I am fully laughing now, and it feels strange and wonderful, like stretching a muscle I forgot I had.
“She sounds like a handful.”
“Oh, she was.” His voice softens. “She was also the kindest, most generous, but stubbornly loving person I’ve ever known. She took in strays. People who didn’t fit in anywhere else, who needed a place to belong. She gave us all a home.”
“And now she’s given it to me.”
“Yep.” He meets my eyes. “Question is, what are you going to do with it?”
I don’t have an answer. Not yet. But sitting here in her cluttered office, surrounded by evidence of a life well lived, I feel something I have not felt in a long time.
I feel curious about what comes next.
Later, after Wyatt has gone home and I have climbed the stairs to my new apartment, I stand in front of the photo wall again. I find the picture of me as a child, gap-toothed and beaming, and trace its edges with my finger.
“I’m here,” I whisper to the empty room. “I don’t know if I’m what you hoped for, but I’m here. I’m gonna try.”
Of course, the apartment doesn’t answer, but I swear I feel something. A presence. A warmth. A sense of being.
I pull Mavis’s letter from my pocket. I printed it out because I cannot leave it trapped in her ancient computer, and read the last line again.
“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Me too,” I say to no one.
Then I change into the most casual pajamas I own, which are silk because I am still me after all, and climb into Mavis’s bed with its handmade quilt and fall asleep surrounded by the memories of a woman who loved me before we ever met.
I have made a decision.
After days of observing, exploring, and reading through Mavis’s chaotic filing system, I have decided that the best way to understand the business is to just participate in it. Not watch from the sidelines with my mason jar of boxed wine, but actually help. Roll up my sleeves, as it were, and contribute.
This is, I will later realize, the worst decision I have made since agreeing to let Archie’s mother plan our engagement party. Who has one-hundred doves at an engagement party?
On this particular evening, I walk down the stairs of the apartment in what I thought was appropriate attire. Dark slacks, a tasteful blouse, and sensible flats. And I am filled with optimism.
I have skills. I have experience managing a business. I have years of training in proper social interaction.
How hard can running a bar actually be?
“Absolutely not,” Wyatt says when I announce my intentions.
He is behind the bar, setting up for the evening rush, and he does not even look up from the glasses he is washing.
His dismissal is so casual that it takes me a moment to process it.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Now he looks up, blue eyes assessing me with something between concern and amusement.
“Tonight is our second busiest night of the week. It’s not the time for training anyone, especially you.”
“Well, I’m not asking to be trained. I’m offering to help.” I straighten my spine, trying to channel my mother’s most authoritative tone. “Besides, I own this place. And I should understand how it operates.”
“You can understand how it operates by watching. Exactly what you’ve been doing. And that’s fine.”
“Well, watching isn’t the same as doing.”
