“I don’t think so, Mom.” Sir Scott snuck up on Petunia and jumped on her. Petunia swatted him in the face. Twice. Sir Scott whimpered.
“Why?”
“Because.” I felt my shoulders sag. “Because I’m different now, Mom.” I heard the pain in my voice. “My relationship with Logan… Well, it’s over.”
“It doesn’t still have to be over, honeybee.”
Yes, it did. I’d never told her the truth. “It’s also the last few years. A lonely, hard marriage. The divorce. What a nightmare. The…” I choked. “The miscarriage.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she grabbed my hand. A few tears slipped out. I didn’t want Martin, but I had wanted that sweet baby, and so had my mother.
“I feel different than who I used to be. I know I’m different. I’m not the same Bellini Logan knew.”
“Painful times and grief and loss change us, darling girl, but you are still essentially you—deeply compassionate and temperamental when you see a wrong being done. Thoughtful. Unique. Self-reflective. A little absent-minded. A storyteller who is often in her head with Roxy Belle out on a farm. Efficient. Brilliant. Introverted. Cat-loving. Animal-loving. Chess player.Book lover. Unbelievably generous. Look what you’ve done for your ol’ mother! You’re an artist. You wonder at nature. You are so funny.”
“I’m not funny. I don’t feel funny at all. Too much seriousness in my life wrecked the funny part.”
She looked confused. “Oh, you are one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. You make everyone laugh with your dry sense of humor.”
“I feel like I’ve lost my sense of humor these last years. It’s like life beat it out of me. Things don’t seem as funny anymore.”
“It’s there, baby, it’s there. Your life needed to change, and you changed it. You moved to a lovely cottage in Oregon.” She glared at me sternly. “Curse Oregon! I hope you’ll move back here.” Then she smiled to let me know she wasn’t mad and wasn’t trying to guilt-trip me. “But your humor will come back, sugar. Sadness takes time to leave our aching hearts. It’s a thief in the night. Grief comes and goes like a bulldozer. You have to get up after you’ve been steamrolled. You have to let the sunshine in. Grab it with both hands, my love, whenever you see it. Grab the sunshine.”
I leaned against her, and she hugged me. We finished our cake, watched a home decorating show, and laughed at the cats, who were their own comedy show, as all cat owners know.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you with all my heart, dazzling daughter,” she said. She gave me a kiss. “Let’s have another piece of cake, shall we? Then we’ll go online and buy coats for the kids of Kalulell.”
That’s exactly what we did.
The cats helped, as expected.
When I finally went to bed, visions of Logan danced in my head. He was naked in all of the visions.
The funny thing about my mother is that though she is a flashy, entertaining extrovert at the bar who says outlandish things, does hilarious things, sings bawdy songs, and everyone thinks she’s a legend, at home she’s different. Oh, she can still be outrageous and sharply blunt, but her personality dials down about ten notches.
She’s actually a homebody. She likes to stay at home, unless she’s going to one of her sisters’ houses. She likes to knit, of all things. She likes to clean and organize. She likes to bake. She likes to make homemade buttermilk pancakes. She likes to read and sit on the porch and be quiet. She likes to make baked Alaskas and light them on fire with the lights off. She likes to watch the sunset, if she’s not at the bar, and she’ll often get up early to see the sunrise and think.
When she’s home, she does not wear makeup, though she wears a lot, complete with false eyelashes and glittery eye shadow and lipstick, at the bar. She does not wear fancy clothes at home—jeans or sweats and sweatshirts with work boots make up her daily outfit. She doesn’t do her hair up in an elaborate fashion.
Every morning, she drinks coffee and does the crossword, and she plays chess with me. We like to talk about books and the news and gardening. She likes to putter around and trim her plants and watch her favorite TV shows, likeMarry Me.
Yes, Lady Whiskey is very different at work than she is at home, like so many people are between work and home. Everyone knows her as Lady Whiskey. I know her as Mom, the very best mother on the planet, even if she did have me making alcoholic drinkswaytoo early.
She also has a comforting shoulder to cry on and a soothing voice filled with compassion, love, and—when you need it—a kick in the butt.
I dragged Christmas stuff out of the attic above the bar with Camellia, Marcos, and Javier. The bar was closed, but we’d be opening for lunch in about an hour, so the wait and kitchen staff, and our cleaning crew, were already running around.
I found the Coat and Glove Box, which used to be a box for a giant refrigerator. It was wrapped in Frosty the Snowman wrapping paper. The red bow around it was wrinkled, so I took it off and tied another huge red bow around the top, like a present, and we carried it to the side of the front door. I hung a tagboard sign that said, “Santa Wants Help Giving Out Coats/Hats/Gloves to Kalulell’s Kids!” I created a huge Santa hat out of construction paper and glued it to the top. Simple. But it would work.
“Can’t believe it’s Christmas again, and I still don’t have someone to kiss under the mistletoe,” Camellia said, tut-tutting.
“Maybe this will be your year,” I told her.
“I can hope. I nominated your mother forMarry Me.”
I put up my hands in surrender. “Thank you. She made me write that in the email. You know how she is. I can’t say no.”
