Chapter 3 - GRANDPA ASKS THE QUESTION
Grandpa shut the sedan door and walked straight toward me.
Not toward Lauren.
Not toward the house.
Toward me.
He touched Noah’s blanket first, checking the baby’s warmth with two careful fingers.
Then he looked at me.
“Madison,” he said, and his voice went softer. “Why aren’t you driving the car I bought you?”
I fought tears so hard my throat hurt.
“Lauren took it.”
Lauren rushed forward immediately.
“She doesn’t even need a Cadillac!”
Grandpa turned toward her so slowly that for once she had no prepared smile ready.
“With a newborn in February?”
Mom hurried off the porch, already wringing her hands.
“Dad, Madison’s been emotional since the baby.”
That sentence did something to me.
Emotional since the baby.
As if the problem was not that I was standing in the street with a newborn in winter.
As if the problem was my tone.
Grandpa pointed at the bicycle.
“You let her use that with my great-grandson?”
Mom’s mouth opened and closed.
Dad stayed in the doorway, one hand against the frame, looking like he wished the wood would swallow him.
Lauren crossed her arms. “No one made her go anywhere.”
Grandpa looked at her for a long second.
Then he stepped past all of them, opened the back door of his sedan, and said, “Madison. You and Noah. Get in.”
I did.
I didn’t argue.
I didn’t look at anyone.
I slid into the warm leather seat, gathered Noah tighter against me, and felt the heat hit my face so fast I almost sobbed.
Through the open door, I saw Lauren’s expression begin to change.
The smugness was gone.
Grandpa had not raised his voice.
That scared her more.
He turned back toward Lauren and Mom.
“Then explain why Madison’s name is still on the Cadillac title.”
The silence that followed was instant and total.
Lauren went pale.
Mom froze.
Dad looked away.
Inside the car, still holding Noah, I stopped breathing for half a second.
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Because I had never told Grandpa what Lauren said to me two nights earlier.
That I should “sign the car over properly” if I wasn’t going to use it.
