Free Things Too Huge to Fix by Saying Sorry by Susan Vaught

it’s so sad, and Grandma’s not actually gone, and I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to bother you when it might just be stupid and really nothing. Here’s the key.”
    I held it out.
    Indri’s mouth pinched together, but she reached her pastel-dusted hand out and took the key. She glared at me for a second, then studied it. “It’s small. And old. Maybe to a door or something? No. Too small for that. I don’t know.”
    She handed me the key, and I put it in my pocket as she looked down at the papers and read out loud. “ Ghostology . What’s that all about?”
    â€œGrandma said Alzheimer’s would make her a ghost of herself, and she wanted me to know who she really was and what was important to her. I think she used the word to mean she was giving me a study of herself, before she, you know. Went away.”
    Indri frowned. “That is kinda sad.”
    She read the first page, like I had done. Then she read the second page. At the end of the third page, she stoppedand waited for me to turn over the fourth. I fiddled with the corner of the paper. I wanted to turn it over, but I didn’t want to, all at the same time.
    â€œWhat do you think?” I asked Indri.
    â€œI think she loved you a lot, to have written you just to tell you you’re pretty and brilliant and stuff.” She looked up at me, frowning. “Why didn’t you tell me about this when you found it?”
    â€œI’m sorry. I really didn’t want to distract you, with your dad and stuff.”
    â€œAnd I can’t believe you haven’t read it all already.”
    â€œIt’s sad. And she’s not gone , really, so I felt guilty, and—” I closed my eyes. “It didn’t feel right.”
    Indri went quiet for a few seconds, and then she said, “Okay.” Simple. Stuff could be like that with Indri, when I let it be like that.
    After a moment, I said, “I think when Grandma wrote this, she believed everything would go in a straight line. That she’d be herself, then she’d get sicker, and then she’d die. I think she didn’t figure on all of this in-between-ness. She thought she’d be a real ghost, not a living one.”
    â€œYou’re probably right,” Indri said.
    So, Grandma sucked at predicting the future too, just like I did. Why did that make me feel better? “I don’t think anybody in my whole family understood how much in-between-ness there would be.”
    â€œRight. And now, something’s bothering your grandmother,”Indri sounded more sure. “I think the best thing we can do is figure out what to do to help her.”
    I turned over the third page, and Indri and I looked at the fourth page together. It was all about me in first and second grade, and more about everything Grandma thought about my brilliance, and how beautiful and perfect I was.
    â€œI know she’s your grandmother,” Indri said, “but I gotta say, all this stuff about your wonderful wonderfulness—it gets a little nauseating.”
    â€œI think it’s sweet,” I mumbled, trying not to get all sniffly and make her laugh at me more.
    â€œIt is sweet.” Indri patted my hand. “But sickening.”
    We turned the page, and then both of us got very, very still.
    I have a lot to say to you, Oops, and not all of it is about how much I care about you and believe in you.
    I need to tell you about the falling out I had with Avadelle Richardson. I’m sure it’s what you want to know. It’s what everyone always wants to know—and that gets old, let me tell you. I’ve published eighteen academic books and forty-two scholarlyarticles, and still all anyone wants to hear about me and my history and all that I’ve learned is, what happened to a friendship I had with a woman I knew for a handful of summers, over fifty years ago, and how much of Night on Fire is really