I climb the stairs slowly, my heels clicking on the wooden steps. At the top, I pause with my hand on the doorknob, suddenly feeling a rush of reluctance to enter. This was Mavis’s space, her home. Walking in feels like I am trespassing, even though I technically own it now.
I push open the door anyway.
The apartment is just as I remember it from my brief visit, eclectic, colorful, and utterly unlike anything I have ever lived in. The turquoise velvet sofa looks even more inviting in daylight, piled with throw pillows in various patterns that really should not work together, but somehow do.
I set my bag down and start to explore properly.
The kitchen is small but well-equipped, with copper pots hanging over a rack that I vaguely remember from my first visit. There is a collection of cast-iron skillets that look older than I am. The refrigerator is empty except for a box of baking soda and a bottle of hot sauce, but the pantry is actually stocked with basics like flour, sugar, and spices in mismatched jars.
The bathroom is a riot of turquoise tile and vintage fixtures, including a big clawfoot tub that makes me want to take a bath right now, even though I showered this morning. Fluffy towels in sunset hues hang from brass hooks, and a collection of bath products on a shelf smells of lavender and honey.
The bedroom stops me in my tracks.
It is dominated by a queen-sized bed with an iron frame, its quilt homemade-looking. Handmade. Intricate patterns in deep reds and blues and golds stitched together with such obvious care.
For a moment, it reminds me that my mother would never have done such a thing. Make a quilt? Absolutely not.
There are more pillows, more colors, more personality than my entire Atlanta apartment combined.
But what catches my attention is the wall above the bed.
It is covered in photographs.
There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds, arranged in an overlapping collage that takes over the entire wall. Photos of people laughing, dancing, and hugging. Photos of the bar through the years. I can see it evolving from a rough roadhouse into the welcoming space it is today. Photos of Mavis herself at various ages, surrounded by people, always smiling.
It strikes me for a moment how little I ever saw my mother or grandmother smile.
Why were they so different from Mavis?
I step closer and study the faces. There is Dolly looking younger, with the same impressive hair. Boone is slightly less massive but has the same gentle eyes. And Wyatt, in what looks like some kind of military uniform, is standing stiff and serious next to a beaming Mavis.
Then, in the corner, almost hidden among the others, I see a photo I recognize.
It’s me.
Maybe eight years old, in a pink dress with a white collar, my hair in pigtails, standing in front of a Christmas tree, holding a wrapped present, and smiling at the camera with gap-toothed enthusiasm.
I do not recall this photo being taken. I certainly do not remember sending it to anyone.
But somehow, Mavis has it.
Somehow, she kept it all these years, displayed among her most treasured memories.
My throat tightens, so I reach out and touch the edge of the photo, feeling the slight curl of the aged paper.
She knew me. Not personally, and not really, but she knew me. She watched me grow up from a distance, collected evidence of my existence, and cared enough to keep a photo of a great-niece she had never been allowed to know.
And I never even knew her name until a week ago.
The guilt is sudden and overwhelming.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, staring at the wall of memories, and feel the weight of everything I missed. Every birthday card my mother threw away. Every connection severed before it could even form. Every chance to know this woman who apparently loved me anyway.
“She started that wall the year she bought the bar.”
I spin around, heart hammering in my chest, and see Wyatt standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“I knocked,” he says. “Downstairs. You didn’t answer.”
