The front door slammed shut with enough force to rattle the old chandelier in the hallway, but the heavy, cloying scent of Quintessa’s perfume lingered long after she’d gone. That fragrance had always seemed too intrusive to me, too loud for our brownstone with its high ceilings and the kind of silence that comes from years of careful living. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the closed pantry door.
My stomach twisted into a tight knot, and it shamed me to admit it, but I was hungry—just ordinary human hunger that grows persistent as evening approaches.
Three hours earlier, my daughter had stood in this same kitchen, already dressed for travel in a sundress too bright for September, her suitcase wheels scraping impatiently against the hardwood floor. “Mama, give me your card,” she’d said, holding out her hand like it was the most natural request in the world.
“Just in case. What if the ATM down in Miami doesn’t work or something?”
My fingers had hesitated over my wallet.
“But Quintessa, that’s my whole Social Security check.
What am I supposed to live on for two weeks?”
She’d rolled her eyes with theatrical exasperation. “Oh, don’t start with the dramatics. You’ve got a full jar of grits in the pantry.
Boil them up, add a little butter, and it’s beautiful.
Actually, it’ll be good for you to detox. Doctors recommend a cleanse for everyone at your age.
Don’t invent problems where there aren’t any.” She’d snatched the card from my fingers. “I deserve this vacation.”
And then she was gone—off to Miami, to sunshine and cocktails with little umbrellas, taking my money, my peace of mind, and as it turned out, any hope of eating for the next two weeks.
Now I walked to the pantry with a sense of dread I couldn’t quite name.
The hinges creaked as I opened the door. The shelves were impeccably clean and terrifyingly empty. I reached for the top shelf where the old glass jar labeled “GRITS” in my own handwriting from twenty years ago should have been full.
The jar felt suspiciously light.
I took off the lid and looked inside. At the bottom, amid grayish dust, lay perhaps a tablespoon of grains—not enough to feed a sparrow, let alone a seventy-two-year-old woman.
She’d lied. Or maybe she just hadn’t bothered to check.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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