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Finally. My goal wasn’t just to feed her but to get her to relax. One glance at her told me she needed it.
I handed over a container with brisket and homemade beer-battered onion rings and opened my own of the same, leaving the large slice of hummingbird cake in the bag.
We ate in silence for a couple minutes, then she said, “You don’t have to keep doing this, you know.”
With an onion ring halfway to my mouth, I paused to say, “I’m not doing it because I have to,” then bit into the crispy ring.
“Why are you? Are you trying to make up for the past?”
I stopped chewing as her words sank in. After swallowing the bite, I said, “I thought we’d laid the past to rest.”
“We did.”
“Did we though? If that’s what you’re thinking…”
“I’m sorry. I just… I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
“What is ‘this’? Bringing you food two times now when you haven’t eaten for hours and hours?”
“Acting like it’s your responsibility to take care of me. I can take care of myself, Cash. I’ve been doing it for practically my whole life.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, simply a fact.
It was a fact, I realized. Her parents had divorced when she was young, eleven years old if I remembered right, and that had forced her to grow up too early. She’d been devastated when her dad moved to the West Coast, leaving Ava and her mom alone. Ava’s mom had been heartbroken and had self-medicated with alcohol.
Phyllis Sharp had swooped in and given Ava and her mom, Pamela, an opportunity to recover and start fresh at this inn she bought with her late husband’s life insurance money, inviting her younger sister and niece to move to Dragonfly Lake and run it with her. But Pamela had never gotten over her husband leaving. She’d helped at first, mostly at the front desk, but as the months and years passed, she’d relied more and more on liquor and worked in the inn less and less.
Ava had stepped in to compensate for her mom’s lacking, helping Phyllis after school, in the evenings, and on weekends, the two of them becoming jacks-of-all-trades and juggling nearly all the responsibilities between them. The way I understood it, Ava had worked almost full-time while in high school and had never had time to make lasting friendships. As the years went by, her time had become split between inn duties and caring for her mom, who’d eventually died of liver disease.
Her mom had relied on Ava to cover for her and care for her. Her dad had all but deserted her, managing phone calls a couple times a year. I didn’t know anything about the guy Ava had been married to, but obviously, if they’d split up, he hadn’t given her the love or care she deserved. Not that I had any room to talk. I’d screwed up with Ava before he had.
Bottom line, no one had taken care of Ava the way she deserved. There was something in me that still wanted to be the one who did.
My family liked to say food was the way I cared for people and showed affection, and it was probably true. I just hadn’t realized I still cared about Ava. I hadn’t let myself think about her. She’d been a checkmark on my lengthy failure list.
“I know it’s not my responsibility,” I finally said in between bites. “Damn straight you can take care of yourself. But I wanted to tonight. I can’t imagine how hard your day was, and here you are, what? Pulling the overnight shift at the desk?”
Ava pulled her legs up and crossed them on the couch in front of her as she shoved more food in her mouth, and I let her eat in silence. The answer to my question about the night shift was evident.
“There’s so much to get done here,” she said after several minutes. She’d finished her onion rings and was picking at the leaner parts of her brisket.
“Here? At the inn?”
“Updating it. Getting a new roof. Painting. Fixing. Plus finding someone to manage it.”
“No leads on that yet?”
“I just posted it yesterday, thanks to help from Loretta and Dotty. I haven’t checked for responses.”
“You’ve had other things to tend to today,” I said. “Pretty hard things.”
“Yeah.” Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath.
“I wasn’t able to get away for the service but I heard the turnout was big.”
The corners of her mouth tilted up into a sad, wistful smile and she nodded. “So many people loved my aunt. This town still turns out en masse for funerals, huh?”
“They’re can’t-miss social events around here. Bigger than weddings because you don’t need an invite.”
She let out a quiet laugh, then her expression fell, and she sucked in another big breath and blew it out. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I’m tired of crying.”
