Gussie closed her eyes and pictured it. "That sounds like exactly what I hoped it would be."
There was a pause. "Grandma, I'm not supposed to call you."
"I gathered."
"Dad said we should wait. He said it would be better if everybody told you together, after. But I don't think it's better. I think it's worse. I think it's way worse." The whisper broke a little. "I saw the ocean today. For the first time. I stood in it. And the whole time I kept thinking, Grandma paid for this, and Grandma's in Ohio, and that's so messed up. It's so messed up. I told Dad and he said it's complicated. Everything is complicated with them. Everything is always complicated."
"It is complicated," Gussie said. "That doesn't mean you're wrong."
"Grandpa's here," Zinnia said, all at once, the way you pull off a bandage. "Did you know? Grandpa Lysander. I'd only met him two times before. He's really sick. He has this machine he plugs into at night. And he brought this kid. Tadeo. He's eight. He's so funny. He knows every kind of shark. Grandpa's like... I don't know. He's like his grandpa. Except he isn't."
Gussie opened her eyes and looked at the water stain on the motel ceiling, which was shaped, she thought, a little like Florida.
"Whose kid is he, honey?"
"His mom lives in the apartment downstairs from Grandpa in Asheville. She's having some kind of surgery this week, on her back, and she doesn't have anybody, and Grandpa takes Tadeo to school a lot and stuff. So he couldn't come unless Tadeo came. And the house only fits six. Dad said the county would fine us. So." Zinnia's voice went small. "So you're Wednesday. That's what they decided. Grandpa and Tadeo go back Tuesday night, and Dad drives up and gets you, and you come Wednesday. Aunt Coralie said you said that was okay. She said she called you. But you didn't sound like you knew anything, on the phone with Dad. I was right there. You sounded like you didn't know."
Gussie sat up on the bedspread.
"Aunt Coralie said I said it was okay," she repeated.
"She said she talked to you in May. She said you said, fine, as long as you didn't have to see him."
"Zinnia," Gussie said, carefully, "who did Aunt Coralie tell that to?"
"Everybody. Dad. Mom. Grandpa. Grandpa asked about it the very first night, at dinner. He asked her straight out, Does your mother know I'm here? And Aunt Coralie said yes. And he said, She's all right with it? And Aunt Coralie said, She's all right with it as long as she doesn't have to see you." There was the creak of wood again, a shift of weight. "And Grandpa got really quiet and he said, That's fair. That's more than fair. And he went out on the porch for a long time."