Crap. I forgot that “remember” can set her off. “That’s right. I got confused,” I tell her to defuse the situation. “I used to love it when you sang to me.”
She nods and her scowl softens. “I was a good singer.”
We’re done by noon, and for the first time, I’m glad of the big red beast. With the seats folded down, everything fits in the back.
Mom wants to have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. I suggest P. F. Chang’s. She wins, of course, and it turns out to be the cherry on top of her day, which has nothing to do with the food and everything to do with our very handsome waiter.
“What’s your name?” Mom asks as he takes our drink order.
“Tyson, ma’am.”
Just like it says on his name tag. I don’t know if Mom really can’t read it, or if she’s flirting.
“Oohh.” Her voice gets low and seductive. “That’s a nice name.”
Flirting. Tyson is probably twenty-five, looks like a California surfer, and has a Southern-boy drawl.
“He’s so handsome,” Mom whispers as he walks away. “And single.”
I hardly even think about rolling my eyes. Huge progress. “How do you know? He could have a girlfriend.”
She shrugs and takes a sip of her water. “Dating isn’t the same as married.”
Like that would stop her.
The menu is enormous, and Mom makes me read it to her several times before she decides on a grilled pork chop. But when Tyson reappears with our tea and is ready to take our order, she’s forgotten. Maybe. He patiently goes over the menu with her again. “I’m so grateful, Tyson” and “Bless your heart” spill from her flirting lips. “I’ll have the grilled pork chop,” Mom orders.
I look at the smile on her fuchsia lips, and I’m not sure her memory slip isn’t contrived.
“You’re damn foxy,” she says before he can take my order.
“Thank you, cher.”
Lord, Mom practically swoons into a puddle right there in her side of the booth.
I order fish tacos, but I don’t get called sweetheart. Of course, I don’t call him foxy, either. As I watch him walk away, my gaze falls from the back of his apron to his round behind, and I don’t feel an ounce of shame. I am becoming my mother. Either that or I’ve depleted my willpower to resist temptation. I can’t even recall the last time I went on a date—a real date. The kind where you spend two hours getting ready and the anticipation of his kiss steals your breath before he even knocks on your door. The closest I’ve come to that was the night Simon kissed me on the front porch. That kiss certainly stole my breath; the slow build from hot to hotter and the smooth touch of his lips against mine. My hands on his back, sliding south to his behind. I clear my throat and reach for my tea. I haven’t seen Simon since he and his crew finished their work a few weeks ago. The railing and stairs are beautiful, but maybe he can come over and give me a bid for… something. Something that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. Like replacing the broken doorknob in the pink bedroom upstairs. That should cost only several thousand.
“Oh, look at him,” Mom says, then starts to comment on different men as if the Cheesecake Factory is just one big display case. “Look at that one’s muscles.”
Tyson sets our plates on the table, and Mom asks him if he is single.
“I’m waiting for the right lady,” he says, and gives her a flirty wink.
“I think he has a big crush on me,” Mom whispers as he walks away. “Don’t you?”
More like he wants a big tip, is what I think.
“I found some letters Grandmother and Grandfather wrote to each other when he was in Korea,” I tell her as I unroll my fork and knife. I haven’t mentioned the letters before now because I’ve been digging deeper for information on Jed. There really wasn’t much, until last night when I came across a note that he’d written to his mother, thanking her for the hundred dollars she’d sent him.
Mom takes her eyes from Tyson’s behind and turns to look at me. “Daddy was a war hero.”
“I know.” I’m not a handwriting expert, but Jed’s is thin and slopes severely to the right, just like the writing in the margins of Grandfather’s death notice. “I’ll read you the letters when we get home.” I don’t know if Grandmother knew that her husband and her brother were lovers, but it is the kind of discovery that could send a woman into the arms of her first cousin. It would explain why we know so little about Louis.
“I don’t remember my daddy.”
I don’t believe Mom knows anything, because there are two things that Mom has never been able to keep: a husband and a secret. I’m sure Louis and Jed’s relationship isn’t the only skeleton in the two-hundred-year-old Sutton closet. Not that it really matters, but it is extremely unfair that Grandmother is buried in the sinners’ corner while Jed has a tomb with the rest of the family.
“I think you’re really going to like hearing your dad’s letters.”