Chapter 82
Elise's first child was born when Marcus was fifty-six. A boy named Thomas, with Elise's eyes and the look of someone who had arrived with opinions already forming.
Marcus held his grandson in the hospital and felt the specific sensation of continuation made physical the chain of it, the way one generation's love became the ground for the next generation's growth.
He called Leroy from the corridor.
'Grandfather,' Leroy said.
'Grandfather,' Marcus said. He still wasn't entirely used to the word. It seemed too large, or too old, or perhaps just accurate in a way that required adjustment.
'How does it feel?'
He thought about how to answer honestly.
'Like an extension,' he said. 'Of everything. Like the story having more chapters than I thought it would have.'
Leroy laughed. 'Good answer. Sounds like a teacher.'
'I'm always a teacher.'
'I know,' Leroy said. 'That's what makes you the good grandfather you're going to be.'
Joseph's first child was born two years later a girl named Diane, after his grandmother, which made the elder Diane sit in her chair in the yard and hold the baby for a long time without speaking, her face doing the thing it had done when she first held Elise, when it had done when she first held Marcus: that total, unguarded openness.
Marcus sat beside her, watching.
'She has your look,' his mother said, finally.
'Which one of us?' Marcus asked.
His mother considered the baby.
'All of us,' she said.