I pulled in a deep breath. She was right. In theory. But why couldn’t this sponsor person be, say, a woman in her sixties? Ava was beautiful and vulnerable. A man could take advantage of her.
She trusted far too easily. She always had.
A vision of a Halloween night years ago lit up my brain like a bomb blast. I kept the memory to myself. She hated when I brought it up. I emptied my lungs. Ava was home now. That needed to be enough for the moment.
“Alright. You can tell me about him when you’re ready,” I offered. “Hungry? I can make pancakes after I shower.”
All frustration fled her face, and Ava’s eyes widened with delight. “Breakfast for dinner? You’re on!” Her eyes grew even wider. “Can you add pecans and chocolate chips like Flora used to?”
And just like that, I was back in Flora’s kitchen, sitting at the table across from Elise, teasing her to get her to look at me, pancakes piled high on our plates. A bittersweet pang clenched my gut. Thanksgiving. A month before I’d kissed her. I hadn’t thought about that morning in years. And now I could taste. Smell it.
As though seeing Elise had caused a prison break of memories I’d kept on lockdown.
My God. Despite my silence, my paralysis, the desire to talk to her at the gallery had been unbearable. But if she hadn’t disappeared, what would I have said? What could I have said?
“Sure thing,” I answered, ducking my head in a nod and hoping my sister hadn’t the pass over my face. “I’ll just be a minute.”
* * *
“Don’t get me wrong,”Ava said, wiping syrup off her lips. “These are awesome pancakes… but they aren’t as good as Flora’s.”
I swallowed my mouthful. She was right. They were good, but they couldn’t touch Flora’s. Over the years, it was one of the things Ava and I could talk about. No one cooked like Flora. Sure, we could get a fantastic dinner at Carmo on Julia Street and have a great brunch at Satsuma Cafe uptown, but comfort food? Homecooking? No one came close.
And by whatever tacit agreement we’d made eight years ago, we could not and would not talk about that night. Which meant talking about our parents was impossible because their memories were inseparable from that night.
But we could talk about Flora.
She had always been a steady source of nurturing and nourishment. Whatever memories we held of growing up in that house, those in Flora’s kitchen were the brightest and warmest, and when we hungered for home, it was for a meal at her table, not a cold, formal family dinner in the dining room.
And she’d kept in touch with us. In her own way. Ava and I would get cards on our birthdays, and on New Year’s. Not Christmas. It was as though Flora understood we needed to look ahead instead of looking back. The cards were simple, sappy affairs with onlyLots of love, Florapenned on the bottom, but we knew what they carried. Her well wishes. Her regret that she couldn’t have done more to help us. Her understanding of who we were.
I don’t know about Ava, but I returned the favor, sending flowers on Flora’s birthday — I’d had to look up the date among my father’s papers — and, because she’d always given us sweets, a box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day.
I never sent a card, but Flora had to know they were from me. That first year, doing those two things had made me smile when little else could.
But beyond those missives, we hadn’t reached out to her, and after I had sold the house and given her a severance, she hadn’t called us. My guess was she knew we were trying to start new lives, and she was giving us the space to do that. Letting us cut ties. I, for one, appreciated the space. When I’d first told Flora my plan to move us to New Orleans, she had advised against it, saying we needed to grieve and come to terms.
How the hell do you come to terms with what happened in our house?
I hadn’t faulted Flora for her unwelcome counsel. She didn’t know any better. No one did. Not my father’s business partners who had looked like lost children when they learned the truth about him. Not Louis or his parents. They’d all had advice. But none of them knew.
They didn’t know what it was like to survive it. And they sure as hell didn’t know what it was like to bear the blame. To be the one who gave the killer his gun.
“We should go see her,” Ava chirped.
I blinked for a moment, jarred from my spiraling thoughts. “What?”
Ava’s eyes were on me, and a hint of a frown creased her brow. “Flora. We should go see her,” she said. “I bet she’d give us her pancake recipe.”
My mouth opened. I closed it. Go see Flora? “I… I don’t—”
Ava’s frown deepened. “If you don’t want to come, I’ll go on my own, but I bet she’d love to see you.”
I choked on nothing. Swallowed. Cleared my throat. “Maybe we could do that after you’ve settled in.”
My sister rolled her eyes and shot me a look as if I was crazy. “Settled in? Cole, you’ve completely moved me in. There’s not even a pair of socks left for me to unpack.” She stabbed at her vanishing pile of pancakes. “Any more settled, and I’ll turn to stone.”
I narrowed my eyes at my sister. Where was the snark coming from? Ava whined. Ava pouted. Ava gave ultimatums. She didn’t make jokes, and she didn’t trade barbs. Not sober, anyway.