My grandmother looked at me, and I shrugged. Annoyed at my lack of resolve, she said, “Well, I’ll be long gone before that bird comes to roost. Your breakfast is ready. Then we’ll get the last things packed and moved to the basement.”
Packed and moved to the basement? I felt that squeezing sensation again when I remembered I’d promised my grandmother that I’d help her pack up the kitchen before the remodelers showed up to start. How long was that going to take? Whatever. It had to be done.
I gave her a kiss on the cheek before I went into the kitchen and found my favorite breakfast waiting: bacon, sunny-side-up eggs, toasted Portuguese bread, fried green tomatoes, and grits.
One bite and I was ten again, and feeling safe because my grandmother had rescued me and brought me to live with her in Washington instead of an orphanage down in North Carolina. That’s the power of a home-cooked meal. You don’t get that at IHOP or McDonald’s, no matter how hard they try to sell it.
“Alex, what time did the contractor say he was going to come?” Nana Mama asked as I broke up a piece of toast, stabbed a chunk of it with a fork, and dipped it in the egg yolk.
“Around noon,” I replied. “And our contractor has a name: Billy DuPris.”
My grandmother used to be an inner-city high school vice principal, and even at ninety-plus she usually has a bemused, seen-it-all air about her. But that morning she looked stressed in the way she worried her hands with her apron and glanced all around the kitchen as if trying to figure out what to do next.
I put down my fork. “You okay?”
“I’m fine, Alex,” she said, hesitated. “I just don’t know where to start.”
“I said I’d help you, and I will, just as soon as I finish eating.”
Distracted, she swallowed, looked all around again, nodded.
“Something is bothering you,” I said.
“It’s nothing,” Nana Mama replied. “Just a foolish old woman who can’t abide change is all.”
I saw it then, understood the source of her anxiety. From the moment I set foot in this house more than thirty years ago, my grandmother’s kitchen had been just that, her kitchen, this domain that she ruled with skill, humor, and unquestioned authority, with a place for everything and everything in its place.
I got up, went to her, and put my arms around her, amazed at how tiny she felt. “You said you wanted a new kitchen,” I said. “A fancy six-burner stove with a built-in griddle. The new stainless fridge. All of it.”
“I know,” she said, pressing her head into my chest. “I just get sentimental. That’s all. Nothing will ever be the same, Alex.”
I released her, put my finger under her chin. “Weren’t you the one who taught me that every minute of life is a change?”
“Doesn’t make it easier,” she said.
“You want me to call Mr. DuPris, pull the plug?”
She bit at her lip a second and then shook her head. “No. I’ll just have to make do. What’s that they always say, ‘Evolve or die’?”
“Seems to me I’ve heard that somewhere,” I said.
There was an awkward silence between us before she said, “You go on back, and when you finish with your breakfast we’ll start with the cookbooks, the spices, and everything I want in the fancy new pantry I’m—”
My cell phone rang. Captain Quintus. I didn’t want to answer but did.
“Cross,” I said.
“Where are you?” the homicide capta
in barked. “All hell is breaking loose down here. The chief wants answers. The mayor wants answers. The Francones killing has become a symbol of the murder rate, Alex. All hell is breaking loose.”
“And I’ve got a contractor coming in to tear my house apart in less than two hours,” I replied. “I promise you I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Quintus’s voice turned heated. “Goddamn it, Alex, find someone else to do it and get your ass in here.”
I clicked off the phone without giving him an answer.
Chapter