1. One
I stare at a pelican sitting on a post and focus on my breathing. Inhale for four, exhale for four. Yet another bullshit technique I read about in one of the many books on loss I was given after Travis… After Travis.
Except I’m not trying to breathe through loss. I’m breathing through a conversation with a man who is very much in front of me. As per usual, breathing doesn’t work.
“Say that again, Dad, because it sounds a lot like you hurling insults at me for no damn reason.”
My teeth grind as a headache thumps at my temples.
He runs a hand through his more gray-than-blond slicked-back hair with a heavy sigh.
“Nelly, we’ve been trying to say this for a year in the nicest way, but you refuse to listen, forcing me to be blunt. You’re stuck—unhappy—and you need to do something about it.”
My mouth opens, then snaps close.
As we sit in my dad’s office of the day—a table he randomly selected under the large palm frond thatched roof of his restaurant—I’m speechless.
He taps his knuckles on the colorful magazine spread open in front of us, as if to emphasize his point.
I frown as my eyes drop to the open pages.
“Dad. We were voted the most fun restaurant by the American Restaurant magazine for the second year in a row. What the hell else do you want from me?”
I feel like a cartoon character with eyes bulging out of its head.
“Read it,” he says, his usually jovial voice firm. He takes a swig from his beer and raises his eyebrows, white mustache twitching.
My nostrils flare, but I do as he says.
“While most bars strive to make nightlife the center of their entertainment, the Crow’s Nest in Key Largo works to create a vibe that’s focused on a daytime audience having just as much fun. Their bartenders are known for wowing patrons with an assortment of tricks and unique specialty drinks crafted by island native Penelope Crawford, or, as the owner and her father, Richard Evans, refers to her, Queen of the Cocktail.” I roll my eyes as I read—he’s never once called me that. “They have live music most afternoons as well as local teachers and nature guides that lead kids’ activities for a few hours on the weekends. Locals describe it as a summer camp with top-notch drinks and grouper sandwiches. Surrounded by turquoise water and the sounds of palm trees blowing in the breeze, every visit to the Crow’s Nest feels like dinner and drinks being enjoyed on vacation. It’s a place where life is lived on a seven-day weekend.”
I look at him with a slight shake of my head, my wordless and?
“Nelly, that’s the same thing they said last year when we won. Same activities! Same cocktails! There’s no way they will vote for us again next year if we don’t make a change.”
He shrugs his shoulders, which are covered in an obnoxiously bright flamingo-patterned shirt and shakes his head.
I try to calibrate my thoughts as I look back at the magazine. He’s complaining because we won, but might not next year? Unbelievable.
The pictures of kids playing with hula hoops under palm trees while parents sip colorful drinks smack my face, along with the flood of memories that follow.
Last year, I was in one of the photos, laughing on the beach as I spun one of the hula hoops around my hips. Last year, Travis bought the bar a round of drinks and made a toast when the magazine came out.
Last year, he got in his airplane, flew into a storm, and never came home. Travis is gone, and so is the person I used to be.
I find the pelican again, still on his same perch, and imagine how easy life must be for that bird.
My dad leans against his forearms on the table. “Listen—”
Thankfully, whatever he wants to say next is interrupted by a friendly smack on his back by a seasonal regular, Doug.
“Richard, you’re keeping my favorite bartender away from us out here!”
Doug’s outfit nearly matches my dad’s, and I have to squint through the brightness. They are the most cliché retired men I’ve ever seen.
My dad’s smile is instantaneous as he stands to shake his hand. “Doug, how are you, man?”
Doug gestures at the tropical scene around us. “Who can complain here?” His eyes twinkle as he grins. “Sadly, we head back to snow-covered New York next week. And Nel—” his gaze drops to mine, “—we’ve yet to see that pilot husband of yours this year.”
He doesn’t know. I don’t know how to tell him.
My dad’s lips press into a tight line as I spin the wedding band around my finger with my thumb.
“He’s…” I try to find a word that isn’t a lie or the bitter truth.
Doug laughs. “That sonofabitch never comes out of the air, does he?” He shakes his head. “Well, if we don’t see him, tell him we say hi.”
I only nod and look anywhere but my dad.
“Nel, dear!” From behind Doug, his wife’s heavily New York accented voice calls. “Can we convince you to make us some of your famous daiquiris before we call it a day?”
She leans slightly to the edge of her stool to catch my eye.
“Anything for you, Claire,” I say with a smile and lift of my chin. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
Doug gives me a wink that’s programmed into the eyelids of retired men everywhere before saying goodbye to my dad and walking away.
I close my eyes. I don’t need to look at him to know what I’ll see. The conversation with Doug proves every point he’s trying to make.
He doesn’t miss a beat as he sits back down and picks up right where he left off.
“When’s the last time you went to that market you love in Homestead to get ingredients for a new cocktail?” he demands.
I drop my head forward and huff out a breath. He knows how long it’s been, and I refuse to answer.
“What about the kids? When was the last time you, Finn, and Marin did something together? Had fun?”
I push my chair back from the table and jerk to a stand. I am not talking about the kids.
I hold up my clipboard. “I have to finish taking inventory.”
Much to my dismay, he follows me. “I know Gabe invites you out on the boat with him, Jenny, and the boys. You never go, Nelly.”
I shake my head and round to the back of the bar, where I immediately start counting liquor bottles. He sticks to me like flypaper—annoying and relentless.
His voice lowers and there’s a hint of sadness in it. “I’m worried. We’re all worried.”
My eyes flick to his, and he somehow looks older than he did minutes before. Concern fills every line of his sixty-seven-year-old face.
I soften just slightly. “I’m alive and well, Dad.”
I hold my arms up as evidence.
He frowns at the oversized gray sweatshirt that hangs sadly from my arms, baggy from a year of my grief-induced withering away.
“You don’t have fun.” He says it like it’s a fact, and it makes my entire body tense.
I wish I was that damn pelican.
“Travis was the fun one,” I argue.
“Travis wasn’t the only fun one.”
I don’t budge—he’s wrong.
Travis was the better half of every good time. The kids used to turn to him when they wanted to do something adventurous, not me. I’m just Mom—drinking wine and laughing nervously from the sidelines as they make bottle rockets and snorkel with sharks.
Three hundred and eighty-three days after he left, and the only thing I know how to be is empty. Fun is a pipe dream.
“Your ideas are what made the bar what it is, but the last year…” he pauses, clears his throat, and adds, “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost your mother. I’m just saying maybe it’s time to take some steps. Go through his things. Let yourself have fun. Let your kids have fun with you. Let him go a little. He wouldn’t want this.”
Let him go?
The words hit like an anvil to the sternum, making all my emotions bleed together.
The weird thing about grief is that one minute, I feel fine, and the next it’s as though my heart is being scraped across a cheese grater.
Peace. Pain. Peace. Pain.
It’s a sick cycle that doesn’t make sense. Time hasn’t made it stop, just created longer intervals between the two extremes. The moments of peace will always be followed by devastating blows of pain. Even knowing that doesn’t prepare me for how abruptly horrible it feels. How easily my heart can be shredded, over and over again.
“Your kids need you, Nelly,” he says, softer this time.
I close my eyes and try to rein in whatever feeling is thrashing wildly beneath my ribs.
“I don’t know how to give them that.” It’s the most honest thing I can say.
His unexpected smile is instant—like this is what he’s been waiting for—and the tone of his voice fills with optimism.
“That’s why I’m going to help you.” He claps his hands together loudly. Smiling.
My eyes narrow as I slowly put the bottle of vodka I’ve been holding on the bar and search his face for some kind of explanation.
He takes a final sip of his beer, foam clinging to his mustache, before his eyes meet mine with a steely determination.
“You’re taking the summer off,” he declares.
My eyes widen as I suck in a sharp breath. “Dad—”
I start to protest, but the hand he holds up effectively cuts me off, reminding me he is the adult, and I—even at forty-one—am the child.
“You’re taking the summer off, and you’re figuring this out. I don’t care what you do, but I’m not going to sit here and watch you disappear on my watch. I’d let you go now, but we’re too damn busy, and you’re too damn good.”
The look on his face tells me there’s no arguing. Richard Evans has spoken.
For the second time in this conversation, I am completely speechless.
“And Nelly?”
I swallow hard as I look at him. He drops the copy of the magazine on the bar top, a piece of paper sticking out from between the pages.
“There’s an article about restaurants across the country that base their menus on local and seasonal items. I’d like you to contact one of them that interests you and see if you can find out the logistics. I want to refresh the menu.”
I puff my cheeks up with air before blowing it out slowly.
The world feels like it’s spinning so fast, it’s making my throat ache.
Take the summer off? Get yourself together? Refresh the menu?
I want to scream, but instead, I do as I’m told. Begrudgingly.
“I thought you were retired?” I mutter.
“Only sometimes.”
Then he winks, because of course he does, and turns to make small talk with the guests like he didn’t just flip my world upside down.
My jaw clenches as I turn to the marked page and skim over it quickly before choosing a restaurant in Maine. I’ve always imagined the coast there would be gorgeous—ruggedly beautiful with its rocky shores—and quiet. The kind of quiet I could go for a heaping dose of right now.
The owner, a man named Ethan Mills, is pictured wearing blue jeans and a flannel in his photo, and his write-up checks all the boxes of what my dad’s looking for.
Done.
The truth is, after everything my dad just said, I don’t have the capacity to think about this beyond just picking one. Maine or New Mexico, I just don’t give a shit.
“Daiquiris, Nel!” I hear Claire call from down the bar in her thick accent.
I drop the magazine, smile, and grab the bottle of rum.
The rug may have gotten yanked out from underneath me all over again today, but if there’s one thing I can count on, I can still make a damn good cocktail.
Before I head home for the day, I send the email.
To: [email protected] From: [email protected]
Mr. Mills,
I’m reaching out because I read your write-up in American Restaurant on local ingredient sourcing for Mainely Local. I’m wondering if I can pick your brain on logistics. We have a restaurant in Florida that we”d apparently like to change.
Thanks, Penelope Crawford