“Would you call Nanna for me?” my mother asks but it’s not a question.
“I’ve got homework,” I say.
“It’ll just take a minute,” she says. Mom is in the kitchen getting dinner ready but that’s not the reason she wants me to call. She’s already talked to her mother a dozen times today and it’s my turn.
“I don’t know what to say to her.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just ask how she is.”
So I dial Nanna’s number, Glendale 82978, and she picks up on the first ring. ‘Hi, Nanna. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. I’ve just been talking to my neighbor across the street and she was telling me…” I sit in the front hall, listening to Nanna talking and my mother running water in the sink, putting pans on the stove. “Mom, do you want to talk to Nanna?” I finally ask.
“Tell her I’ll call her later.”
Ever since Grandpa died, my mother has been spending a lot of time with her mother, taking her shopping, having her over for meals. Glendale, 82978. I haven’t called that number in 50 years but I still remember—and wish I could dial it and that Nanna would answer.