The Same Sky(33)

Over the years, various relatives sold their shares, or weren’t interested in the day-to-day smoking and serving. By the late 1960s, the restaurant was run by Jake’s grandfather. When he died, he left Harrison’s to his wife, with plans that she (in due time) would leave the business to their two sons—Jake’s father, Collin, and his brother, Martin.

But then Jake’s mother, Winifred, entered the picture, and all hell broke loose.

When he was in his late twenties, Jake’s uncle, Martin, met an actual beauty queen (Miss Baytown, 1968) while on a beach vacation. Smitten, he asked her to marry him and brought her home to meet the family. But when the beautiful brunette met Jake’s father at her own engagement party, she fell in love with him and they eloped to San Antonio that very night. Collin was back at work on Monday with a wedding ring and a stunned smile, and the story goes that when he walked in the door, Martin took a hot brisket right off the rack and threw it at Collin, knocking him flat.

Martin never forgave Jake’s father for stealing Winifred. Martin and Collin’s mother, Nanette, declared that Winifred was “bad news from Baytown,” and sold Harrison’s BBQ to the bank, giving half the money to Martin, who bought a giant building on the outskirts of town and opened a competing BBQ restaurant, the Lone Wolf. There was a front-page news story on the day Martin dragged a tub of hot, historic coals from Harrison’s BBQ down Main Street to fill the state-of-the-art pits at the Lone Wolf. Martin took out advertisements and bought billboards, hired the pit master away from Collin, and built a BBQ empire that eclipsed Harrison’s completely.

Then Martin’s son, Jeremy, had opened Lone Wolf franchises in Las Vegas, JFK Airport, and Dubai, and we had opened Conroe’s Austin. As the barbecue editor of Texas Meats and Sides had noted, “Were it not for family hatred, there would only be one Harrison’s BBQ, on Lockhart’s town square.”

“So you have a close relationship with Jake’s family?” said Lainey innocently. “And Jake’s uncle, Martin … you hang out with him?”

“Yes, absolutely,” I said.

“So you all spend time together?” said Lainey. “Like, when was the last time you were all in the same place?” Lainey was good. Her face impassive, she watched me and waited. I could see Jake’s hands tightening on the wheel.

In truth, I had a complicated relationship with Jake’s parents. His father lifted weights, jogged every morning, and drank a bit too much. Collin was comfortable with his small-town fame, both as a former football star and as a current restaurateur. This is not to say he didn’t work hard—smoking meat is backbreaking, and Collin had been tending the fires since he was a kid. Though he had a staff now, he was still usually at Harrison’s at midnight to put the meat in the pits, his hands red with spices, his face flush with his first few beers of the night.

When I had first met Jake’s glamorous mother, Winifred, I had adored her completely, enthralled as only a motherless girl could be. She seemed a character out of a movie, with her subtle makeup and the long hair she set each night in curlers. She knew how to hunt and fly-fish and throw large dinner parties on a dime, inviting local bigwigs and her manicurist to the same fête, building a bonfire in the backyard herself, then emerging in vintage couture to stand by the flames holding a cocktail (in one of her highball glasses painted with safari animals—she and Collin had celebrated their thirtieth anniversary with a trip to Kenya) and tossing her tresses over her shoulder as she laughed.

Jake was her only child, and she seemed skeptical of me, but my blind adoration of her must have been appealing. She planned and executed a gorgeous wedding in their backyard, charming all my relatives and giving a heartfelt toast to our happiness.

As it turned out, however, there were many things that were not discussed in Jake’s family. The restaurant was bankrupt, for one thing, and Collin was too proud to ask his increasingly rich brother for help. Jake had not told his parents that I was infertile, or that I had been sick at all. These issues had come up during a terrible dinner I had not attended: Jake had gone to his parents to ask them for money for an adoption. They were stunned at my infertility, and he was saddened by their disastrous financial state. Jake came home to Austin and lay next to me in bed, telling me about the whole night in excruciating detail (the crab fondue, the tears, the histrionic way his mother had said she’d “robbed him of grandchildren” and thrown herself across the settee).

In the end, Jake had called his uncle Martin, who had written a check and told Jake to use the money to get a white baby. “You think you can handle another-race child,” said Martin, who had left his long-suffering white wife for Celeste, a young Hispanic waitress at Lone Wolf. “But I’m helping you in the end, and that’s the truth.”

Were we equipped to raise a nonwhite baby? One issue, obviously, would be bigoted relatives like Martin. (We’d opened a file with a local agency and checked the box confirming we wanted a healthy baby of any color.)

I believed in my heart I would be a great mom, not perfect, but as good as I could possibly be. I worked hard and wanted to share my love, to be a part of something bigger than me. I remembered playing with my Raggedy Ann at age four, feeding her, swaddling her, holding her until she fell apart. I’d be a mother like my mom. Just there—quiet, kind, supportive. Like a warm bed beneath someone, a warm Barcalounger who smelled good. A Barcalounger who made snacks and brought them to your room, not interrupting your play date, just leaving buttered popcorn in a bowl by the door.