“You need to have your head examined.”
I smile. They’re definitely holding hands.
“Thank you, Kevin. But seriously. I want to change my past.”
“You can’t change the past, Sylvia. The past is always there and is a part of who you are. You may fight to try to push it away, but fighting it is the problem.”
Sylvia doesn’t reply. Now it’s their eyes I’d like to observe. Kevin breaks the silence, his words deliberate yet ringing with passion.
“Your challenge is not to make it go away. Your challenge is acceptance, and it won’t be easy.” Kevin’s such a serious, sensitive dude. He’s gotta be loving this conversation. This is the sort of conversation I need to have with Mom. She lost her mother at a very young age. Money was tight when she was growing up, and she funded Michigan with scholarships and loans. That’s all I know. It’s like she erased the first eighteen years of her life.
Uncomfortable in the role of voyeur, I stand and note that several platters need replenishing. I carry them down the stairs; we’re keeping the backup party food in Sam’s fridge. She’s at her kitchen counter, slotted spoon in hand, removing a cabbage roll—gołąbki. They’ve finished baking, and now she arranges them in a serving dish. I thought she was upstairs with Uriah. This is the first time we’ve been alone since our fight. My palms dampen, and, afraid to approach her, I stand in the doorway, unsure of what to do.
The cabbage smells like summer grass after a rain, and it melts into the unctuous aromas of tomato, garlic, beef, and fat. I’m transported to our grandmother’s kitchen, this classic Polish recipe being one of the first we learned to make with her. The Bolesławiec terrine Sam used to bake the rolls is cobalt blue, decorated with a pattern of ferns. It’s the same dish Babcia reserved for this recipe. What has it been—four, five years since the three of us were cooking together?
Sam looks up and her face tightens. She appears alarmed, taken aback. How could I have told her I hated her? Whatever feeling I’d had at that moment was tainted and a betrayal to us both. I feel the hot flush of shame staining my cheeks, and my eyes search my cousin’s, begging for forgiveness.
She places a cabbage roll on a plate and spoons tomato sauce over the plump, pale-green pillow. With a knife, she divides it into three pieces. She stabs one of the fragments with the prongs of her fork and raises it to me, offering. I put the platters on the table beside her, then lift my lips toward the fork. I open my mouth, and then she feeds me, as if I were a child. And there is something sacred in her quiet movements. After I’ve taken the last bite, she bats the sauce that lingers on my mouth with a napkin.
“That taste, Sam.” My words, spoken in a whisper, are clotted with nostalgia. “That taste. That’s the taste of our memories.”
“That’s the taste of our love,” she replies.
I pull out the beads from beneath my shirt and raise them to my lips, the tears tumbling from my eyes. I then drop them, lay my head against her shoulder, and cry into her arms, my nails digging into the wool of her sweater as she strokes my hair.
Chapter Fifteen
Sam
My heart feels as if it’s been shattered, pricking my throat and eyes, threatening to break down the dam. There’s another decision to be made, which may as well be made based on a coin toss.
But I keep this conflict to myself, inside the deepest fissure of my heart, blessing the January stillness of white. The decision to make is mine alone. If heads, I could very well lose the love of my life. If tails, I will certainly lose my city, my interest in the diner, and Addie will be devastated.
We took the morning off today, sleeping in, trying to recover from the holiday madness. Taking the bus to work, I glance sideways at my cousin. “I’m so freakin’ relieved we can put this behind us. To have this tension between us resolved.” Our shoulders bump together as the vehicle traverses the potholes and terrain of neglected asphalt.
Head down, she’s absorbed in a book she keeps in a zippered pocket of her bag, retrieving it whenever she has a bit of downtime.
“No kidding,” she murmurs, looking up from the pages with a smile. She wears a wan expression, which tells me her thoughts are elsewhere. I can’t think of anything more to add; we’ve talked ourselves blue since our reconciliation. After a pause, she returns to her book. She seems content with the quiet between us. As she’s thumbing through the pages, she stops to gaze at a verse. Her hands, now still, are resting on the page.
The cherished book, Patti Smith’s Woolgathering, is the size of a folded dinner napkin. But to Addie it’s a tome. The musings and prose, inspired by the author’s life, surround a young girl discovering herself. The book was written when Ms. Smith—a writer, performer, and visual artist—lived on the outskirts of Detroit in the early nineties.
Ms. Smith said that the act of writing drew her away from her torpor. Addie says they’re manna for her soul—daily meditations—offering her a childlike joy, pleasures she never knew growing up. All I know is that after she spends time in the company of these pages, she seems more content than when she returns from her therapist. The bill for those visits would pay our taxes and utilities. Fortunately, her mother is footing that one.
Addie once drove me to the area where Ms. Smith lived when writing the book. Addie’s dream is to purchase a house with David in one of the surrounding neighborhoods. She pointed out several homes for sale in front of a canal emptying into Lake St. Clair. She said she’d lease her space in the home we currently share. I never confided my thoughts to Addie, barely allowing myself to whisper that same dream to myself: one day Uriah and I might, too, share our own little house. With shutters on the windows, it would be surrounded with gardens filled with not only vegetables but also columbine, daisies, and peonies.
Dreaming of a someday horizon is foreign turf for me; fantasies of a future that keeps its promise could deliver a painful backfire. Best to stay grounded in my comfort zone: the present. And yet . . .
The bus drops us off in front of the diner. Last month, we’d successfully petitioned the city to designate a stop several feet away from the front door.
Welcome Home has closed for the day, and a hefty, red-enameled pickup is the only vehicle that remains in the parking lot. A gold aluminum vanity plate centered between the headlights reads JESUS SAVES. The chrome-rimmed tires are the size of doughnuts on steroids—fast food’s not the only consumable of supersize in the Motor City.
I unlock the door and we enter. The truck’s owner, Theo, is part of a band of scruffy regulars who look like a brotherhood of outlaw bikers. They sit around a four-top, and Lella clears their table, which is piled with plates streaked with ketchup and bacon bits embedded in maple syrup.
At 1:00 p.m. on Friday, the whistle blows early at the window factory where they work, giving the men a jump start on their weekend. Buttermilk flapjacks are their TGIF ritual. Theo is the leader in their Bible studies and the most vociferous of the trio.
“Hey, Theo,” I shout, forcing play into my voice. “Is Lella treating you with the disrespect you deserve? Did Quiche burn the bacon to your satisfaction?”
“Yes and yes,” he says, putting his finger on a passage to mark its place. “Catching up with these fine ladies is the highlight of my week.” He smiles at me, and then his head falls back to the page. He reads a verse to his pals: “‘I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners to repentance.’”
Seeing the men sitting here as they do every Friday afternoon pleases me. Their presence is an amusing antidote to the diner’s regular stream of yuppies. Their conversation and manner are serious and respectable, incongruous with their appearance.
The men are grizzled, and hard-bitten fingers with dirty nails look clownish holding the dainty china cups from which they sip. Their voices are subdued as they take turns reading passages. They forged their newfound relationship with one another and Christ while spending time in the county pen. Jesus picked them up out of the gutter, they are eager to re
port, saving them from the temptations of the streets.
Theo, at least six feet three inches tall, has a ruddy facial complexion, patched and pocked. His thick black hair is oiled back to reveal comb marks flecked with dandruff. His eyes, however, are a thing of beauty, and remind me of Rocky Balboa. A fringe of dark lashes dance above deep pools of cobalt, and pale half moons resembling violet petals rest beneath them. Tattoos representing each stage of a complicated life cover much of his body, with the exception of his face. He has eight on his arms alone.
My favorite is the one on the top of his wrist: La Vie Est Absurde, meaning life is absurd. He informs that this tat was his first. At the age of thirteen, his father left his mother for her sister. The women were French Canadian, and a permanent installation of their native tongue in the young boy would not fly by unnoticed.
Also among them are two red hearts, each encasing a name of one of the children whom he’s sired with different women. I get that his kids’ names were tattooed in sentiment, and that’s touching. But what was he thinking when branding the snake coiled around his throat? Lella told me it’s his only tattoo that’s prison ink, which could explain it. Between the tongue-lashing serpent, wife-beater T-shirt, and his denim jacket designed with a skull, Theo appears to be the social media director for a gang of Latino thugs. His look proclaims, Don’t mess with me. I roll with the big dawgs.
On one swollen bicep, words are spelled out in Old English font: Fate Fell Short. He translates this to mean that believing in fate is a cop-out. Just because you were dealt a crap hand at birth, it doesn’t mean you won’t end up with a full house. It’s up to the individual to figure out how to play the deal.
His most recent tattoo, Jesus Saves, is not the best conversation piece, either. All three of the men are eager to spread the gospel with anyone who’ll give them an inch.
Theo grins at me after bookmarking a passage, which he’d boxed into a square. I’m curious to know which portion of the scriptures is so meaningful to him that he would pen red ink into his holy book. Lella, however, has warned me to steer clear of topics related to religion with the men. Therefore, I refrain. Nevertheless, a part of me hungers to take a seat with them and inquire if they’ve any passages that would soothe a ruffled soul.
Theo digs into the pocket of his frayed jeans. With a crooked smile and wink, he pulls out several crumbled bills and hands them to Lella. “We can’t get you ladies to take a break even when your bosses are away.”
I pat Theo on the back. “Good luck with that, boys. All of our women are taken.” The last thing Quiche would ever want would be some tatted-up ex-con, Sylvia avoids excessive testosterone at all costs, and Lella seems content with her latest beau, Brett. Addie and I remain skeptical about that one. His mouth is as buttoned-up as the top collar of his shirt.
The men depart in a chorus of “See ya next Friday.” I lock the door behind them and flip around the sign reading OPEN to CLOSED. Walking to the counter, I slide into a seat next to Sun Beam. Addie clears out the register and takes the cash and receipts to the office. Quiche is breaking down the flattop and salad bar, and Lella places the tray of dirty dishes beside the sink. She turns to face me.
“We’ve leftover cabbage rolls from today’s special.” She slides her order pad beneath the counter. “If you’re hungry, lemme bring you a dish while it’s hot.”
“I’m starved, Lella. Thanks.” A slant of late-day sun hits the stainless, ricocheting a blade of light into the corner of my eye, making me squint. My thoughts return to Uriah and the conversation we had last night; a feeling of heaviness invades my limbs. I turn to Sun Beam, sitting at my side, happy for the distraction.
“Sun Beam, precious Sun Beam, let your sun beam down on me.” I cock my head at her and grin. “Got any new vegetarian recipes to share?”
“Don’t distract her from homework,” Quiche says, a bite in her voice. She levels a long side-look at her daughter as she carries dirty spatulas to the sink. “Unless you’re asking her how many pies we’d need to bake to serve ninety customers. You can only speak to her of numbers. Only tables and formulas until she turns that grade around.”
The blunt blades make loud clanging sounds as she drops them in the sink. “Little missy had me sign her report card last night. She bought home a C minus in math. Last semester it was an A, and now it’s C minus.”
She opens the reach-in, pulls out a jug of milk, and pours it into a glass. She places the glass next to Sun Beam’s open textbook with such force the girl flinches. Her words are directed at her daughter’s bowed head.
“I dreamed you up when I was scrubbing bathrooms at the Cracker Barrel and changing sheets at the Roadside Inn. I done everything in my power to get you educated right so you could make something of your life. And now you’re bringing home a C minus? What happened to your dreams? You can’t be a meteorologist if you make bad grades in math.” She shakes her head. “A C is bad enough. But tacking on that minus? What you talking minus to me, girl? That minus is sniffin’ a D, the flip side of an F.”
Muttering the word minus repeatedly beneath her breath, she swats a rag at the soiled counters, shaking her head. Then, she returns to face Sun Beam, her eyes steely. With the tip of her forefinger, she lifts her daughter’s chin. “I did not give you permission to go messin’ with our dreams.”
There’s more to this story than a girl not doing her homework or paying attention in the classroom. Quiche told me her daughter’s not sleeping well and has recurring nightmares about Earl, the fat-headed red beast. Most nights he visits her dreams, and she awakens screaming.
Quiche closes down her station, tsk-tsking, refilling squirt bottles of condiments with exaggerated gestures while her daughter remains quiet, head down. Her yellow pencil is stubby, indented with chew marks, and how it dangles between her fingers breaks my heart. If you ever want to level a community, first break down the kids.
My mind strips away the past seven weeks. Seven weeks back to that day in November when Earl approached the girl. The same day Addie and I had our falling-out. I only recall fragments of images: Earl’s calloused finger stirring the cream soda before placing his palm on Sun Beam’s hand; the red stains on Addie’s cheeks after she hurled that dreadful word into my face, wounding me as if the word hate were a bullet.
Lella places a plate of cabbage rolls in front of me. With a fork and knife, I cut into the tender leaves, which release a sultry perfume trapped within a puff of steam. Their aroma transports me out of that craziness to December, into my kitchen with Addie, back to the fragrance of forgiveness.
I think of Angus. Braydon brought him a holiday gift basket filled with pickled vegetables from our summer harvest. He accepted our gift, but Braydon reported he barely said thank you. And not a peep from our other neighbors either. At a staff meeting, we decided it would be more effective if the discount cards were distributed by Quiche and Braydon—folks the community trusted. To date, no one has used them. But these concerns are a vanishing cloud compared to what might have been lost: my relationship with Addie. How can I bring up Uriah’s proposition without her crumbling to pieces?
I turn to Sun Beam.
“Let’s set up a time next week after school. Last year Uriah was your math teacher. He’ll help you make sense out of all of these numbers.”
Quiche stops.
“It takes a village to raise a kid, right?” I meet her eyes, which moisten beneath my words.
With the hint of a smile, she wipes her hands on her apron and returns to her task. As I finish my lunch, Sun Beam’s fingers tighten around the pencil. She lifts the textbook, pulling it up in front of her face, scrutinizing, trying to discern the correct answer to a question.
“It’s fractions giving me problems,” the girl says, sighing as she places the book in front of her. “I don’t get how to divide and multiply them.”
I lean into the page and read: “‘There are twelve cookies on a platter. Five-sixths of them are chocolate chip. How many chocol
ate chip cookies are on the plate?’”
I should know this answer. There’s an easy way of figuring this out. While I’m chewing on the corner of a thumbnail, Addie storms onto the floor, an urgency about her step. She touches my shoulder and nods toward the office. She is as pasty as I’ve ever seen her; I wonder what bee’s in her bonnet now? My heart sinks; the hits just keep on coming. I follow her into the office, and she closes the door behind us.
She hands me her smartphone, and I’m startled to see Babcia’s picture on a Twitter account. I look up, sucking air between my teeth. She points to the words beneath her photo:
Krystyna Jaworski
@theunwelcomehomediner
“The troll has amped his vitriol,” she says. “Thrown grease into the flames. He’s created a fake profile of Babcia to hurt and humiliate us. This time he’s hitting us below the belt.” Her lower lip trembles as she turns to face me.
“Jévon just called and told me to check it out. The profile was created last week. She’s following seven hundred people and already has three hundred and twenty-four followers. While eating here, the troll must have taken a picture of our photograph of Babcia. He made it look as if she’s alive and tweeting this garbage. She’s sent out twenty-one tweets so far—all of them denouncing me, you, and the diner. Have you noticed any creepy dudes who’ve been eating here lately?”
I pick up her phone and study it. “Maybe he is a she.”
“Whoever, whatever it is, they know she’s our grandmother, and they know she’s Polish. Read her bio.”
Two-timed Polish Granny Shocked by Granddaughter’s Unwelcoming Diner. #unwelcomehomediner, #ashamedpolishgranny
Detroit
Joined January 2016
I look up into Addie’s face. Her cheeks are crimson. “It couldn’t be an employee,” I say, trying to calm her down. “And no way would any regulars pull a stunt like this. I can’t even imagine our neighbors hurting us in this cruel of a fashion.”
The Welcome Home Diner: A Novel Page 22
