Chapter 8 #3
“Stop pretending you’re a prude, Wyn.” She holds the joint out to me, but I pass. “It’s from my garden,” she adds. “And we need to have a conversation.”
“Your bottles,” I say as I place them in front of her. “And yes, we do.”
“Good. Now, cut the deck,” she says, putting her tarot in a stack in front of me, as if I’m here for this right now.
“Nope.” I cross my arms. “Tell me what I walked into last night.”
With a sigh, she leans back, placing the blunt into a small jar next to her and covering it.
Seconds later, a small flame encapsulates the roach and what’s left is just a jar filled with white smoke.
A party trick she’s done for plenty of people over the years, and as much as I’m trying to remain stoic, my grandmother is my person.
The steady. The magic of this family. “You first,” she says as her bracelets jingle down her arms and fingers intertwine at her lips.
Birdie knows there’s more to the assumptions that something awful happened to me.
“The place where I was before I came back . . .” I shake my head and take a breath.
“I knew him. Well . . . I didn’t know him,” I correct.
“Met him.” Clearing my throat, I keep going.
“Julian knew me as someone else. And as it turns out, we’re both liars, and now he’s here.
But the mess I saw him cleaning up before he stabbed me with a needle is a little more concerning, don’t you think? ”
“Dramatic,” she interrupts under her breath with an accompanying eye roll.
“Birdie, yes. A dead body is a little more important than some guy.”
“Is it?” she asks. “Wyn, there’s so much you don’t know.
And I’m not going to sit here and have you assume that I’m the only one who’s keeping the truth close.
” She has a point. “Your mother needs to be involved in this conversation. But I want you to know that there is no unhearing it, so please think about whether you really want to know about the things that happen around here, or if you prefer, you can simply chalk it up to serendipitous timing in seeing Julian again.”
I open my mouth to respond, but I’m not sure I know what I want just yet. I keep thinking about what Julian said to me, that we’re nowhere near done, and I hate—or maybe love—knowing he’s right.
A buzzer goes off, signaling her night of fortunes and fun are primed and ready. Holy hell, my mother was extreme and over the top, but it was very evident where she got that streak.
Changing the subject back to the reason for coming here, I say, “This one would meet the three-and-a-half-year standard for being a straight Tennessee whiskey—” My words halt, I didn’t think about what that timing would have meant when I chose this.
Birdie wanted to know what happened to me, and this was the last blend I made before I was taken.
The barrel it came from was marked with the date, and unknowingly, I found myself on a freight train three days later, heading up the coastline and into the grips of a monster.
Breathe. You’re not there anymore. I nod toward the bottle and run my fingers along the wax seal.
The smooth texture keeps me present. “It’s a really smooth sip. Even better than I would’ve expected.”
“I already know it’s good, my darling. Maybe you’ll finally believe it’s good enough to focus on doing it full time?
” she asks. The question settles in my gut.
I know all of the details of how to make it, but the practicalities of just starting a business like that seems overwhelming and impractical.
I take a steadying breath when I say, “We’ve been over this; I have a doctorate. And a job that I worked really hard to make sure I could have?—”
She cuts me off, “Yes, I know all about that word that’s so special to academics—tenure.
As if you shouldn’t ever do something else just because you worked your ass off to achieve something great.
” She shakes her head with a huff. Birdie rarely comes right out and says things like that.
She usually figures out a way to tell her opinion as if it’s mine.
“I’m in a shit mood tonight.” Flicking out her wrists, she flips a card over so it faces me.
“It’s alright,” I say with a warm smile. “Want to tell me why?”
With another eye roll as her answer, she shifts and says, “It’s Five of Cups, right?”
I give her a smirk and nod. “Negative focus, I knew it.” She flips it back into her deck and starts shuffling.
It’s the one card in the tarot that feels the most ominous at first glance. It’s riddled with negativity, but it’s the card that reminds the person who turned it to hunt for the silver lining.
“Ignore me, Wyn,” she says as she shakes her head and shuffles. Her bracelets clang as she does it. I love that sound. “Send in the short blondie wearing the blue dress,” she adds.
I move around to her side of the small coffee table and kiss her on the cheek. Rosemary and citrus mingle in the air and on her skin. “Love you.”
Her fingertips brush down my forehead and over my eyelids as I shut them. A simple gesture she’s done to my sisters and me since we were little. I take a deep breath, grateful for moments with her.
There have been times in my life when I knew whatever I chose next would change the direction I was heading, like a forked path that I was forced to go left or right.
I know, as I walk down the spiral stairs and tell the blond in the blue dress to go talk to my grandmother, that I want to know all of it.
Everything I’ve missed about being a Crowne.
The things I’ve been too jaded to embrace.
I’m done with being in the dark.