“When are you leaving?” Her momma blinked several times, as if she was still expecting Cordelia to announce she was pulling her leg. “If you give me a little notice, I can arrange things at work and see if I can make the trip with you.”
“I appreciate it, but I want to do this on my own. I’ll be heading out tomorrow. If I like what I see, I’ll give my two weeks’ notice.” Cordelia doubted it would come to that. A quick sale would be best. The lawyer had said the town wouldn’t want to see the motel sold off, but what did she care about the town? All they’d ever done was give her grief.
Sherilynn opened her mouth to argue and closed it again when the waiter came by with their drinks. Cherry Coke with extra syrup for Sherilynn and room temperature water, no ice, for Cordelia. Her momma’s expression had turned stony, so Cordelia ordered their usual, chicken and waffles with a scoop of icecream on top and a plate of beans and greens. The waiter didn’t need to ask who got which.
Sherilynn sipped her Coke, licking off half her pink gloss as she smacked her lips. “Are you experimenting with drugs? You can tell me if you are.”
“What?” Cordelia nearly dropped the napkin she’d been fidgeting with. “What would make you say a thing like that?”
“This isn’t like you. Since when have you ever sought out change?”
“I’m thirty years old. Don’t you think I ought to be doing something with my life? Finding some kind of direction?” Cordelia only said that to placate her momma, who’d always had a yearning in her soul for something she could never quite reach, but it didn’t stop an ache from blooming in her own chest.
Did she want something more for herself? But what if the real reason she was so keen to check out this motel was because, deep down, she did want another life?
She dismissed the notion. Those occasional aches she got to try new things or be someone different came from her upbringing and her natural instincts to follow in her momma’s footsteps. That was all. She’d been fighting those instincts her whole life, and mostly won against them, but every now and again they’d sneak up on her and make her feel like doing something dangerous.
“I’m sorry. I’ll support you no matter what.” Her momma reached across the table and squeezed her hand, and Cordelia felt an immediate rush of affection for the woman who’d raised her. “You know I will. What can I do to help?”
Cordelia chewed on her bottom lip, the guilt of not being fully forthcoming worming its way into her consciousness. “I could use some help packing for my trip.”
“Sure. That’ll be fun,” Sherilynn said, in the same way one would call a root canal fun.
The waiter brought their food, and they let the comfortable silence settle between them while they ate. Cordelia still wasn’t sure how to bring up Sarsaparilla Falls, or what her next steps would be if she couldn’t sell. Maybe it was enough to tell her momma she was going out of town, and she’d find a way to spill the rest when she got back. She didn’t really intend on staying down there. She just had to talk to the residents and see if she could negotiate a deal with them.
“I appreciate you.” Cordelia poured a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar on her turnip greens. “Enough about me now. What have you been up to this week?”
Sherilynn shimmied her shoulders like a pitcher about to throw a strike down the middle. There were few things she liked more than talking about herself. “I had a meeting with my sponsor, and she’s got me doing some extended step-four work, digging deeper into my past and looking more honestly at situations I might’ve glossed over thinking I was the victim.”
“I thought you completed the twelve steps years ago?” Cordelia had sat through her momma’s step-nine amends when she was thirteen, and the awkwardness of it wasnotsomething she wanted a repeat performance of in her thirties.
Her momma gave her a pitying, silly-goose-with-its-neck-caught-between-fence-posts look. “The steps are ongoing. It ain’t a one-and-done deal.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” Cordelia muttered. “I’m not in AA.”
Her momma went on as if she hadn’t heard her, talking about her business and gossiping about people Cordelia had never met. Sherilynn had a full life. It seemed as if she had no shortage of things to talk about and situations to laugh over. Hearing aboutall her momma’s sober living adventures should’ve been encouraging. She was doing well, staying on the wagon, and enjoying the fruits of her hard-won labor. Cordelia couldn’t help but stack up her own life against her momma’s stories only to find it lacking. Like holding up an HD color photo next to a vintage black-and-white and expecting the images to be similar.
Maybe Sherilynn would be just fine running the Chickadee. Maybe Cordelia was the one hanging on to her momma’s ghosts thinking they wouldn’t haunt her.
Pushing her greens around on her plate, Cordelia decided to test the waters. “Do you ever think about Sarsaparilla Falls?”
“Only every day,” Sherilynn said. “It’s an important part of my recovery to stay aware of who I was while living in that town. Why are you asking?”
She’d somehow managed to make “that town” sound like a slur. Maybe she wouldn’t fare so well there, after all.
“I was just thinking of it the other day. What it would be like to go back.”
“And do what?” Her momma wrinkled her nose like she’d spotted a skunk at a lawn party. “Spending weekend nights at the local bar? Try to attend church again? There ain’t a whole lot else going on there, and between the two, I think you know which I’d prefer.”
“I know.” The only church her momma ever attended now was the AA meetings in the basement of the local Presbyterian church on Tuesday nights. “I didn’t mean we should take a vacation there or anything. I was just thinking about it, is all.”
“That town is as poisonous to me as sitting in a bar just to hear the band play.” Her momma motioned for the waiter to bring them their bill. “I’ve been sober long enough to know what I can and can’t handle, and Sarsaparilla Falls is firmly in the can’t camp.”
“That’s fair.” All thoughts of sharing her news about the Chickadee went right out the window. There wasn’t anything more important to Cordelia than her momma’s sobriety. “Forget I mentioned it.”
Her momma waved her hands around her head. “Already forgotten.”
The waiter brought the check, and they each paid their individual bills, her momma putting hers on a credit card with Goofy on it, and Cordelia paying in exact change, plus tip, from her beaded coin purse. Cordelia didn’t bring up Sarsaparilla Falls again. With any luck, her momma would plumb forget to ask her where she intended on staying while she was gone.
