It seems like about 100 years since I last sat at this restaurant, so I wasn’t surprised to learn that they did in fact celebrate their centennial. 

We used to say it so casually, usually accompanied with an eye roll, “Oh, that’s so 100 years ago…” It could have meant last summer, or last week, this thing we were describing that we were so “over.”  I didn’t hear my mother say the words to my grandma, but I felt the sigh, when she suggested that we go to Traveler’s Inn for coffee. Maybe it was the weight of the “church basement” coffee cups, or simply the weight of time that passed. Hadn’t we actually gone there after church together as a family? Hadn’t we sat there in the certainty of all that weight? Between death and divorce, and rejection from the very church that led us there, perhaps it seemed almost an insult to my mom that these cups remained intact, while everything else was shattering. Still, we went.

I hate to admit it, but while the cups were clanking against saucers. While still uniformed waitresses brought out pastry rolls on big trays, I thought my grandma was old. Out of touch. I loved her so much, but couldn’t she see? Couldn’t she see this was all so yesterday? Couldn’t she see that no one was traveling to get here? We were the only travelers, and we had gone beyond. We had packed our emotional bags and were making our way to mall coffee. To lightweight mobile paper cups. To the freedom of tomorrow. 

My foot shook under the table, as if to pump the giant clock’s second hand. I was sandwiched between the past and future. My mother and my grandmother. “How’s your shitsky?” I asked my grandma, praying she’d eat faster. Both of them tried not to spit the coffee out of their mouths. What? What did I say? “It’s schiske,” my grandma said. (Though I still don’t know if that’s the right way to spell it. It’s not even google-able.) My grandma made these pastries for years in her farm kitchen. They laughed at how wrong I was. I laughed at how wrong I was. And we sat there, in the laughter, without time.

Traveler’s Inn is 100 years old, and I’m not over it. I love my grandma and my mom, like no time has actually passed.