Page 33 of Worth the Trip

I put the plate back down. “You’re making me feel useless.”

“That might be your problem. You think resting and being useless are the same thing.”

Nana gathered both plates and carried them toward the sink before I could find a response. She didn’t soften the observation or circle back to explain what she meant. Water ran over porcelain while she hummed along with the radio, leaving me at the table with nothing in my hands and nowhere useful to hide.

Later, we sat on the back porch with fresh glasses of tea while the marsh settled into evening. Frogs called from the reeds, insects gathered beneath the porch light, and somewhere across the water, a boat motor faded toward the marina. My phone remained inside my purse near the front door, far enough away that checking it would require an actual decision.

I still knew precisely where it was.

“You can check it.”

“I don’t need to.”

“I didn’t say you did.”

“I haven’t thought about it.” Nana turned her head and waited. “Much.”

“That sound more like the truth.”

I smiled and watched moonlight gather in broken pieces across the water. At home, silence usually meant I’d missed something. A delayed shipment. A staff question. An email buried beneath another email. Even after Crème & Chill closed, some part of me remained prepared for the next problem to announce itself as mine.

Here, silence meant Nana’s rocker moving over porch boards, ice shifting inside our glasses, and water tapping against the posts beneath the dock.

Nothing required correction.

“I’m tired.”

“I know, baby.”

“I didn’t know how tired until I got here.”

“That’s how it happens sometimes. Wind keep you so busy holding the roof down, you don’t notice what else been shaking.”

I looked toward her, but Nana had already returned her attention to the water. She didn’t ask me to inventory every burden or pull a deeper confession out of the one I’d managed to name. She heard what I could say and let it be enough.

For once, I tried to do the same.

Friday morning arrived through the scent of coffee, bacon, and biscuits warming in the oven.

Sunlight stretched across the bedroom floor before I opened my eyes, and for several seconds, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d awakened without an alarm or somebody waiting for an answer. My phone rested face down on the nightstand. My hand moved toward it out of habit, stopped, and changed direction.

The old photograph on the dresser caught my attention instead.

Nyla and I couldn’t have been older than eight. We stood ankle-deep near the shoreline in matching yellow dresses, muddy church shoes, and identical faces split by laughter. I remembered Mama’s frustration when she saw us. I also remembered Nana turning toward the window so Mama wouldn’t catch her laughing.

We’d dirtied our shoes because the water looked inviting.

That had once been enough reason.

I left the phone where it was.

Nana stood at the stove in another flowered housedress, removing bacon from the skillet while biscuits browned behind the oven window. My coffee waited beside the pot with the correct amount of cream already stirred into it.

“Well, look what finally woke up.”

“It’s eight thirty.”

“Exactly. Sun been handling business for hours.”