Page 29 of Watermelon With You?
21
CORA
ONE WEEK LATER
“Hey Dad,” I say as I place the call on speaker and move around the kitchen.
“Hey sweetheart, how are you?” His melodic voice carries through the line, and the stress I didn’t know I had seems to melt away. “Have you been dancing?”
Pausing, I debate what to say. My father had witnessed the implosion of my life the day of the estate sale. I’d been angry and didn’t hold back on just how much I hated Talon Banks.
“Yes, I’ve been a couple of times. It’s been really great and I’m, uh, seeing someone. I mean not from dancing but from Magnolia Point.” The words come out in a rush.
A nearly unintelligible rush.
My father chuckles, and I picture a look of amusement on his face as he asks, “How’s that going?”
“It’s new. And a little weird,” I huff. “I mean, I’m happy but it’s just new.”
“Who is it, Cora?” His tone is a little more serious than moments before, and I let my eyelids flutter closed as I rest my hip against the counter.
“Talon Banks.”
“I want to be surprised but I’m not sure that I am.”
“Really?”
“You know what they say about that line between love and hate.” He laughs. “But I don’t really think it was ever hate. Y’all were competitive in high school, and I’m sure that clouded his judgment. You were going through a tough time, and while I wanted to kick that boy’s ass myself, I never believed he wanted to do you any harm.”
“He had a funny way of showing it,” I grumble.
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you waitin’ for the right time? Because if you are, it doesn’t exist.”
His words echo in my mind, words that he’s said to me my whole life. And he’s right. So much of our lives hang in a precarious balance waiting on one thing or another, but I’d been lucky to learn that lesson early.
So why wasn’t I listening to that advice now?
“I’m scared.” The admission is like a weight lifting off me. “He’s not the boy he was at seventeen. He’s strong and capable and he treats me like a queen.”
“It sounds like he grew up then.”
“He did, but I’m just scared I’ll turn around and he’ll be that boy again who stole the last piece of my grandfather from me.”
“Are you home?” my father asks, and I nod even though he can’t see me.
“Yes.”
“Look around you, Cora.”
“What am I looking at?”
“Everything,” he says simply. “Your grandfather’s hands made that wooden box, but he also carved the spindles in the banister. He made that bench seat that overlooks the water withthe bookcases on either side. Hell, he built most of what’s there. I’m sorry you don’t have that box anymore, but he’s in that house, Cora. He’s watching you dance around his kitchen and probably cursin’ up a storm about the amount of garlic you put in everything,” he says with a laugh, but I can only smile as tears stream down my face.
“I miss him so much,” I manage, my voice barely above a whisper.
