He’s quiet for a moment, swirling the bourbon in his glass.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Always.”
“When I came back from overseas, I didn’t know how to exist anywhere. Everything I’d learned in the army, all the hypervigilance, the constant threat assessments, the need to control every variable, well, it didn’t translate very well into civilian life. I’d walk into a room and immediately identify all the exits. I’d hear a car backfire and hit the deck. I couldn’t turn it off.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was, but here’s the thing. Mavis didn’t try to fix me. She didn’t tell me I was doing it wrong, that I needed to adjust, or that my skills were useless. She just made space for me. She let me be who I was while I figured out who I wanted to become.” He meets my eyes, and there’s no judgment, just understanding. “The things you know aren’t useless, Eleanor. They’re just not the right tools for this particular job. And that doesn’t mean they’re worthless. It just means you have to learn some new tools.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Well, nobody does at first.” He takes a sip of his drink. “But Mavis didn’t leave you this bar because she thought you were perfect. She left it because she believed you could grow.”
I think about Mavis’s letter. A chance to figure out who you are when you’re not performing for anyone.
“What if I can’t?” The fear is real, pressing against my chest. “What if I’m just too set in my ways, too rigid, just like my mother?”
“Then you’ll spend six months being miserable and go back to Atlanta,” he says, shrugging. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because you’re sitting here crying over a mistake instead of defending it. Because you asked me to tell you about Mavis instead of just reading about her. And because you’re trying, even when you’re failing.” He sets his glass down and leans forward. “Rigid people don’t try, Eleanor. They dig in and insist they’re right. You’re not doing that.”
I consider this. It’s not how I would have described myself, but maybe that’s the point. Maybe I don’t know myself as well as I thought I did.
“Dolly’s going to want to talk to you,” Wyatt says, standing. “She’s not mad, but, you know, she’s going to have some, shall we say, suggestions about how to approach things differently.”
“Oh, I’m sure she will.”
“Take them. She’s been doing this for thirty years. She knows what she’s talking about.”
I nod and finish the last of my bourbon.
“Wyatt,” I say as he reaches for the door.
He turns back. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For this.”
I gesture vaguely at the bourbon, the conversation, and the kindness I didn’t expect.
“Mavis wouldn’t have left you this place without a reason, and I’m starting to think maybe she knew what she was doing.”
He leaves before I can respond, closing the door behind him.
I sit in the quiet office, surrounded by Mavis’s chaotic files and the lingering scent of bourbon, and think about tools, about growing, about the possibility that the woman I’ve been isn’t the one I have to stay just because my mother said so.
It’s terrifying.
It’s also, I realize for the first time in years, that I feel something might actually change.
Later, after the bar is closed and the staff has gone home, I climb the stairs to the apartment and stand in front of Mavis’s photo wall again. I find the picture of me as a child.
“I messed up today,” I tell her. “Badly. I made a fool of myself in front of everybody.”
Of course, the photo doesn’t answer, but I swear I can almost hear Mavis’s voice.
