Mavis kept notes on everything. She scribbled in margins, stuck Post-its everywhere, and typed in random documents scattered across the desktop.
Notes about customers, such as ‘Earl’s wife is sick, comp his drinks this month’.
There were notes about staff, like, ‘Presley’s birthday is March 15, and she likes carrot cake’.
There were, of course, notes about business, like, ‘Theme night idea: Redneck wedding reception - tacky decorations, bouquet toss, and fake ceremonies’.
I find a document titled, ‘IF I DIE’, and my heart clinches before I even open it.
It’s a letter to me.
Eleanor,
If you are reading this, I am dead, and you are probably confused as heck. I am sorry about that. I was never very good at explaining myself.
I know you do not know me. Your mama and your grandmama made sure of that. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but since I am one now, I feel like that rule no longer applies.
I don’t blame either one of them. We were all such different people who wanted different things, and they thought they were protecting you. Maybe they were.
Here is the thing. I have watched you from a distance your whole life, and I have seen something your mama could not see. You are not happy. You might be successful at times. You are polished, for sure. You are everything she wanted you to be, but you are not happy.
I know because I was you once, trying to be what everybody expected, following rules I did not make, suffocating in a life that looked perfect from the outside. Then I came here, and I found something different. I found a place where I could be myself, that messy, loud, and perfect real person. I found people who love me not because I was proper or refined, but because I showed up and cared.
I’m leaving you the bar because I think you need what I found. And if I don’t leave it to you, well, you just might never find it yourself. It is a chance to figure out who you are when you are not performing for anyone. A place to be graceless and still be loved.
Just give it those six months, honey. That is all I ask. Six months to try something different.
Of course, if you hate it, if you are miserable, you can sell it and go back to your life. But give yourself the chance to find out.
And Eleanor, please be kind to Wyatt. He has been through more than you know, and he is going to be prickly about you at first, I think. But he is the best man I have ever known. And if you let him, he will show you what this place is really about.
I love you, even though we have never met. And I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Your Aunt Mavis
P.S. The secret to my barbecue sauce is a splash of bourbon and a tablespoon of instant coffee. Do not tell anyone. I will haunt you.
I read the letter three times, and then I close it and sit in the cramped office surrounded by her chaotic filing system and let the tears fall for a woman I never met.
I am still in the office when Wyatt finds me. It is after ten p.m., and the bar closed for the night because apparently Saturdays are slower than Fridays during festival weekend, when everyone is at the outdoor concerts. I have been going through files for hours, trying to understand the business, trying to understand Mavis, trying to understand why a woman I never knew believed in me more than I do.
“You’re still here.”
Wyatt leans against the doorframe, his arms crossed. He has changed out of his work clothes into jeans and a soft flannel shirt, and he looks tired in a way that goes deeper than physical exhaustion.
“I found her letter.” I gesture at the computer. “The one she left for me.”
“Oh.” He moves into the room and sits in a worn armchair in the corner. “Yeah. She worked on that for a few weeks. Kept rewriting it, trying to get it right.”
“You knew about it?”
“She read me some parts of it. Wanted to make sure she didn’t sound crazy.” He smiles, just a little. “I told her it sounded exactly like her, which is to say completely crazy, but also completely right.”
I swivel in the desk chair and face him.
“She wrote about you and said you’d be prickly.”
“Oh, did she now?”
