Page 26 of Back in the Country
Pulling open the farmhouse-style door, I am hit immediately by the smell of everything breakfast and the delicious smoky smell that lingers within these walls.
Almost all the meats are smoked so there’s a better than average chance that when you order something you’ll get to experience that rich and delicious flavor caused by the rub of spices and the smoking process.
“Sit anywhere, hon, and I’ll grab you some coffee,” Joe hollers from across the room. I smile. I love this place.
I love beinghome.
The mug lands with athumpon the treated butcher-block style tabletop and I jump.
“I’d say you look fresh as a daisy but that would be a lie.” Joe winks. She is in her early fifties but looks closer to forty, and the all-knowing look in her eyes makes me laugh.
She works hard and demands the same from her employees, but she is fair and well respected in town. At only five feet five, her thin but muscular frame is often deceiving, and with as much manual labor as she does around the restaurant, she can probably bench press with the best of them.
The thought makes me smile, and she returns it with one of her own. The gesture gives her the most flattering laugh lines, and I hope that people will say the same about me someday.
“Just a lot on my mind these days.”
“Mmhmm. Got anything to do with that Thayer boy?”
Waylon is hardly aboy,but other than that she isn’t wrong.
I fiddle with the spoon that she sets down with the tin of milk. A warm hand grips my shoulder firmly. Her gaze is tender and sympathetic.
“Everything is going to be just fine, hon.”
My eyes water instantly and I blink back the tears. I am too wound up to release any of the emotion I am feeling. More than that, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop once I start.
Instead I ask, “How’s Rodney doing?”
Joe lights up like the Fourth of July and looks lovingly at her left hand.
“We’re planning to go to Colorado for a few weeks but—”
It’s my turn to squeeze her hand. “We’ll all do whatever it takes to make it happen. You deserve a vacation.”
Her smile is radiant. “I know. It’s just hard with schedules, and you know how I am.” I smile and she does too. “Anyway, what are you having today?”
“Can I have the stuffed French toast? With bacon?”
“Sure, hon. I’ll put that in and we’ll have it out in just a few minutes.”
“Thanks, Joe.”
I watch as she walks back into the kitchen to give the order to her husband, and I smile. While most of the guys in town have worked at The Rusty Fender at one time or another, most of the girls have worked at Smokin’ Joes.I’d waitressed here plenty of summers and some weekends in high school, anytime really that she needed help.
Every place I go and everyone I see feels like home. I am happy here.
I’m myself and I am done apologizing for it.
It feels like I wasted years of my life trying to make everyone else happy by being in Nashville. The anger that I have tried to ignore bubbles up inside me. It is something that I’ve been dealing with on and off since I’d been notified Sorren had been injured overseas.
I don’t let it out often because it feels selfish to be so ungrateful for all that he’s sacrificed. We are going to have to talk about it at some point though. A real come-to-Jesus moment is in our future.
Even thinking about it has my stomach turning. There was so much unknown in those first few weeks when he hadn’t been stable enough to fly home. He’d been on a routine patrol when he was injured. Shrapnel from a roadside bomb shredded his left calf, and they didn’t know if he was going to make it.
I didn’t know if he was going to make it.
Joe places the plate of steaming hot goodness in front of me, and I startle. She cocks her head to the side before slipping onto the bench opposite me. Her light-brown hair is braided and secured in her signature bun. She said it is the only way she can make it through the day without wanting to shave it all off.
