“Let me win this one, Hadley.” He drops his arm. “Just give me this. Please.”
The sweetness in his eyes, the way he looks at me with such genuine care makes me give in.
“Okay,” I say.
I ignore the flutter in my heart and shut the door. I flip the lock. It’s only then do I hear him descend the stairs. It’s only then, too, do I turn my phone off and climb into bed in the middle of the afternoon.
Twelve
Machlan
“What smells so good in here?”
I step through the screen door and scare the shit out of my poor nana. She jumps and clutches her chest. “Machlan Daniel. Don’t you do that to me.” Wielding a wooden spoon in her hand, she waggles it my way.
My hands go up in self-defense. A spatula doesn’t feel great when your nana whips it through the air and wallops you on the back. I made the mistake of mentioning she decorated it with cocks one time. Just once. I’ve avoided the spatula since.
She sticks her cheek out as I approach. I place a kiss on the side of her face as I walk by. “Sorry, Nana.”
“You boys are gonna be the death of me.”
“Let’s not talk about your death.”
“It was an expression, Machlan,” she says. She turns back to the stove and stirs something in a copper pot.
“It was an expression I don’t appreciate.” I hop on top of the island, knowing damn good and well she’ll swat me down when she turns around. “You didn’t answer me.”
“About what?”
“What are ya making? Smells good.”
“I have a ham in the oven and have some—get your hiney off my counter!” She swats my leg. “Goodness gracious, boy. Were you raised in a barn?”
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“You were not. Now get off there.”
Her orders, delivered with the firmness of a sergeant but with the smile of a grandmother, make me laugh. I sit at a stool and watch her cook.
She meanders around the space, lifting lids and getting things out of the refrigerator. She rattles on about some television show she watched that said a kitchen is dirtier than a bathroom, and I tune her out when she switches topics to her soap operas.
I don’t have time to listen to that crap. I’m living a soap opera of my own.
The corner of my lips turn up as I think of Hadley. I don’t know what I’m going to do with that girl. It was easier when she was in Vigo and Cross withheld information. I could rationalize that, tell myself she was happy and to just let her be. But now, with her right under my nose, I can’t pretend she’s not there. I can’t pretend I don’t want to be near her. I don’t want to.
My breath comes out in a long, slow drawl. It’s enough to have Nana turning around with a concerned look.
“A ham on a weeknight?” I ask before she can dictate the direction of this conversation. “Seems weird. You got a boyfriend or something?”
“Not that it would be any of your business, but no. I don’t.” She furrows her brow as she turns back to the stove and shuts off a timer. “Lance called. He and Mariah are coming for dinner.”
“And I wasn’t invited? I’m hurt.”
She glances at me over her shoulder. “You’re always invited, honey.”
“I kinda don’t remember the phone call saying, ‘Hey, Machlan. We’re having dinner tonight.’”
She sets her spoon on a little tray on the counter. “I think Lance is up to something.”
“Lance is always up to something.”
“No, I mean a serious something. Do you know anything about this?”
I balk. “Nana, are you asking me to gossip about my brother?”
“Gossip? No.”
“Yeah. You are.” I shake my head as if I’m utterly amazed at this revelation. “Wasn’t the pastor just preaching about gossiping last week?”
Her mouth hangs open.
“And about my brother, no less,” I add. “I’m disappointed in you.”
She recovers, grabbing a dish towel and throwing it at me. “You’re so full of it.”
“Full of what?” I goad, ducking as the yellow-and-white checkered rag goes over my head.
“Nothing good.” She swats my shoulder as she walks by to pick up the errant towel. “At least you were listening in church, though. That’s a good sign.”
“I always listen. Sometimes to the pastor too.”
I watch as she moseys back to the oven. She opens it, and the entire room is filled with the sweet, smoky scents of baked ham and pineapple.
“You really don’t know what Lance wants?” she asks, resting the baking dish on a towel. “I have no idea what to expect from that boy.”
“I really don’t know. You know I’d tell you. I mean, you feed me.”
She laughs, shaking her head. She gets out a plate and busies herself at the stove. I slide my finger along the edge of a cake on the island and plop the icing in my mouth while she isn’t looking.
“You staying for dinner?” Nana asks.
“I wasn’t invited.”
“I won’t ask again.”
“Oh, you will too.”
“I just hate the thought of you going home alone and eating by yourself.”
“Which is why you totally called me tonight, right?”
She fires a warning look over her shoulder. “Keep it up and no cheeseball for you on Sunday.”
I make a face. “Wow. Going right for the jugular, huh?”
Nana busies herself again, going off on a tangent about how nice her yard looks. Walker apparently mowed it yesterday, and you’d think he shit gold.
Through the window above the sink, I see the evening sky. It’s almost like a painting. I can’t see a sky like that and not think of Hadley.
Evenings are her favorite time of day. I remember when she wanted to be a painter her sophomore year of high school. I bought her all these fancy paints and an easel for Christmas. She spent hours of her life outside, watching the sun go down and trying to capture it on a canvas.
“If you won’t stay for dinner,” Nana says, setting a plate down in front of me, “you can at least eat before you go.”
“Lance is gonna be pissed I got a plate before him.” I smile as broadly as I can. “That really makes me happy, Nana.”
“You and that mouth.”
“Just think,” I say, picking up the fork beside the plate. “I kissed you with this mouth.”
She makes a face but laughs the entire time. As I take a bite of ham, she meanders around the island and hoists herself on a stool beside me. She groans as she gets situated, and a stab of fear races down my spine.
“You okay?” I ask, my fork suspended in midair.
“Oh, I’m fine. My back is just a little sore.”
“Want me to take you to see Doc Burns tomorrow?”
She places a hand on my arm. It’s not a swat and isn’t accompanied with a laugh or a joke about getting old. Instead, it feels a lot like a plea not to talk about it.
My throat squeezes shut as I look at her wrinkled skin. Her wedding ring still sparkles on her finger even though my grandfather has been dead for ten years.
Nana is my consistent, the woman who looked after me after my parents died. The one who makes me chicken noodle soup when I get a slight cough—even when she’s knows I’m faking just to get the soup. She’s not to blame for the bad parts of me, but the credit goes to her for most of the good parts.
The idea of something happening to her makes me want to be sick.
“Ready to talk?” she asks.
I shove a spoonful of scalloped potatoes in my mouth. “About what?”
“About whatever brought you here.”
“Don’t I come here to check on you all the time without wanting to talk?” I ask, still trying to shake off something being wrong with Nana.
“Yes. You’re a good boy and check on me all the time. But you do it differently most days.”
“You’re nuts.”
She tilts her head to the side. “No. I think I’m observant.”
I load my mouth with potatoes again so I don’t have to respond.
She starts a story about my parents. Just the mention of my mother and the taste of the home cooked dinner has me lifting the fork a little slower.
I miss this. A lot. More than I’d ever admit to her or my brothers or Blaire. It’s why I don’t miss Sunday dinners at Nana’s and why my ass is in a pew nearly every Sunday. As much of a heathen as I am, a part of me really likes the slower pace of family dinners. The way you can relax and catch up from the week. How someone cared about you enough to fix you dinner. How someone would miss you if you didn’t show up. How maybe, despite all the bullshit you do and have done, it can be okay somehow.
Nana’s face is animated, her hands waving through the air as she finishes her story. I wonder what will happen when she does pass away some day. My stomach roils. I drop my fork.
“Is it okay?” she asks, looking at my plate.
“It was really good.”
“But you didn’t clean your plate.”
“I, uh, I grabbed a sandwich a little while ago.”
She doesn’t believe me but doesn’t push it. “I talked to Blaire today. She seems to be doing good.”
“I think she got laid on her trip to Savannah.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t talk that way around me.”
I lean forward, resting my elbows on the counter. “Oh, come on, Nana. It’s not like you don’t know what happens.”
“Of course, I know,” she says, patting her silver hair wrapped in a bun high on her head. “It’s not like I was always this old.”
“I bet you were a maniac,” I tease.
“Well, I wasn’t a wallflower, if that’s what you mean.”
“Nana!”
Her cheeks flush as she rinses my plate and sticks it in the dishwasher. “Your poor grandpa didn’t stand a chance.”