This Place of Wonder (40)

She dabs her mouth with one of the dozens of cloth napkins that populate the kitchen linen closet. Linens I bought, long ago. Her hair is pulled sharply back from her face, emphasizing her high cheekbones and the uptilt of her eyes. It’s a face I could stare at all day, as beautiful as a sunrise or a flower or a new puppy. “And do what?”

“Just take a look at things. The books, the way it runs. I’ll call Kara and ask her to meet us there, so she can walk us through everything.”

She opens her mouth, then sighs, her hands on her thighs. “I don’t want this,” she says, urgently. “I keep telling you. I don’t have any skill to run a restaurant and I need to focus on myself right now.”

“I get that.” I pause, pressing my lips together. “Maybe you just sell it, and that’s fine, too. It’s just that it’s a pretty big legacy and you actually did inherit.”

“I don’t know why he did this!” she cries, but even as she grows angry, she keeps eating the grapefruit sections.

Feeding people is my love language, and just now, it makes me feel like the mom of the year. She’s very thin, never so thin as she was when she first came to us after her mother died, but her wrists and elbows are prominent, and I can see her collarbone quite clearly. Her body is no doubt healing from all the trauma, the poisons she’s been pouring into herself for such a long time.

In my head, I hear Augustus say she is the granddaughter and the daughter of women who died of alcoholism.

“We’ve always known this was the plan—the restaurant and house to you, the farm and all that entails to Rory.”

She ducks her head. “Maybe I never thought he would die.”

A wave of electric sorrow moves through my body, burning my heart, my gut, my toes. “He loved you and he was devastated by everything that happened. He felt like he let you down.”

Her face goes hard. “Funny, because I feel like he did, too. At least we agree on something.” She forks up the last grapefruit piece and pushes the plate away. “It just doesn’t make any sense that he’d leave me the restaurant if he meant for it to continue. What was he even thinking?”

“I don’t think he intended for it to be a punishment.”

She looks up at me. “How can you still be so fucking loyal to him? How can you defend someone who hurt you so badly?”

It stings. “I’m not loyal to him. I’m loyal to you. I want you to have what’s yours.”

She drops her head into her palms, and I see her knuckles whiten as she squeezes her hair, a habit she’s had since childhood. She sits with her eyes closed tight for long moments, then sighs. “I know. Thank you.”

“So you want to go over there? Check things out, start trying to decide what’s next? At the very least, the crew wants to get back to work.”

“Why can’t you do this?”

“No,” I say. “Not this time.”

“Really?” She huffs like a teenager, swings herself off the barstool, then stands there, hands on her hips. “You keep saying you want to help and I’m asking for help and now you won’t do the single thing I’ve asked.”

I resist her plea to escape the acknowledgment of her father’s death. “You need to go to the restaurant. I can’t do this for you.”

She looks toward the salon. Light cascades through the patio doors, washing one side of her face and body with golden light. She gnaws her lip. “Meadow.”

“Maya?”

She turns toward me. “I need you to go home.”

“Now?”

“No, not this minute or anything. I don’t want you staying here. Living here. I need to be by myself while I start this next part of my life.”

An ache starts up—I don’t want to leave her unprotected. I don’t want to leave the house I love so much, either. Which one has more pull? It makes me ashamed of myself that I should feel such a materialistic ping, but it would be nearly impossible to say how much I loved this place. It was the center of my world for twenty years.

It’s not really about the house, of course. Maya senses the core of my conflict. “I know you don’t trust me, and I don’t really trust myself, actually, but I need to figure it out, okay?”

“Of course.” I rub the dishcloth in my hand over the tiles on the counter. “I just . . . don’t want you to feel lonely or lost. You’re not alone, okay? Your sister is right in town, and I’m forty minutes away, anytime. Ever.”

She rounds the island and gathers me into a hug. “I know, Meadow. I love you and I appreciate everything you’re doing.”

“But.”

“Yeah.” She steps away. “If I’m going to stay sober, I have to learn how to stand on my own two feet.”

“All right. I’ll clear out. And you don’t have to go to Peaches today if you’d rather leave it a little longer.”

“No, I’ll go. I’m sure Kara’s getting really anxious. We need to make a few decisions, for sure.”



We meet at Peaches and Pork an hour later. Kara is there with the books, which are not difficult for a woman who ran a winery to read.

“What the hell?” Maya exclaims. “He’s in hock up to his ears.”

Kara and I exchange a glance. “Have you looked to see what you owe on the house?”