“By the skin of my teeth,” whispered G. “That’s how. At first, I was preoccupied, Joey. I met your grandfather, and we got to America. We had to get jobs. We worked very hard, you know. He wanted to have children. He was desperate to have children. But I couldn’t fathom bringing children into a world where such evil existed. Your grandfather took me to psychologists. He went to great efforts to convince me. I wanted to make him happy—oh I did, Joey—but something inside me was too hardened.

“Your grandfather accepted it at last, or pretended that he had. Then one day, he said something so innocuous, that it would have been nice to have someone to carry on our family names. And that is what turned the light on inside me. Suddenly I desperately wanted a baby to carry on my family’s legacy. By then, we were older though. It was harder. It wasn’t working. We went to fertility specialists. No baby. I began to resign myself, I suppose.”

How had Joey never known any of this? How had she never asked?

“Then I became pregnant. It was a miracle, Joey. And when your mother came into this world and cried, I got parts of myself back that I hadn’t even known were missing. I had something to live for. I had some piece of my parents. I named her—”

“Beatrice,” said Joey. “For Benjamin.”

“Yes. For Benjamin.”

“So much makes sense. Like why you wanted me to marry a Jewish man.”

There was a long empty hallway’s worth of silence. “Yes.”

“Can I ask you one more thing though, G? About Milos?”

“Yes.”

“I just wonder…do you think, if you’d gotten to see him in person after all these years, you would have loved him just the same as when you were younger?”

For a while, there was only the brrrr of a lawn mower outside. At last, her grandmother said, “I do. I do think I would have loved him as much. But maybe it’s just been a fantasy all these years. A fantasy that kept me going. Perhaps a fantasy that kept me back too, if I admit it to myself. You know, Joey, maybe my longing for what once was held me back from the life that was in front of me. Who can say now? But I suppose I think that love doesn’t ever die once you’ve felt it. Maybe it only changes shape. Or maybe that’s just a fantasy too.”

Joey was quiet for a long time. “I wish more than anything that I could make it different, what happened to you.”

“Joey, you asked me about my past the other day, and I was too cowardly to give you answers.”

“You don’t have to explain it. I—”