Page 8 of Broken Bayou
My phone trills in my purse. I shift the sacks, fumble for it, look at who the caller is. I’ve sent her to voicemail too many times already. If I don’t answer, she may call the National Guard next. Besides, now would be a good time to hear a friendly voice.
“Hi.”
“Willa! Finally. I’ve been worried sick,” Amy Owens says over speakerphone. Friends for longer than I can remember, Amy and I bonded because of our mothers. Hers an alcoholic, mine bipolar. Two incoming high school freshmen living with dysfunctional mothers have a way of finding each other. Gravitational attraction. Amy had just moved to Greenhill, Louisiana, and was looking for a friend. I’d lived in Greenhill my whole life, and I was still looking for a friend. She didn’t care that I charted my mother’s moods on a calendar with red and black markers, and I didn’t care that sometimes she ran away from their apartment and slept under my bed. Now, our after-work, happy hour childhood-one-up matches keep our other friends laughing. They sip their special old-fashioneds and swear we are lying. Amy and I laugh with them. Only not as loud.
“Sorry. I’ve been avoiding my phone.” For obvious reasons, I want to add.
“I got the text you sent early this morning. What the hell are you doing in south Louisiana?”
I glance at the stairs again. “Quick errand,” I say.
“Well, convenient timing on this errand,” she says.
I make my way down the narrow hall toward the kitchen. “I made it convenient timing.”
Like the rest of the house, the kitchen is smaller than I remember, but unlike what I’ve seen so far, it’s been updated. Stained wood floors, faux-distressed cabinets the color of a robin’s egg, a white farm sink under a window. A small square table with four mismatched chairs sits in the middle of the room like an afterthought. The appliances all look new and unused. I wonder if my great-aunts were still here when they died or if they were in a nursing home. They must have been in theirnineties. I hope they were here. As soon as those words enter my head, my heart clenches. An image comes to mind of my mother at Texas Rose, tangled hair and an oversize robe, falling asleep sitting up.
I set the groceries next to the sink.
“Wanna talk about the interview onFort Worth Live?” Amy says.
“Nope,” I answer before she finishes her question.
I snag the bottle of wine from one of the bags and find a glass in the cabinet.
“Well,” Amy says, “wanna talk about our podcast and when we’re getting back to work?”
That one is trickier to answer. I have a podcast thanks to Amy. She’s the one who told me years ago to switch from radio. My radio program was losing steam, and so was I. She helped me reinvent it into a show averaging over five thousand listeners per episode and growing.
I unscrew the top, pour a small glass, and sip. I don’t even care it’s warm.
“Soon,” I say.
“Talk about it soon? Or we’re getting back to work soon?”
“Both.”
“I guess the good news is your social media followers have quadrupled,” Amy says with a short laugh.
“Yay, me.” I drain what’s left of my wine and set my glass down. That’s when I see the note propped up by the coffee maker.
“Willa,” Amy starts.
“Hang on.”
I pick up the note.Make yourself at home. Your mother’s things are in the attic. Be by soon to check in.It’s signed in small neat cursive by my aunts’ lawyer, Charles LaSalle II.
“This isn’t the end of the world,” Amy says in my ear. She starts talking about a few show ideas and ways to navigate this minor incident, but I’m not listening anymore. I’m back at the front staircase.
I pick up my duffel and head up. When I reach the top, I pause, my heart pounding faster than it should be for my slow ascent. Likedownstairs, the second floor is compartmentalized. One bedroom at the top of the stairs. One across the small landing. And two down a short hallway to the front of the house, overlooking the driveway. The door to the bedroom Mama claimed every summer is cracked open.
A chill passes over me.
“Are you listening to me?” Amy says.
“Yeah,” I lie.
She continues talking as I ease toward the bedroom and peek inside. The antique four-poster bed is stripped as bare as a skeleton. No tangled sheets. No empty vodka bottles. No smoke curling around its carved posts. I swallow the lump in my throat and close the door. That’s not the room I’m here for.
