Page 70 of Broken Bayou
“She did. But it was a good bit after. There’d already been a memorial. I wanted to say something to you when I first saw you the other morning, but you looked so good, and you seemed fine, so I thought I should leave well enough alone.”
I meet her gaze. The tears fall. “I’m not fine.”
A few locals sit at the back counter, eating their breakfast, a heavy silence hanging in the air along with the smell of frying bacon.
Ermine squints back at the counter, then to me. “My place is upstairs.” She points to the ceiling. “Why don’t you go on up, and I’ll bring up some breakfast to you.”
The back staircase is steep with uneven boards, and I wonder how Ermine can manage these every day. At the top is a small landing and a door. The door is unlocked.
A small living room greets me. Light pours in through the large window on the far wall. A small sofa faces the window, which has two recliners in front of it. And each recliner has a cat curled into it, asleep in the patches of sun falling on them. One lifts its gray head, looks at me, lays it back down. An open kitchen sits on the right, with a counter separating it from the living room. Pictures cover every inch of it. Pictures of her with what looks like a team of grandchildren. Not a posed moment among them. In these shots, Ermine and the kids are in different stages of laughing, on a beach, in this living room, at Taylor’s counter. There’s a photo of her and Mr. Taylor behind the cash register downstairs. I saw their love firsthand, the looks they gave each other. Even Mabry captured it. I shut my eyes. Swallow. Open them.
I choose one of the barstools at the counter. The space is quiet and warm. No televisions. Only the sounds of the birds outside.
Ermine opens the door and enters, holding a tray. She sets it on the counter in front of me.
“Eat,” she says. “No withering away on my watch.”
A plate of fluffy biscuits and gravy and two pieces of crispy bacon await. My stomach growls. Ermine grabs a glass from the cabinet and fills it with water, sets it in front of me as well.
The first bite of food lodges in my throat, and I think I won’t be able to oblige Ermine. But once that bite is down, the flavors spark my appetite even more than the smell. It tastes like a hug. Comfort food.
I take several more bites, and Ermine says, “There you go.”
She speaks to me like a child, and in a way, I feel like one. Completely unequipped to handle my emotions. Of all the things I’m equipped to do, that one should be my specialty. I set down my fork, and my chin drops to my chest.
Ermine walks around the counter and touches my shoulder. I collapse into sobs. She wraps her frail, thin arms around me and squeezes me tight. “Let it out,” she says. “Let it all out.”
And I do. I let Ermine hold me and rock me like a baby and whisper to me that it will be okay. I release every tear, every barb I want to direct at my mother, every barb I want to direct at myself. Then I release my secrets. I tell Ermine about Mabry’s phone, paying the bill so I could still hear my little sister’s laugh, keeping the phone itself. Then I tell her about keeping the ashes, and when I do, Ermine’s arms lock around me even tighter.
After several minutes, I pull my head up and wipe my face. I gasp, catch my breath, exhale. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to unload all of that on you. It’s just ... I’ve been holding on to something I can’t hold on to anymore. Maybe saying it out loud to you is my first step.”
Ermine pats my hand and says, “Let go or be dragged, honey.”
Ermine makes two cups of tea, and I accept the mug. It smells like roses. She leads me to the small sofa. Both cats are up now and curious. They pounce off the recliners and wind themselves around Ermine’s thin ankles. She bends and scratches their ears.
“This is Frank,” she says, pointing to the black-and-white one. “And this is Beans,” she says, still scratching the gray one.
I laugh a real laugh for the first time in a long time. “Frank and Beans?”
“Now, stop,” Ermine says, giggling herself. “They’ll know you’re laughing at them.”
But Frank and Beans don’t seem to know any such thing. Frank is now in my lap, purring and making bread on my leg with his little paws, and Beans has settled next to Ermine on the couch.
“Thanks, Ermine,” I say. “For letting me come up here. For listening without judgment.”
She pats my knee. “I’m glad I could help.”
A low rumble rattles the panes in the living room window. Ermine eyes me, then leaps off the couch. Beans runs down the hall on my right. The sound comes again as Ermine makes it to the window.
“Well, forevermore.” She looks over her shoulder at me. “It’s raining.”
Thunder booms as Ermine and I scramble downstairs. We wedge our way onto the front porch of Taylor’s, past several patrons and the fry cook. Rain plinks off the roof. One lady behind me claps.
“Praise the Lord,” Ermine says.
Cell phones come out and weather apps are illuminated. The bright day turns dark, and a crack of lightning zigzags above us. Then the sky opens and unloads a torrential downpour. We all stand on the porch, watching the rain come down in sheets.
“Months without a drop,” the fry cook says. “Now, we gonna have a flood.”
