Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,126
was just talking to Cal,” I say.
“What were you saying to him?”
“I was just trying to explain to him where I’m at.”
“You are so full of shit.”
“What?”
“He wants you to stay. I want you to stay. You don’t get to explain away why you’re leaving again and feel good because you made it sound poetic,” Merry Carole says, switching on the coffeemaker.
“I get to figure this out. You don’t get to bully me into doing what you want me to do,” I say, walking toward her.
“Bully you?!”
“Yes!”
“Oh, that’s just fine. That’s just fine. We’re some stopover every ten years while you get your life together, and if I ask you to actually think about being a part of this family, I’m a bully.”
“You’re not a stopover,” I say.
Merry Carole dismisses me out of hand with flicked fingers and a sniff. She can barely look at me.
I continue, “You want me to pick up right where Momma left off? Is that it? I open up that shack and spend day in and day out making the Number One for the drunks in that bar, all the while being Everett’s mistress? You get your life and I get hers? That’s your plan?” I walk into the kitchen and face her.
“Of course not.”
“Then tell me what my life looks like if I stay. Because from where I’m sitting, I don’t see a future except maybe being mercifully put down by Everett’s future wife when she finds us in bed together and then I get a gravestone with my most famous recipe on it. Not that I was a mother, or that I’ll be missed. No. Our mother’s legacy is a well-made chicken fried steak,” I say.
“Queenie, I—”
“I don’t know my place here. You say I can have that land, but what am I supposed to do with it? I want to drink the coffee in front of me, Merry Carole. I want to chug it down and luxuriate in it, I swear to God. And I love being here with you and Cal more than anything in the world, but . . . I can’t stomach being the spinster aunt who pops up in the background of all of your family photos.” Tears stream down my cheeks.
“Come here,” Merry Carole says, pulling me in for a hug. I shudder as she holds me tight.
“I become her if I leave and I become her if I stay,” I say, sobbing into the crook of her neck.
“All right now . . . all right now . . . shhhhh.” Merry Carole holds me tight, rocking us back and forth as she soothes me. I sob and wail as the epiphanies and realizations squirm and infest my entire body once again. I don’t know where I belong. I never have. I’ve been a stray dog trying to find someone to take me in for as long as I can remember. I was thankful just to find a quiet corner I could call my own where the most I could ask for, as far as comfort went, was a warm bed. Acceptance and being enough is my holy grail. So my life became about begging for scraps at the back door.
“I’m so sorry,” I say as we finally break apart.
“Don’t be,” Merry Carole says, swiping my bangs out of my eyes. She kisses me on my forehead, lingering there. I close my eyes as she smooths my hair. She nods; her brow is furrowed, her lips are pursed.
“I decided to make Yvonne Chapman’s meal,” I say.
“Good. Good,” Merry Carole says, her eyes darting around the kitchen as we finally collect ourselves.
“I’m thinking that decision probably has to do with this whole crying-marathon thing,” I say.
“I expect that’s that closure thing people like talking about.”
“We don’t have to decide everything right now,” I say.
“It’s that uncertainty part that I don’t like. I like my one hundred percent odds, you know,” she says, kissing me on the cheek. She turns around and pulls two coffee mugs from the cabinet. She pours coffee into each and passes me one.
“So we just go forward,” I say, trying out my theory. I inhale the luscious coffee smell.
“Right.”
“We stop living in the past, just like you said,” I say.
“No, I gave you that advice. Remember? I like giving people advice and not taking it myself,” she says, finally allowing a laugh.
“Why don’t I help out in the salon today?” I say. Merry Carole nods with a cautious smile.