Chapter Two #3
“I need to talk with Honey while you sign.” He sets a manila folder on my mom’s blanketed legs and turns to me. “Mind if we speak outside?”
Every private conversation I’ve had with Silas always ends with the terrible taste of bad news in my mouth. Suddenly, I crave nothing more than the butter haze of the Apothakery’s warm yellow kitchen. My skin is freezing over in this place.
“Actually, I’m late for a date with my apartment.”
“What, a whole jar of cornichons and a book with subpar smut you’ve read ten times already?” He looks at me like Mom does and it’s not a stare I appreciate.
“Don’t dismiss my refined palate.”
“You see your apartment all day. You sleep where you work. I just need five minutes.”
Resisting the urge to grumble, I give my mom a kiss goodbye.
Visiting hours always taste a little of guilt.
Just because I like being alone on a Saturday night doesn’t mean she enjoys spending so much time alone.
I get to go home to a robe and a container of reject cookie scraps in the freezer. She has to stay here.
I slip into the hallway with Silas.
When we’re alone, he looks me up and down—is that dissatisfaction with my overalls?
Not today, sir—and smooths the waistcoat of his suit.
I know he’s only a few years older than me, so I despise how consistently put together this guy is.
We’re supposed to be equally stressed and overworked. The code of thirtysomethings.
Where’s his messy?
He clears his throat. “Can we be friends?”
“You’re preparing yourself to replace my mom.”
“Like I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m simply trying to create contingency plans here. I’ve been your mom’s mentee for six, going on seven, years. You’re both in denial, but you’ve got to trust I can handle this responsibility.”
Now, as can be summarized so far, I don’t usually stoop to gossip.
But in a holler where the phone lines fold in storms, access to any network could blink out from one gravel road to the next, and many folks simply don’t trust the devil’s tool of Wi-Fi, sometimes gossip is the most efficient form of communication.
A cast-iron skillet is my weapon of choice, but I go for my backup—information. “Like how you handled that date of yours last Saturday night?”
He groans, pressing a gold-ringed thumb to his temple. “One bad public date and suddenly I’m the sole topic of the Bible study group.”
“I’m not in the Bible study group, but you were. According to my sources.”
“Jesus. Christ.”
A few nurses at the station down the hall look up.
“Don’t let the church ladies hear you say that,” I say. “They’ll send Pastor Webb after you. Heaven forbid they don’t let you be the next mayor. A tragedy, really. Were that to happen.”
“First of all, something is off about that man.”
Okay, that we can agree on. I don’t attend myself, but I know Witches often make an appearance in his sermons, and not because they’re holding a toy drive. “I always thought he was at high risk of becoming an actual spider.”
“Secondly, Samson was never going to work out; he’s a Libra for chrissakes. What I don’t understand is why my love life is more interesting than how Noxie on Shirley Street shot off her husband’s toe last week.”
I shrug. “She does that once a year. And because your date threw a literal biscuit at you. Kitty’s Kitchen doesn’t even serve biscuits.”
“Your guess is as good as mine. He pulled them right out of his Longchamp.”
“If that’s how you handle tricky situations, I don’t know if you’ll be the best mayor to follow my mom.” Okay, low blow, but I passed desperate a long time ago. Does he understand I’m willing to take a whole slew of questionable risks to keep him from being Mayor Silas Key? Nothing personal.
He sighs. “Listen, you have no idea how hard it is to date in a town this size. I would be a ten in Manhattan and here the best I get is a tourist who’s only visiting to rent a log cabin to get away from it all.”
Well, crap. Now I feel a little bad. He’s right: We’re operating on totally different playing fields. Olive branch, then. “Your date—Samson—came by the shop the other day looking for something to cure a pinot grigio hangover. He looked like absolute hell.”
“See? A pinot grigio guy. Never going to work.” His I’m serious now forehead scrunch reappears.
“I’m doing my best here, but your mom can’t be my mentor and my opposition.
You’ve got to make her work with me. She’ll listen to you.
I’m trying to be a young mayor in a town of four thousand—maybe—that barely has its own postal code.
I want friends, not enemies. More folks ask me every week where their mayor is, and I can’t deflect forever. ”
And Carolina’s deflection spell and warding around my mom’s hospital room can only keep folks from snooping for so long.
If I could banish the image of my mom—ghostly, thin hair, hollow cheeks, looking way too much like Momaw in her last months—I could put up more of a fight now.
But I can’t. I just need her healthy. “You’re right.
I know my dating life wouldn’t be front and center like yours. ”
“If you had one.”
I almost laugh. It was a good one. “Ouch. I don’t know about this friends thing.”
“At least help me by dating someone, so we can keep her distracted.”
“She does enjoy trying to set us up. My mom does know you’re gay, right?”
A delicate half chuckle passes between us. Quiet, but it’s there.
Okay, I suppose I could make more of an effort here. “Maybe we should get dinner. Just the two of us. Talk outside of this hospital room for once.”
His eyebrows go up. “You know I’m gay, right?”
My hand goes to my invisible pearls. “What?”
“Ah, that was your sarcasm. I see.”
“We both know we’re way too busy for dinner, anyway. It was a trick question.”
Silas clears his throat, looking away. “Listen, I don’t want to add to your plate…”
“Oh, please do.” Folks have been adding to my plate for years. It keeps piling up and I just keep… not eating it. One day, I’ll inhale it. Catch up. Somehow.
“We’re going to need more medical care than Foxe Holler can provide.
We should think about moving Marigold to a larger city, a proper hospital.
Or if necessary, find excellent hospice care.
” He tugs at his waistcoat, a nervous tic of his.
Never a good sign. “Your grandmother passed away after battling this same unknown thing for a year. And Marigold’s been here nine months now… ”
The acid in my empty stomach bubbles. The urge to vomit is stealing every tablespoon of weak focus I’ve got.
You’ve tried everything in those grimoires, girl, Momaw would remind me.
I’ve had time to exhaust my options, but with all the potential cures I’ve created, all I’ve done is exhaust our pantry and bank account.
Silas faces me, as if to make this fast, efficient. “Your mom is getting worse, quickly. Nurse Carolina and I think she has a few months left, at best. We need an answer. Now.”