Page 72 of Lavender Lake
“Kitchen table?” I asked. “I’ll get you another drink.”
“Den,” she clarified. “And we’ll close the sliding doors.”
“Uh oh. You mean business.”
We went into the den and I closed the doors while she got settled in her patchwork chair and set her plate on her lap.
“We haven’t gotten much of a chance to talk since you’ve been home,” she said.
“No,” I agreed. “We haven’t. But there have been some other more pressing issues.”
“Hmm.” She picked up her fork. “How are you doing, sugar?”
“Me? I’m okay. Better now that he’s awake. How areyoudoing?”
“I’m holding it together.”
“Because that’s what you do?”
“Yes. That’s my job. I’m the matriarch of this family. If I crumble, the whole house of cards collapses.”
I rubbed my temple. “Are you prepared?”
“For?”
“When he gets out of the hospital? His recovery? We don’t know how long it will take.”
She didn’t reply, but instead took a bite of fish. After she swallowed, she looked at me studiously. “I don’t expect it to be easy. Or short, for that matter. Despite him being active and in good health, I don’t expect him to just spring back. I don’t know what this will look like, but it’ll be harder on him than the rest of us.”
I clamped my mouth shut.
“It’s not the same,” she said quietly. “What happened with your mother.”
I swallowed a painful lump in my throat. “No. It’s not the same. Her suffering came to an end.”
“And yours continued.”
I nodded.
“I’m worried about you, Salem.”
Normally, I’d push it away. I’d make a joke. I’d divert the conversation. But after the shower, something inside of me wasn’t so ashamed of being vulnerable. Not around the people who loved me most in this world.
“I know,” I said softly. “And I know I haven’t made it easy.”
“Who is easy?”
“Hadley. Hadley’s easy.”
“She’s challenging in her own way. We all are.”
I chuckled, but it wasn’t in humor. “Hadley came home and stayed. And she has no interest in anything other than this life, this land, and being with family. I envy her sometimes.”
“You, my dear, are a true pioneer.” She smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners, the brackets around her mouth disappearing into her cheeks. “Pioneers adventure. They ask questions likewhat’s over there, what lays beyond those mountains?”
“Pioneers also died of dysentery and snake bites,” I quipped.
“What’s life without a little risk?” She winked and went back to eating her food for a moment. “You talk to your boss?”
