I took a bite of the food. “Why the name Seven Stone for the restaurant?”
“Seven Stone stands for my six family members, including myself. There’s my father, Frankie, my mother, Pam, my twin brother and sister, Ezra and Elena, and my grandmother, Eleanor. The seventh number is for Seven Pines itself. It took a lot from me, but it gave me a lot too. And at the end of the day, it’s home.”
“So, essentially, this restaurant is your way of paying homage to your family’s roots.”
“Exactly.”
“After my grandmother, Eleanor, took me in, one of the first things she did was teach me how to cook. She knew she was going to be out of the house working when she could, so I had to be able to provide for myself.”
“What’s the first thing she taught you how to cook?”
“Lasagna, believe it or not.”
“What? That’s one of my top five comfort foods.”
“That’s the goal of the menu. Sweet, savory, comfort foods that celebrate the diverse flavors of my family’s roots and recipes and southern traditions.”
“Mmm, nothing beats fine southern cooking. Give me a hint of what’s going to be on the menu outside of the deliciousness I have in front of me,” I said before taking another bite.
“All the comfort staples, mac and cheese, candied yams, collard greens, cornbread, fried catfish, gumbo, chili, lasagna, wings, peach cobbler, banana pudding, you name it.”
I belted out a quick laugh. “I think I just gained ten pounds.”
“I have a feeling you’d look good regardless,” he commented.
I shifted my eyes to my glass with condensation sliding down it while pushing my curls behind my ear. “So, um, of course, I’ve read your story online. I’ve read news reports and seen the coverage of it. I’ve seen your talk show interviews. There’s no doubt your story is fascinating, but now that we’re here in person, I’d like you to walk me through everything. Only if it’s not too painful. And again, if there’s something you want to be stricken from the record, let me know.”
He bobbed his head. “I got you. Where you wanna start?”
“Start wherever you feel comfortable.”
“I was fourteen the summer my mother won a twenty-dollar scratch-off for $1,500. It was the summer before high school, and all I wanted to do was make the varsity basketball team. I had the height. I had the skills. But I had a hard time taking criticism and direction. My middle school coach pressed me to go to basketball camp over the summer, but I’d always put it out of my head because it cost five hundred dollars. Ain’t nobody in my family have the means to pay the bills and send me to basketball camp, too. But when she won that fuckin’ scratch-off, everything changed. She came home with the money, gave me five one-hundred-dollar bills, and told me she was sending me one week before it started.”
“And so, you went?”
Hell yeah, I went. I was excited as hell to go, too! All I ever heard growing up was that to make it out of SP; I had to be smart enough to make it big while selling drugs and not getting caught up or killed, or I had to make it to the league. Basketball was my dream long before cooking ever was.”
“How did camp go?”
“Camp was dope. I learned a lot. I felt prepared like I knew when try-outs came around that I was gonna outshine niggas. Then I got home, and it was like my life had blown up in front of my fuckin’ face….”
He paused, and I held my breath, not knowing what to say next.
“But you know what happens next, right?” he started.
I cleared my throat. “Y–yeah. You um, you’re uh….”
“You can say it. My father got high and murdered my mother, brother, and sister while they slept before turning the gun on himself. Had I not been away at basketball camp, I would’ve been dead too.”
Although I knew the story, it hit me differently hearing him say it to my face. The hairs on my arms stood on end as I opened my mouth to speak. “Had you known your father to be on drugs before that night?”
He shrugged. “Drugs? I didn’t even know that nigga owned a gun! I may have smelled some weed here and there, but he never did any hard shit in front of us. And I was the oldest, so if anybody would’ve seen some shit, it would’ve been me.”
“So, everything was a surprise to you.”
“Everything. He stole three-hundred dollars of my mother’s scratch-off winnings, bought a shit ton of meth and an unregistered pistol off the fuckin’ street. He got high out of his fuckin’ mind, came home, and murdered his entire family. It was like something inside him just clicked, and he lost it.”
I lowered my head. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”