Restless and unable to sleep after she’d spoken to Marq, Janae picked up half a shift at work just to give herself something to do. Work was the only place she felt normal. It was the only place where her mind wasn’t locked on Adam Henderson. Was it healthy for her to avoid her feelings by putting in extra shifts? Nope, not in the least. Was she going to keep doing it until she could get some sort of distance and perspective on everything that was going on? Absolutely.
Thankfully, her shift was busy, leaving little time for her to do anything but focus on patient care. By the time she made it home and walked through her back door, all she wanted was a hot shower and her bed to get rid of the bone-weary exhaustion dogging her.
As soon as she opened the back door, familiar smells from her childhood enveloped her. Her mother was mostly a health nut for as long as Janae could remember, but in times of unimaginable happiness or deep sorrow, she reverted to her southern roots and pulled out her cast-iron pots and skillets to make a good ole soul food meal.
If her nose hadn’t led her wrong, she could smell bacon, cheese grits, and buttermilk biscuits. She stepped inside the room and found her mother busying about in her kitchen and fear instantly gripped Janae. What was this about? Why was she here doing this?
“Mama, did something happen to my son-shine?”
Evelyn’s head snapped up from the pot she was stirring on the range with a pinched vee between her brows.
“No.” Evelyn shook her head as she spoke. “He just left for school. He had a full belly and went on his way.”
“Then is it my daddy? Did something happen to my daddy?”
“No,” Evelyn replied in the same questioning tone. “Not that I keep tabs on him, but as far as I know, he’s fine. What’s with all the doom and gloom questions, Janae?”
Janae blinked a few times before getting a hold of herself and finding the clarity of thought to realize she needed to close the door.
“Mama.” She returned her gaze to Evelyn. “You’re standing in my kitchen cooking all the foods you tried to make me avoid for much of my life. Did something happen?”
Evelyn’s eyes widened with enlightenment. “I promise you, nothing has happened to my grandbaby, your father”—Evelyn took a long pause as if she were questioning if she should say the next part—“… or me.”
Janae’s mind tried to unpack those last words. Evelyn had said them as if she didn’t know whether Janae would be concerned about her well-being in the same way she cared about her father and her son.
They’d fought like cats and dogs most of Janae’s life. Janae refused to back down to any of her mother’s nonsense. But that didn’t mean she didn’t care about her. It just meant she was exasperated by her views.
But have you ever told her that?
Too emotionally raw since her breakup with Adam, she was letting wild thoughts get the better of her. She couldn’t do this right now.
“Mama, why are you here”—she panned her hand across the expanse of the room—“doing all of this?”
Her mother turned the eye down on the range and walked over to her, guiding her toward the breakfast nook.
“Sit down, let me fix you a plate, eat, and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
She acquiesced, something that felt so unnatural where her mother was concerned. Janae’s natural instinct to fight was an intentionally crafted response to her mother’s constant criticisms of her. But she was so tired, and hungry, and she just didn’t have any fight left in her at this moment, so she did as she was told and sat down.
When she was halfway through her food, her need to know rose again, stronger this time. This moment with her mother felt almost nurturing and Evelyn Tate did not do nurturing, especially when it came to Janae. Was this a setup of some kind? Had her mother switched battle tactics? Was this just a new way of trying to get under Janae’s skin?
“James was worried about you,” Evelyn began cautiously as she met Janae’s suspicious gaze. “He said he was worried about you. Said you weren’t yourself and he wanted me to come over and check on you.” When Janae opened her mouth, Evelyn held up her hand and stopped her. “If you’re wondering why he called me and not your daddy, it’s because he knows your father doesn’t do messy emotions. He figured I had a better constitution for it. So, what’s got my grandbaby so worried? What’s wrong, Janae?”
“I doubt you’d care if you knew. So, let’s just drop the subject. I’m fine. James was just overreacting.”
The only thing her mother wanted was for Janae to go back to Marq, so knowing her relationship with Adam hadn’t worked out would probably make her giddy. Janae didn’t have the energy for that today.
“Is that what you think? That seeing you suffer makes me happy?”
Janae pushed her plate away from her and gave her full attentionto her mother. “Doesn’t it? Isn’t that why you’ve always been so hard on me, trying to get me to realize I wasn’t enough?”
Evelyn’s eyes widened with what looked like a mixture of surprise and hurt and Janae couldn’t tell why. The woman had ridden Janae like a worn-out horse over every misstep Janae ever made.
“I know that I wasn’t always the mother you wanted, Janae. But anything I did or said to you wasn’t about me telling you you weren’t enough. It was about making you better than me.”
Janae’s head snapped back as if she’d been struck. Of all the things she’d expected her mother to say, it definitely wasn’t that.
“Mama?”
