Grandpa looked at her for a long time.
“Sit down, Maggie,” he said.
She sat on the top step. Like a kid.
“I was hard on you,” Grandpa said. “I know I was. My father was hard on me, and I thought that’s what you did. You push your kids so they get strong. I pushed you and pushed you and I never once told you that you were already enough. And then Emma came along, and I was older, and softer, and I’d figured out I’d gotten it wrong with you. So I tried to get it right with her.” He shook his head. “I should’ve gotten it right with you first. I should have told you. I’m sorry, Maggie. I am.”
My mother put her face in her hands.
“But what you did to her,” Grandpa said, and his voice got hard again. “What you did to Emma. That wasn’t about me. She was a child. You took your fight with me and you put it on a little girl in an attic. That’s yours. I can’t carry that one for you.”
