“Gravy and wood finish have more in common than people think,” she says. “Both punish impatience.”
“Is that your philosophy or your grandmother’s?”
She picks up her fork. “At this point, I can’t always tell.”
I want to ask about her grandmother. I’ve been wanting to since I stood in front of that photograph, but I can tell this isn’t the moment. She said it easily, which means it’s not guarded, which means more will come when it comes. I eat my chicken-fried steak and let it sit.
Delia reappears in the middle of the meal, ostensibly to refill the iced tea, actually to look at us. She pours without hurry and says to me, “You know, we were all real proud of this one.” A nod toward Honey. “Back in the day. You know she almost went to the Olympics.”
I set my fork down, giving Delia my full attention.
Honey looks at Delia with an expression of absolute composure. “Delia.”
“What? It’s true.”
“He’s here for chicken-fried steak.”
“He can have both.” Delia looks at me as if we’re already on the same side. “Gymnastics. She was something. State champion three years running. They were talking Olympic trials.” She shakes her head the way people do when talking about something that didn’t go the way it should have. “Well.” She pats Honey’sshoulder once, quick and affectionate, and takes her leave with the tea pitcher.
Neither of us speaks.
“Olympic trials,” I say.
“Potentially.” Honey picks her fork back up. “It didn’t happen.”
“How close?”
She looks at me steadily. “Close enough that not happening was a thing.”
I leave the rest alone.
“A thing that should have happened,” I say. “I’m sorry it didn’t.”
She nods once, clean. Then she cuts another piece of steak.
We eat.
“What about you?” she says. And then, after a pause: “I looked up StillWater clan. After your first visit.”
I stop moving.
“You looked it up,” I say.
“I was curious.” The admission is the whole statement.
“What did you find?”
“Quiet. Deliberate. Internal.” She looks at me across the table. “I spent some time contemplating the discrepancy.”
This surprises a laugh out of me—a real one, not managed. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s a real discrepancy.”
“You seem comfortable with it.”
“Now I do.” I turn my iced tea glass in a slow circle in the condensation puddle it made on the table. “Eight years ago, I thought I’d gotten out from under it. Came through the Emergence, looked around, thought: stages, crowds, noise. That’s what I want. StillWater felt like something I’d outgrown.” A pause. “Turns out it’s more complicated than that. Eight years and I’m still not sure I’ve worked out what I actually wanted and what I was running from.”
She takes a moment. Then, “What made you stop fighting it?”
The honest answer has her in it, and I’m not ready to say that out loud at Delia’s with chicken-fried steak in front of us. So I say: “I’m still working on that.”
