I have to start at the beginning.
I’m just not sure I can do that with Braden here.
Yet, I still want him here. I want him with me so badly I can taste it—that irresistible flavor of smoky mint and cinnamon and man.
Braden.
“What can I help you with in here?” I ask Mom.
“I’m pretty much done.” She smiles. “I guess you’re not ready to talk about you and…”
I inhale and decide to pull a Braden and ignore her question. “Pot roast. It’s almost like you knew I’d be home.”
“Dad and I have pot roast about once a week, and I always make a lot so he can have a sandwich the next couple days. So we have plenty for you and your guest.”
He’s not my guest.
I take the cover off the pot on the stove. “Succotash?”
“Yup.”
Another staple. We live on a corn farm, after all. Will Braden like it? It’s so…rural.
“Plus carrots and new potatoes,” Mom continues, “cooked in with the roast, of course.” She takes a wrapped loaf of bread out of the refrigerator and places half of it on a plate. “Could you put this on the table for me, Skye?”
“Sure.” Sliced grocery store bread on the table. Another staple from my childhood. Mom’s a baker, but only desserts. She doesn’t bake her own bread.
A wave of embarrassment sweeps through me.
Store-bought sliced bread on the table. What will Braden think?
An image floats into my mind.
It’s Benji, the little boy who came into the food pantry with his mother the day Braden and I volunteered there. As his mother dragged him away in his little red wagon, he pulled out a loaf of bread from one of the bags and squeezed it.
Just like I did so many times.
I glance at the bread on the plate, the nearly perfect squares of white with light brown crusts. When I was a kid, the slices were always mangled from my squeezing the bags of fresh bread from the grocery.
Yeah, I’m home.
Bread on the table and all, I’m home.
Mom is scooping the carrots and potatoes into a bowl. “Will you put out the succotash?” she asks.
“Sure thing.” I find a serving bowl and lift the lid on the pot. The buttery corn goodness wafts toward me. Another wonderful scent of home. I scoop the corn and lima beans into the serving bowl, add a large spoon, and set it on the kitchen table next to the bread.
Mom glances up. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought, since we have a guest and all, we’d eat in the good dining room.”
“Oh. Okay.” I pick up the bowl of succotash and the plate of bread and walk out of the kitchen toward the formal dining room.
It’s hardly formal. When I was a kid, Mom’s sewing machine usually sat on the oak table. Now? The table is set for four with the good china Mom inherited from her grandmother when I was little.
The day I broke one of those plates was not a good day for me.
In fact…
More images rush into my head. Memories.
That was the day I got lost in the cornfield. Wasn’t it? I was running… Running away…
No time to think about that now. I place the bread and succotash on the table and glance at the white-and-gold wallpaper. It’s old now and slightly yellowed with age, but still elegant. I always wondered why we never used this room. Or the good china.
“It’s just for company,” Mom always said.
The only company we ever had was family, and they didn’t rate. We ate in the kitchen or served ourselves and ate outside.
Braden Black, apparently, does rate.
I whisk myself back into the kitchen.
“Go tell your father and Braden that dinner’s ready,” Mom says.
“Okay.” I head down into the man cave.
To my surprise, Braden is laughing. Laughing with my father while they both drink Wild Turkey. Apparently he forgot he was supposed to bring drinks back to the kitchen for my mother and me.
I can count on one hand the times I’ve witnessed Braden laugh like this. It’s a wonderful sound, like bells during the holidays.
I clear my throat. “Mom says dinner’s ready.”
“Okay, sweetie. Tell her we’ll be right up.” Dad turns to Braden. “I have a little wine cellar in the corner. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what you’re used to, but let’s pick a wine for dinner.”
“My pleasure,” Braden says, rising.
My pleasure? It’s his pleasure to pick out some cheap wine my father keeps in his wooden rack that he calls a wine cellar?
I have to admit, Braden is charming the dungarees off my dad, and I can’t help loving him for it.
It’s more than that, though.
Braden is enjoying himself. Actually enjoying himself with my father in his man cave. Drinking Wild Turkey and watching Jeopardy.
And it dawns on me… Braden is at home in this modest existence—this modest existence that may be more luxurious than how he grew up. My family never visited a food pantry. In fact, we donated what was left of our crop at the end of the year, after all contracts had been fulfilled, to help feed the hungry.