Page 30 of Worth the Trip

“And I started missing you before you called. Both things can be true.”

I laughed and closed the car door, but Nana’s attention had already shifted from my face to the rest of me. She came down the porch steps without hurrying, her house shoes brushing over the shells until she reached me and took my chin between her fingers. She tilted my face toward what remained of the sunlight and studied beneath one eye, then the other, as though exhaustion might confess under proper examination.

“Them people done worked all the groceries off you. You sample cake batter and call it lunch, then want to stand here telling me you eat.”

“I don’t even make the batter most days.”

“That ain’t the defense you think it is. Turn around.”

“Nana, why am I turning around?”

“Because I said so.”

Thirty-something years old and still, apparently, susceptible to grandmother authority, I turned.

Nana made a dissatisfied sound behind me before patting my hip and heading toward the trunk. “You getting narrow back here too. Ain’t nobody feeding you over there?”

“I feed myself just fine.”

“Then fire the cook.”

Nyla had clearly submitted a full report. Skipped meals. Late nights. Coffee masquerading as breakfast. Every offense I’d disguised as entrepreneurship had apparently been forwarded to senior management.

I reached for my suitcase when Nana lifted it from the trunk, but she shifted it beyond my grasp and headed toward the porch.

“I can carry my own suitcase.”

“I know you can.”

“So give it to me.”

“No. Get your purse, and close that trunk before these mosquitoes carry you back to Self Ridge.”

I followed her inside with my purse over one shoulder and the strange awareness that I had nothing else to hold. At Crème & Chill, my hands were rarely empty. There was always a clipboard, a mixing spoon, an invoice, a phone vibrating with somebody else’s urgency. Even on the drive to Willow Run, I’d kept one hand near the console, half expecting work to reach through the screen and reclaim me the moment I stopped preparing for it.

Inside Nana’s house, all I carried was myself.

The kitchen greeted me with hot cornmeal, lemon, black pepper, and the unmistakable scent of catfish frying in seasoned grease. Every window stood open, allowing the Gulf breeze to stir the faded yellow curtains above the sink. An old gospel station played from the radio near the refrigerator while the ceiling fan pushed cool air through a room crowded with more history than decoration. The table still bore shallow scratches from homework, domino games, birthday cakes, and the summer Nyla and I decided butter knives were suitable tools for carving our initials into wood.

A platter of fried catfish rested on the stove beneath loose foil. Beside it sat a basket of hush puppies wrapped in a clean dish towel and a glass bowl of chilled crab pasta dusted with paprika and chopped parsley. Thick slices of tomato glistened beneath cracked pepper, cucumbers and onions soaked in vinegar and sugar, and a peach cobbler cooled near the window, its golden crust split where the filling had bubbled through.

I stopped in the middle of the kitchen. “Nana, you cooked enough food for the whole street.”

“That catfish was swimming this morning. Least you can do is sit down while it’s still proud.”

“I told you not to go through any trouble.”

“And I ignored you with love. Go wash your hands.”

“I can help set the table.”

“The table set.”

“I can pour the tea.”

“It’s poured.”

“What am I supposed to do?”