pile up. My pillow and blanket were strewn on the couch, my clothes piled high in the corner, and my schoolbooks sat stacked on a low table by the TV. The chairs had been salvaged from a dumpster and were meant to have cushions, not folded bath towels.
I saw it all through Grandma Helen’s eyes and was embarrassed. I spun the ring on my middle finger, a cheap, shiny piece of metal my mom had given me on my thirteenth birthday. The skin underneath had taken on a pale green hue. When my mom finally appeared again, she had washed her face and pulled her dreadlocks together with a rubber band.
Grandma Helen rose to her feet. “I’d have come later—I know you’re not exactly a morning person—but I’m hoping to get home before dark.”
My mom slumped into the chair beside me, pulling up one knee under her giant nightshirt. “Whatever,” she said, cupping her forehead in her hand and peering sideways at her mother. “Why are you here?”
Grandma Helen sat and resumed her perfect posture. “Well, there’s just no easy way to say it, so here it is.” She cleared her throat. “I’m taking the girl to live with me on the ranch. You can come too if you want.”
“Don’t be stupid,” my mom said, reaching over to tousle my hair. “You’re not taking anyone anywhere.”
Grandma Helen ignored her and spoke to me. “We’ve got a good middle school nearby in Victorville, lots of fresh air, and I could teach you to work with the ostriches if you want to make a little money. Since your grandfather passed, I could use the help.” She waited for me to say something, but no words came. I was trying to envision the ostriches. I had never seen an ostrich in real life, let alone many ostriches. And now here was this woman I didn’t even know proposing that I leave Oakland with her that very morning to go live on an ostrich ranch.
“Seriously,” my mom said, her voice growing louder, “what are you talking about?” She snatched her pack of cigarettes from the table and lit one.
Grandma Helen’s voice remained calm. “I’m talking about the fact that I don’t much approve of the way you’re raising this girl.” A rush of smoke came across the table at her. “And frankly, I’m not convinced that the money I’ve been sending you these last few months has gone toward the private school you said you were enrolling her in.”
Private school? I didn’t even know there was a private school in Oakland.
There was a shuffling behind us, and a pale man with red, curly hair came out of my mom’s room. He was wearing her tattered purple robe, with one side of the collar folded under the wrong way. “What’s up?” he asked.
Grandma Helen stood and extended her hand. “Helen Jones,” she said. “You must be . . .”
He blinked hard a couple of times, then hunched forward with a little gag and ran for the bathroom. From the table, we heard him retching. “You might like it out on the ranch, Tallulah,” my grandmother said.
“What the fuck is she talking about?” I asked my mom.
“Watch your mouth,” my mom snapped, tapping her cigarette against the edge of the yellow glass of the ashtray.
Watch my mouth? She never said that to me. When I was younger, she and her friends used to throw me quarters as I made up little songs using words most parents didn’t allow. I cast a sideways sneer at Grandma Helen. This was all her doing. She looked like the kind of woman who would tell a kid not to swear.
“She’s not going anywhere,” my mom said again, sounding tired. “She doesn’t even know you.”
Damn straight, I thought.
My grandmother hesitated, but when she locked eyes with my mom again, there wasn’t a trace of indecision. “I’m not sending you any more money, Laura.” In the silence that followed, we could all hear the man vomiting behind the bathroom door. “But the girl’s my granddaughter, and I care about her well-being. I’ll take good care of her.” She kept her distance but addressed me directly again. “If you hate it, I’ll drive you back here myself,” she said. “I’d only ask that you give it three months, till the end of the school year.”
I waited for my mom to protest again, but she didn’t. Instead, she trudged into the kitchen and yanked the empty coffeepot from its base.
“Mom?”
Water rushed from the tap.
“Mom?” I repeated.
She spoke to Grandma Helen. “It might be worth trying for a few months.”
I stared at her, disbelieving. “Are you crazy?” I wasn’t moving to the desert to live on an ostrich ranch. My life was in Oakland. My school, my friends, my boyfriend. No fucking way.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she said, a bit of her usual ferocity returning. She slipped her cigarette between her lips and it bounced as she spoke. “If you stay here, you’ll