House of Blues

psychic
sometimes. I thought maybe you were feeling a little down."
    "Can I get you something? I have tea and beer."
    She seemed to consider. "Maybe just some water."
    He got her water and himself a beer, which might
interfere with the writing, but it didn't look like that was
happening anyway.
    "Mother, you know I'll be over there soon. You
should have waited for me. You're moving around too much for someone
who's—um, bereaved." He was shocked at himself—shocked that
he couldn't even say "lost her husband" or "widowed."
    "People are supposed to come to you," he
said.
    "Well, I was kind of passing by."
    "Nina told me you were at the restaurant today.
Don't you think you should leave that alone for a while? I don't see
how you can even think straight with all this going on."
    " Well, Grady, somebody's got to do it—a
restaurant just doesn't run itself."
    "Mother, no one expects you to be down there
right now. And Nina's got years of experience. She can handle it."
    "Grady, I'm going to ask you something. You know
I don't intrude on you and your relationships—I'm always very
careful about that—but I'm going to ask you something about Nina."
    Oh, Lord. Here we go.
    " Why does she hate me? What possible reason does
she have to treat me like she does?" Here, as Grady had known
she would, Sugar teared up. He went to get her a tissue.
    " I'm sure she doesn't hate you, Mother."
    " Yes, she does. It's evident in all her dealings
with me. She treats me like I haven't got good sense."
    " She's got a lot on her mind right now, with Dad
and Reed gone."
    "She ought to think about the fact that I'm her
boss."
    "You're her boss?" Grady hadn't even begun
to consider that.
    " I'm your father's heir."
    "But Reed—"
    "Reed's not here, Grady."
    "Well, look, I wouldn't worry about Nina. She
does a good job and you shouldn't let her get under your skin."
    "I don't think she's doing such a good job. I
went in there today and she wouldn't even order crabmeat! Can you
imagine Hebert's without crab? People are going to quit coming if
they try to order all our famous dishes and they get told they don't
even exist."
    " Mother, the dishes exist, we just don't have
them every day."
    " I think she was just being contrary. She
doesn't like me, so she has to contradict everything I say."
    Grady had gotten Nina's phone message about Sugar:
"If you can't keep that woman out of the restaurant, there's not
going to be any Hebert's."
    He said: "You've got to remember she has a lot
of experience. I think my inclination would be to defer to her."
    " Well, I wouldn't mind deferring if she just
wouldn't be so mean to me. She hates my guts, Grady, and I don't know
why." She was getting teary again.
    "Mother, you always have an enemy. No matter
where you end up, it's always somebody." He regretted it the
minute he said it.
    She looked utterly bewildered. "What do you mean
by that?"
    " Nothing. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't talk
to me about Nina, that's all. I think you know how I feel about her."
    "No. I don't."
    "You know we saw each other for a while."
    "You're still in love with her."
    Glad to have distracted her, he tried for an answer
that might elicit her maternal concern, a bonding sort of answer
that  might also have been true, he wasn't sure. "I guess I
am," he said.
    "Well, she isn't in love with you." There
was malice in her voice, all the nasty triumph of a child delivering
a hurtful riposte. He felt the usual anger rise up, felt the way he
was used to feeling when she said something mean, but it was only a
flash.
    It's just how she is, he thought, if not with
resignation, then with something close to it; with something
approaching calm. Perhaps his father's death was having the effect
deaths are supposed to have, that of making much of life seem
trivial.
    He wasn't about to respond to the content of what she
had said, and couldn't think how to answer the tone. Perhaps his
silence told her she had gone too far, that she ought to backtrack.
    She said in a softer voice, "Into each life some
rain must fall."
    He hated her clichés. Again he didn't answer.
    "I've been unlucky in love too, Grady. It was
one of my greatest sorrows when your father turned against me."
    Oh, no.
    "It was love at first sight, you know. He was so
different then."
    "Mother, please don't tell me."
    Tears flowed out of her eyes, as much on cue as if
he'd turned a faucet. "I don't have anybody to talk to. My own
son—"
    See a shrink, dammit. But
he said, "It's just