Chapter 15 #3
But I’m exhausted by the constant strain of worrying. I don’t want to miss out on spending time with Oliver. And I, unlike him, actually do need groceries, since I’ve put it off and put it off until only the barest of foodstuffs remain.
“I’ll come?” I ask.
“Yeah?” I nod. “Yeah! Perfect. Grocery shopping is so fun. Sometimes I buy random stuff just for a kick and then try to build a recipe around it. I’m hoping I can get some clams today. We’ll see. Also, cinnamon. I’m out of cinnamon. How does that even happen? Cinnamon is a staple.”
I pinch my lips together, following him to his SUV and depositing his mess of bags onto the back seat. Cinnamon is not a staple for me, that’s for sure. In fact, I think the only person who has ever used mine is Oliver himself.
He chats as I sit mostly quietly in the passenger seat of his car, heat blasting from the air vents and both our seat warmers on.
My truck doesn’t even have that feature, and I’d never admit it to my dad, but I can see why people enjoy it.
My back is toasty warm by the time Oliver parks in front of Triton’s Brew, reminding me of the other thing he’d mentioned he’d wanted to do this morning.
I hold the door for him as we walk inside, the café warm and inviting after the bitter chill outdoors. Oliver pulls off his beanie, hair a staticky, silver-blond halo around his face. He slips off his gloves, barely waiting until my own are in my pockets before sliding his fingers between mine.
“Hi, Oliver!”
“Hello, Miss Braxton,” Oliver replies, easily matching the cheer of the teenager behind the counter. She beams at him, yet another person unable to help but love him.
“Hi, Nils!” she adds, voice a little less sure but smile fixed firmly in place. I’ve never once come in here.
“Morning.” I nod and smile a greeting before glancing up at the menu. Through the pass-thru window, I see Jean, another face from my childhood, working on the grill amid clouds of steam.
“Want to try something new today?” Braxton asks Oliver, already grabbing a cup and clicking open a Sharpie, holding it aloft. Oliver hums, thinking through his answer. I smile to myself, charmed by the easy comradery between them.
“Yeah, I think so. Surprise me. Make it sweet—you know I don’t get nearly enough sugar.” Braxton giggles, scratching away at the cup in her hands. “And for Nils, perhaps a winter wonderland mocha, please.”
I relax, tension unspooling just as easily as that.
I don’t enjoy frequenting places like this because I don’t like ordering.
Too many people staring at you, waiting and listening while you decide what you want and then ask for it.
I should have guessed I wouldn’t need to explain any of this to Oliver.
He already knows and is there to gently ease the way.
Order placed, we step off to the side and hover near the far wall to wait. I grab Oliver’s hand again, having had to release him to pay, and give his palm a little squeeze.
“So, I’m craving a clam bake. I have some of what I need at home, but am missing the clams, obviously, as well as the shrimp and the sausage.
I also need to get more corn. Oh, and some seasonings.
I’ve got an idea kicking around in my head.
Other than that, just the usual stuff. How do you feel about soup for dinner this week?
Like, a lot of soup. A different soup every day of the week. ”
Smiling, I nod. Soup is fine with me. So is the hidden subtext in that offer—the understanding that we will be having dinner together every evening this week. I squeeze his hand again.
Braxton calls Oliver back up to the counter, handing over our cups and waving us out the door.
I take a sip of the concoction Oliver ordered for me and shoot him a surprised look.
He pinches his lips together in amusement and walks around the hood of the car to the driver’s side.
This type of coffee is something my dad would call a frou-frou drink.
Sweet and with more sugar in it than actual coffee. I take another sip. It’s delicious.
“Good,” I tell Oliver, lifting the cup as he clicks his seat belt into place. His eyes shine as he grins.
“I know. I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve been a pretty integral part of creating some of those menu items in there.
” I huff a laugh, raising my eyebrows when Oliver meets my eyes.
“I’m serious, Nils! The Luck of the Irish and Fish Food wouldn’t exist without me!
Honestly, the next menu item will probably be named after me, you just watch. ”
The parking lot of the Salty Grocer isn’t too busy, and I find myself relaxing into the practice of tailing Oliver up and down the aisles once we’re inside.
He doesn’t once cease talking, and for every item I grab, he’s tossing six more into his own cart.
A handful of times, he plucks something off the shelf and puts it in my cart, not his own, as though he knows exactly what’s missing from my pantry and precisely what items to fill it with.
Something warm and immense blooms in my chest each time, and I have to keep my fingers curled firmly around the handle of the cart to keep myself from reaching for him.
We’re standing in front of the fresh produce, Oliver sifting through the tomatoes, when someone moves into my periphery. Automatically, I shuffle closer to Oliver, trying to give them more space.
“Nils Lee?”
Surprised, I look up and lock eyes with Eileen Shroud. Beside me, with two tomatoes in his hands, Oliver glances up as well. Eileen smiles, an empty shopping basket in her hands.
“I don’t suppose you remember me,” she says kindly, voice low and smooth and melodic, just how I recall it being.
I do remember her. Vividly, in fact. And although her hair is whiter and her face is more lined, I could never forget that voice or the way she smelled like baby powder, could never forget all the time she and I spent together in an empty classroom, long after the other kids had been sent home.
“Of course I do,” I reply, proud that I was able to say that so smoothly in front of the woman whom I credit with my ability to speak coherently at all. Taking a deep breath, I wait until my heart rate slows and put a hand on Oliver’s upper back. Slowly, I introduce him. “Oliver, this is Eileen.”
“Oliver Martin, yes, you bought that old fixer-upper on Mariner,” she says, reaching for the hand Oliver holds out to shake.
“I don’t believe you and I have ever formally met.
I used to work over at the elementary school as a speech therapist. Sometimes I still volunteer, but mostly, I just enjoy retirement. ”
After a swift glance at me, Oliver directs his smile back at Eileen. She’s smaller than I remember, but I suppose that’s simply because I’m a lot bigger than I was at seven years old.
I’d hated the necessity of having to do the lessons.
Of having to stay behind after school while everyone else went home—forced to do extra lessons that made me feel singled out, shaky, and, on several occasions, tearful.
I wasn’t a big crier as a kid, but Eileen got more than her fair share of the tears during a few of our more difficult sessions.
Those four years of lessons had felt like decades to my younger self, but now I just look back at them with fondness.
I remember Eileen giving me a hug at the end of every session, her shirt ironed to a crisp and smelling like baby powder.
I remember my sister occasionally hanging around to walk home with me once I was finished, and I remember Dad picking me up on his way to or from a job other times, how my stomach would grumble and he’d stop to get us a treat for the ride.
I remember walking home after a therapy lesson on a day neither my sister nor my dad was there to get me, and rain started to fall.
Ewan Fate’s mom had pulled her beat-up Volvo to a stop next to the sidewalk and offered me a ride.
I’d wanted to say no but was worried about being rude, cognizant of the manners my own mom had drilled into me.
I’d gotten in, and the drumming of the rain on the roof of the car was broken up only by Molly softly singing along to the radio.
She’d seemed so pretty to me, with her black hair piled up on her head and held in place with a pair of chopsticks.
She wore silver bracelets on her wrists that jingled faintly when she moved and rings on almost all her fingers.
Her nose was pierced. She’d seemed young and cool, the way so many parents never did.
Eight-year-old me didn’t know much about Molly Fate other than her being a parent to a boy at my school.
Eight-year-old me didn’t know that she looked young because she was young.
He didn’t know that she’d gotten pregnant at seventeen or that there was no father named on Ewan’s birth certificate.
And eight-year-old me didn’t know that in ten years, both she and her son would be gone.
Most of my memories of those younger years are like that.
Vivid snapshots of time between mundane, seemingly identical school days—Eileen bringing me a gift on my birthday and teaching me to slow down; the way I felt indescribably happy the first time I spoke a sentence riddled with you-sound words without a stutter, and she’d looked so proud.
Sometimes, the recall of my childhood and teenage years is nothing but a long string of bad days.
Bullying and loneliness and one uphill battle after another.
But it wasn’t all bad, I realize now, leaning down to give Eileen a hug as she says her goodbyes. It wasn’t all bad.