May We Be Forgiven

she’s one of those fragile dolls in a box that you can just kind of look at, and maybe she’d like to get out and go somewhere.”
    “We can certainly ask her; my sense is, she’s pretty happy where she is—but, like I said, we can ask. So what do you think? Visit Grandma? Bake cookies? Clean your closets?”
    “We could bake cookies and bring them to Grandma,” she says.
    “We could.”
    “Okay, so tonight, when we get home, we’ll make cookies.”
    “Tonight, when we get home, we’ll have dinner and go to bed.”
    “Okay, so tomorrow morning we’ll bake the cookies and go see Grandma,” she says, pleased to have a plan.
    “When you bake cookies, what do you do?” I ask a couple of minutes later.
    “What do I do?”
    “Like, how do you make them?”
    “We either do slice-and-bake or we mix together all the things that are listed on the back of the chocolate chips—they call that ‘from scratch.’”
    “And you know how to do that?”
    “Yes,” she says, like now I’m the idiot. “Have you never made cookies?”
    “Never,” I say.
    “We better stop at the store,” she says, and we do. Ashley makes a beeline for the chocolate chips, and we buy everything as directed on the back of the bag, plus extra milk.
    “You have to have really fresh milk,” she says. “Otherwise there’s no point.” And then she looks around, smiling at the rows and rows of groceries. “I really miss grocery stores,” she says in a way that reminds me of the oddity of her existence, and how boarding school is an isolated kind of social/educational incubator.

    W e make the cookies, and when the kitchen starts to fill with a wonderful warm chocolaty smell I feel deeply accomplished. We immediately eat too many and drink the milk, and Ash was entirely right when she said it was all about the milk’s being fresh. It’s amazing—a truly sublime experience. We start laughing for no reason, and the cat comes out and rubs my leg for the first time since I gave away the kittens—I pour her a saucer of milk.
    And when the cookies are cool, we go to the nursing home. On the way there, I explain about Grandma’s progress and Grandma’s boyfriend.
    “I don’t get it, are they married or not?”
    “Not officially.”
    “And what’s the deal with her crawling and swimming?”
    “Remember how she was in bed last time we saw her?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Well, she’s out of bed now. We’re not sure if it’s a new medicine or perhaps she forgot why she was in bed. I myself can’t remember exactly what happened. I know that we put her in the nursing home because she was bedridden—I’m not sure anyone ever knew why.”
    “Well, so that’s cool, she’s getting better.”
    “That’s one way to describe it.”

    “H i, Mom,” I say as we walk into her room.
    “So you say,” she says.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “They’re here,” she says with a particular expression of annoyance, as though long-awaited aliens have finally made themselves known.
    “They are?” I say.
    “Yes,” she says, definitively. “They came this morning and they haven’t left yet.”
    She looks up at Ashley. “You look less Chinese—did you have work done?”
    “Mom, this is Ashley—not Claire.”
    “Who are your people?”
    “You are my people,” Ashley says, kissing her.
    “Mom, Ashley is your granddaughter, she is one of us.”
    “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she says, shaking Ashley’s hand.
    “Mom, I’ve been meaning to tell you—when I visited Aunt Lillian, I got your jewelry back.”
    “The diamond engagement ring?” my mother asks.
    “No, some pearl earrings, a bracelet, the necklace with the ruby, and a few other little things, a pin, and a little necklace. She was very happy to give them back—seemed to want it off her chest.”
    “I’m sure,” my mother says. “Did you look at her hand? Is she still wearing the engagement ring your father bought for me?”
    “I have no idea, Ma,” I said. “It really seems like something the two of you should work out together. When you told me to ask her for the jewelry you didn’t mention a diamond engagement ring.”
    “I wanted to see what she would fess up to—before I really put the screws on her,” my mother says.
    Time for lunch—in the dining room. The floor assistant comes to take her to the dining room.
    “I’m not going,” she says.
    “Why not?” I ask
    “A protest,” she says.
    “I don’t think they’re going to bring your