Show, The by John A. Heldt Page A

odd angles, as if making some sort of gesture.
    "This is my great-grandson, Joshua. He really is a nice boy."
    Grace laughed.
    "I'm sure he is."
    Penelope pulled out another photo and handed it to Grace.
    "This is his sister, Meg. As you can see, she's quite the little cheerleader. She turned fourteen on Friday. I planned this trip around her birthday."
    "She's lovely," Grace said.
    "She's growing up fast. They both are. That's why I come out here at least once a year, despite the distance and my limitations. You can't spend too much time with family."
    Grace returned the photo and stared blankly toward the front of the bus.
    "I confess I'm envious. I had little contact with my extended family growing up and have had no contact with my immediate family for years. A drunk driver killed my parents when I was seventeen. I lived with my aunt until I went away to college, but I don't even have her now."
    When Grace didn't hear a reply, she turned toward her traveling companion and saw that her face had changed. She saw that Penelope Price was no longer a proud and buoyant great-grandmother but rather a woman on the verge of tears.
    "Have I said something that upset you?" she asked. "If I have, I apologize."
    Penelope patted Grace on the knee again.
    "There's no need to apologize. You just sent me back to a place I haven't visited for a very long time. It seems that you and I have more in common than a fondness for gingham dresses."
    "I don't understand."
    "I lost my parents, too, as a child," Penelope said. "They died in a house fire when I was fifteen. I was raised by an aunt and uncle in Mukilteo until I was old enough to live on my own."
    "I'm sorry to hear that. We can talk about something else, if you'd like."
    "No, no. That's quite all right. I don't have the opportunity to speak often about my parents. I barely remember them, but I do remember that they were wonderful people."
    "I can certainly relate to that. Tell me about them."
    "My father, Alistair Green, was a history professor, and later a dean, at the university in Seattle. He had come to this country from England as a young man in search of excitement and adventure. But what he found instead was a woman who convinced him that true happiness came in the form of simpler things, like marriage, children, and good deeds. They married during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909 and adopted me as an infant two years later."
    Grace sighed when she heard the words. She was moved by Penelope's story, in part because it reminded her of her own story. Like the old woman, she had been raised, or at least partly raised, by parents representing two nations and two temperaments: a spirited Brit and a more grounded American. Grace could directly relate to Penelope's sense of loss. She too yearned for people who had meant so much to her and had been taken from her far too soon.
    But there was something else about this narrative that made it compelling, even unsettling. Penelope's story was more than just a nostalgic look back by a woman nearing the end of her life. It was more than an interesting tale. It was a story that Grace Vandenberg had heard before.
    "Were you an only child?"
    "I was an only child," Penelope said. "My parents were unable to have children on their own and they chose not to adopt any more. I guess I was a handful."
    "I can relate," Grace said with a laugh. "I was a handful myself."
    She put a hand on the woman's arm and looked at her thoughtfully.
    "I also know what it's like to be an only child. It can be lonely."
    "It can," Penelope agreed. "But I was not alone all the time. In 1918, shortly after the armistice, two of my father's nieces, twin sisters, emigrated from England to Seattle. They quickly became the big sisters I had always wanted. One was serious, the other silly, but I loved them both. Unfortunately, they didn't stick around very long."
    "What happened?"
    "The serious sister, Edith, went to college at the university and married a local