Chapter 25 #2
“I like to think that if it had to be determined, whiskey is a woman,” Stevie says and follows it with a dramatic gasp.
“I know, I know, if I have any male listeners who still have a skewed perspective of gender roles, this is probably the episode I’ll lose you.
Ciao, fuckers!” She laughs. “I think about all the kinds of whiskey in the world too—bourbon whiskey, Scottish whisky, Japanese, all of them different in the way they’re filtered and finished, but holy shit, doesn’t that feel feminine?
Whiskey has been postured as a man’s drink for a long-ass time.
I know plenty of men who claim women the exact same way.
Whiskey is a fucking lady, and I have a flight that’ll twist your panties on the podcast’s website listed.
I’m going to sip on one that my gorgeous sister doesn’t know I stole from the latest batch she bottled.
I promise you, it's not just because she’s my sister; this woman makes elite-level tasting profiles of Tennessee whiskey. ”
I smile as I listen to her latest podcast, and a part of me misses Thursday nights in Montana when the bar packed in and I could do a tasting flight to complement the episode. Maybe it’s something I could do again?
Spotting my nephew on the footbridge that connects the bar to this side of the property, where my house and the distillery are spread out, I pluck out an earbud.
“Nash, what are you up to over there?” I call out.
His head whips around, binoculars pressed against his eyes.
He’s wearing a fishing hat and vest, but as I walk closer, instead of lures and lines on the pockets and loops, there are dinosaurs and a magnifying glass.
He holds his finger up to his lips to signal to me to be quiet, and I can’t help but sniff a laugh in response.
As I approach and step foot over the weathered wood, I ask, “What are we looking for?”
“Ralph’s family. Did you know that alligators are actually prehistoric? I wonder if Ralph knew dinosaurs when he was a kid,” he says, lifting the plastic blue-and-yellow binoculars up to his eyes again.
“I think it would be pretty cool if he did,” I say looking out across the river. The water seems quieter lately. In the spring, it’s always higher from the rain, rushing by faster, but this time of year, I forgot how much it dries up.
“Birdie says Ralph’s family roams up and down this river looking for him, but this is the time of year that we’ll likely see them.
” Peering through his binoculars, he adds, “Don’t worry, Auntie Wyn.
I know better than to get too close.” He holds up his air horn.
“I also know to sound this. Mama says gator or stranger, I can use it when I need it.” He hits the top of it, and a loud, blaring sound comes from the horned end.
Less than ten seconds later, we both whip our heads toward The Whispering Fool when Stevie comes running out, yelling, “Nash!” When she sees that he’s fine, and I’m with him, she shouts, “Emergencies only, I said—that’s gators or strangers! Not Auntie Wyn.”
I hold my hand up. “My fault, I told him to test it for me.”
He gives me a side-glance and a knowing smirk.
“Are you okay out here if I go over to the distillery?” I ask him, crouching down and kissing his cheek.
“Of course,” he says. “Oh.” He reaches into his vest, along one of the many pockets, and plucks out a brown and orange rock. “I found this for Julian. Can you give it to him?”
Caught off guard, I ask, “Sure. What is it?”
“Just thought he’d like it. He wears jewelry, and Auntie Jo said he’s an artist and makes things people wear for lots of money.” He shrugs his shoulder. “It’s nice having more boys around here.”
I smile at the gesture and how damn sweet this kid is.
I try not to think about how I wouldn’t have had a chance to know him if I never came back.
I would’ve only been a story of a person in his mom’s life and not someone who he would feel love from.
“Sure is nice to have you around here, that’s all I know,” I say, giving him a hug before heading toward the large black building on my side of the river. “Love you big, Nash.”
Every time I’ve walked up this path toward the distillery, I’m in a good headspace. The man I’ve been wrapped around helps too. I smile, thinking about all the ways I feel more myself than I have in a long time . . . Maybe ever. And I want this feeling to last.
The sliding door of the distillery is wide open as I get closer. My breath catches, and I stop in my tracks as my mother hoists up a case of whiskey. “Mom? Where are you going with those?”
“I made it, I’ll do what I want with it,” she says flippantly, moving toward the sidecar of her motorcycle.
I glance at the back of the rickhouse where Tommy wipes his hands, leaning against the doorway, watching the exchange.
He told me what she’d been doing when I was gone, but I want to hear it from her.
“What do you mean, you made it?” I ask, following her.
“I mean, I made it.” She rests her fists on her hips and looks back at Tommy. They don’t say anything, but he nods and gets into his truck and drives off.
I want to hear why. All the time I spent out here, she never joined me.
She was jaded, opinionated, practically a vampire anyway, or a witch.
I thought pretty hard about how that could’ve been true when I was in my late teens.
But for some reason, right now, despite being in my mid-thirties, I just want to talk to my mom, want to understand her.
I’ve spent too long thinking I might not get a chance to again.
For all the complex molecules I’ve studied and theories I applied throughout, the equation between my mother and me has always been the most complicated.
“Lu,” I breathe out, frustrated at how this entire relationship with her seems to constantly feel like I’m wading through mud.
“Don’t ‘Lu’ me, like I’m an errant child, Wynona. Fine, you need to hate someone, at least call me Mom and then go on hating me,” she says, like that was something I declared. It twists my stomach.
I jerk back. “I don’t hate you, Lu.”
She scoffs. “Lu,” she mumbles, shaking her head.
I started calling her by her first name when I decided I wanted to study organic chemistry. She told me I’d never find what I really wanted if I kept doing what I was doing. I resented her for that comment, but it seems she may have been right.
I stare at her dark hair, the angular cut of it, and how it somehow makes her seem tougher, harsher.
I had colored it the same shade, chopped it too when I was relocated.
I didn’t even realize I had done it. I wanted to be like the toughest person I had ever met at a time in my life when I had been so severely broken.
She waves at the air in front of her. “You know what? Let's not do this right now. Birdie’s got a bunch of garden club bitches showing up later, and I need to get my ass outta there before they do.”
“Mom,” I say more intently. “I don’t hate you.”
“You sure about that? Wynona, you leaned into all those rumors about our family—about me. Didn’t once think about sticking around or standing by. You wanted distance. I embarrassed you, and I’m allowed to be upset about that.”
She’s right. I didn’t like people saying things about my family, but I didn’t stand up for them. I chose to step aside instead. And I never realized how much that hurt her until right now.
I have my chance to fix things here, and I keep pushing her away.
“You know what I really want? A whiskey neat and to kick my legs up on the sticky bar and listen to my mom bad-mouth whatever asshole mansplained how she should run her business.”
She looks over at me, surprised or maybe pleased with what I’m saying.
I laugh, thinking about how often this happened. “Or a really juicy story about how she talked the latest bachelorette into canceling her own wedding.”
She smiles, looking down and toying with the hem of her shirt. I glance around the space, taking inventory of the barrels that need to be turned and the cases of old glass bottles that need to be washed out and sanitized.
“I’m sorry that you had to find out at all, but especially in the way that you did,” she finally says.
I didn’t want you girls to see the darkness of it.
” She shakes her head. “Maybe if you knew what we did or who we were sooner, it would’ve made sense that we wanted people talking.
That all those rumors you hated so much were a good thing. ”
I furrow my brow, not having thought of it that way at all.
“When people say crazy things about others around this town, it’s always easier to pass off as a rumor and not suspicious behavior.
“I never wanted you to hate me.” Her eyes brim and spill over with tears. “I never wanted you to look at me like you are right now. Like I’m some kind of monster for the things me and your grandmother have done.”
I close my eyes and shake my head slowly.
That wasn’t what I thought. I haven’t allowed myself to really settle on how I feel about the things they’ve been doing.
The shock of my family being capable of murder hit me square in the face, but I’m not disgusted or ashamed.
Hearing her talk about it, knowing at their core, who my mother and grandmother are, I understand it.
I’d had a front-row seat to death and torture.
There hasn’t been a single moment when I thought the person who killed the monster who had hurt me deserved anything more than my complete and utter adoration.
When I finally focus on her again, trying to stay out of my head and in this moment with her, she takes a step closer.
I notice her hands fidgeting and looking more nervous than I ever remember seeing her.
“When you disappeared, or left, or whatever it is that happened to you that you refuse to tell me—” she starts to say, but I cut her off.