There are the last days of summer when the sky stays lit until half past eight to remind you enough light is still shining to be outside and do something before the seasons change and we are left with less light. Light you would think offers you clarity and reason and the promise to make everything right or good again. Evenings with light may offer more promise, more time to accomplish something. I treasure these final days of summer, acutely aware that the days will soon be shorter and darkness longer.

Make everything right or good again. I’ve often wondered what that could mean. What if I had done this differently? What if I had gone here? Said this? Relationships surface every so often in these area. Rather, I have thought more often about the one past relationship that still haunts me for being incomplete. I wonder if I didn’t work hard enough or ask the right questions or give the right amount of distance to nurture what we had. When I think back on how it ended, I am still haunted. I am haunted that something that meant so much could be declared dead and gone with such willingness. That we didn’t both express something more appropriate to what the relationship really meant.

I have heard all along from my friends and family to let it go, that my Big was a fleeting man. And when I have in the past thought back on its brokenness, reasoned, “it didn’t work out because we were not meant to end up together.” But how can someone so turned off by religion reason an existence of fate? Are things just as they happen to be by some accident, some human-erred course and they end up this way because we muck them up? We spend so much time steering our own courses and boosting our own selves that when we mess up something as tender and fragile as the heart we wholeheartedly chalk the conflict up to fate and not our own misdoings.

So why is my head reeling now? Months after a not-so-good goodbye? The obvious—Captain Ass contacted me. He IMed me after I had just gotten back into the country, back at school with a stoic, “You probably don’t want to talk to me but I hope you had a great summer.” The truth at that moment was—I didn’t need to hear from him, but part of me still wanted to. I had not thought about him regularly until discussing boys with a few people late one evening. My most recent fling hailed a boring description while I spoke about how I thought Captain Ass was really something when I met him, how I thought at the time he could walk on water.

The tricky part about remembering someone is the element of realism. I could remember how my heart fluttered, how my eyes lit up, how everything was a little better smelling and tasting. Truth be told, I had never been so head over heels before. But what I would like to forget is all the afterwards—how hurt I was when he met someone else, how confused I was he still wanted me in his life, how upset I was that he forgot my birthday or would break promises. But I had to admit to myself, I still loved him. I still thought about him from time to time. I still hoped one day he would sweep me off my feet.

I have a million questions I want him to answer that mainly begin with why. Why would you talk to me after so long? Why do you still think about me when you’re living with another woman? Why wouldn’t you just be honest with me? Why wouldn’t you let yourself get close to me? Why did you hurt me so many times and keep pulling me back closer to you? Why didn’t you just stop?

I don’t know if I’ll ever confront him with these questions or if he would ever even answer them. I don’t know how he’s changed or if he treats her better. There are things I can not know, will not ever know, and do not need to know. I know that I am better off.

I know that I am a little stronger and a little wiser. But what I still don’t know is how we can let ourselves be so abused when the rest of our lives appear to be in such impeccable order. So maybe with the last few nights of summer light I should savor the real aspects of reason and understanding. Take more walks. Look at more sunsets. See more stars. I don’t need to work on me. I happen to think Me is pretty fabulous. Rather than think of the Me’s as “out of season”, I think perhaps we’re just ahead of the curve.

How I got my accent back
Fall 2003, Short Story

I look around, whirling, seeing the lilac walls of childhood, wicker furniture crowding the room. Trophies from high school tennis, pictures, old dolls, books I couldn’t give away. My white eyelet comforter hides me from the monsters. I hear her in their room, yelling—her speech is rapid and choppy. They are home from the Fourth’s after party.

“Really, Charles? Is that what you think? Just because we don’t…” her voice dims, “doesn’t mean that I…”

Daddy’s voice is lower and slow, “Marilyn, I didn’t say…”

She storms on his words, “But that’s what you…”

“Now, I didn’t say that.”

“Fine.” I can see her teeth gritted, her fist balled, “Let’s just sleep, shall we?”

Daddy croons back, “Great idea peach pie.”

I run to them scared of the monsters.

Daddy’s on the couch.

I wake up sweating. My bedroom is off-balance. My room has no lilac walls. The dull white and empty walls stretch high above the gray carpet in my ludicrous priced one bedroom apartment. I bury into my copious bed, beneath my black comforter.

I lie there alone—far above the honking New York streets. I roll over to my digital clock. 3:30. Three hours until my alarm sounds and I begin another day. I have to sleep.

I am far away, I think. I am safe. I can’t hurt anymore.

My head pounds. I can’t stall my memory.

I toss, thinking about that last Fourth of July and our Rockwell family portrait. The Façade of Hart’s Harts reads my imagined newspaper headline.

I can’t rattle what I remember. I only know one thing.

If I picked a place out of my life to start from it would be in the summer. Children come home with dried mud on their feet and no explanation, tramping across fresh scrubbed floors much to a mother’s dismay. An ongoing neighborhood game of baseball plays in the empty lot down the street where a “For Sale” sign stands so long it is overgrown in kudzu. Voices wander from the backs of decks, and the smell of barbecue from family picnics wavers across the humid North Carolina night.

Summers are our best seasons. Heat begins to grip my throat in early May. “It’s right there in front o’ us ya’ll know…” rolls Momma. The humidity starts to weigh on our locks as we prepare. The stillness creeps in and summer is upon us before the calendar ever says so. I love summers. Each pulsates under their own weight, forcing you to grip ice cold glasses of tea or lemonade with every stride away from the inside’s air conditioning.

It’s flat here with nothing but bright sunshine hard on your back, the air still, ground plain and level beneath your feet. The stark green leaves and blue sky stretch out to that endless horizon, crossing every dirt path and two lane road in sight.

The wait for July fourth begins after school let out. That moment marks summer’s endlessness; the time when children didn’t quite remember what it was like to be in school, and couldn’t imagine when they had to go back. Everything, even the rest of the world, is too far away from the South on this day. We are in our own universe.
Every July fourth, each family sprawls under this sky sharing the city park’s manicured lawn, listening to the small band play favorites, watching as young couples took to the clapboard stage to shuffle along. I sit with my book and a flashlight, my hair in two brown braids, skin taunt and tan from a few afternoons on the river. My older brother Charlie, smiles to the girl a blanket or two over, keeping his stoic prodigal son posture. Momma sits with Web, our younger brother, watching as Daddy mounts the stage clad in a seersucker suit. Meredith and Jay, the twins and the youngest of our clan, take the end corner-- their full attention on Daddy.

Whistlers near the stage signal that the mayor, celebrated in the grandest of tenure, has words for this fourth of July night. “Fellow Hart citizens… another year brings us back to the commons. We can celebrate among things…” I go back to my book. I have a few more minutes before I have to pay attention. Charlie will elbow me when I need to stand and clap.

I read on. This week it is The Great Gatsby, though I read it in my second year of high school, I am on a Lost Generation kick. I talked to the librarian for an hour two days earlier about the angst of this poor generation, this generation that missed out on their world as it was happening, all because… I had let her speak before I started to sound too much like my father’s speeches.

Charlie’s elbow came just as Jay Gatsby waltzes up Daisy’s walkway in the pink suit. My head snaps to attention.

As the word “family” rolls off his tongue I could recite what would follow next in the speech. I wrote it.

“The fourth of July is not just a time to remember the fallen. It is not just a single day to celebrate our country, of our freedom. It is a reminder of what allows our country, our lives, to continue on, to hold a history, a tradition for what is sacred. And we can find all of those things in the simplest of comforts—family. Fourth of July is to celebrate long lineages, heritages, traditions. Prized family recipes for barbecue sauce, games of horseshoes on the beach,” he pauses and smiles, “picnics, fireworks. Outstretched on this lawn tonight is my own family, whom I celebrate for their upstanding morals to represent me, our town, and our common ground…” We stand up at the clapping and I smile back at my hometown folks.

“Don’t slouch Suzanne,” my mother whispers. I grin back and straighten to height. We sit down, a unit, once father returns to our blanket to watch the fireworks. My mother and him place their hands across the shoulders of their five children and peer up at the sky just as the local town newspaper photographer snaps the Harts of Hart. A Norman Rockwell still plasters the front page the next day. It is the last Fourth of July for a long, long time.

From here my whole world changes, and I never look back. They become a world of strangers. I hadn’t yet learned that you could know a person your whole life without ever really being their friend. This place I help my father write words of celebration for, one day I will no longer embrace as my own. In this moment, I don’t know this. I think I will live in Hart forever. I look up at Web, who has over one summer shot above me in height and stands almost as tall as Charlie.

Losing sight of how summertime works in family barbecues and church services where people tell the same stories their fathers told them and their fathers’ fathers told them in the same matching slow accents, rolling and slurring words. Not keeping track of my days by how many runs the Hart Hurricanes scored night before last. Leaving behind all the idioms, all the romanticized notions that are the SOUTH in bold capital letters.
If I start over it is in the summer, and my memories are as perfect as this prologue, absent of all the difficulties, the fights, the grudges, the regrets. We share a blanket, sit at attention to what our father says, and are within an arms length of each other, nestled in our small Eastern Carolina town.

TWELVE YEARS LATER

“Paging Doctor Hart. Suzanne Hart. Paging Doctor Hart,” the intercom says. I finish circling the interesting apartments in the classifieds and gather my hair back at my neck.

“Paging Doctor Hart. Suzanne. Hart. Paging Doctor Hart,” says the voice on the intercom.

“Alright, I hear you, I’m coming.” I shuffle the papers together and scoot back from the table in the lounge, lined with our gray, acrimonious metal lockers. “AHH!” I scream. I forgot to move the coffee weighing down my newspaper. The intercom keeps paging me, all the while more frantic. “OKAY,” I said, gathering up the soppy mess, wringing out my now tan lab coat. Coffee marks run down my white dress shirt onto my taupe, tailored pants. My low heeled shoes click across the slick, dreary tile floor.

“Paging Doctor Hart. Doctor Hart. DOCTOR HART.” I toss the papers in the garbage, now ruined, promising to resume this apartment search another time. I run out of the lounge as the intercom screams at me this time.
“DOCTOR HART. SUZANNE HART. DOCTOR…”

“WHAT? WHAT IS IT?” I say, reaching the desk, coffee still warm on my clothes.

The nurse at the intercom bristles and straightens her lapel, “Phone call for you, miss. I believe its long distance.” I avoid her glance.

“Oh,” I say, huffing. “I thought we’d gotten an emergency call. AN AMBULANCE…… shit!” I mutter. I rub at the stains on my suit and lab coat, refusing to pay the rude nurse attention.

“Just doing my job, Doctor,” she says. I can feel her eyes staring at my clothes stained with coffee, my hands untuck and pull the shirt away from my stomach to avoid the burning liquid.

I take the phone from her and check the calendar behind me on the wall. June 29. I know who is on the other line. I scratch my forehead and look down at the nurses’ station desk, “hello?”

“Suzanne, dear. It’s your mother,” her voice full of starched linen.

“Yes, mom,” I say, faking interest.

The lines stream. “Won’t you consider coming home this summer? We all miss you!” says the June Cleaver debutante.

I picture my mother as she speaks, sitting cross legged on the bench inside the back porch. Her garden gloves lay across her lap. Her straw hat at her feet on the hard wood floor, hands fiddling with the pearls around her neck-- perfect.

I let out a long breath as she begins to tell me about all the people my age in town, returning to visit, returning for good. She pleads her case, not stopping to let me say something. Not stopping to breathe. When she pauses, I rush my words out, “Mother, you shouldn’t call me at work. Not here. You have my cell phone number.”

“Well yes, but its much more apropos to use a real phone, don’t you think Suzie? Besides I never know when I would be calling at a bad time.”

Leave a message, I think, teeth gritted. “I just don’t see how I could make it. Really I’m sorry,” I say imitating her canary vocals.

“Well what if Daddy sent you a ticket?”

“I can afford a plane ticket mother, but I …”

“Suzanne,” her voice drops. “This means a lot to your father. You haven’t been here. We haven’t seen you.”

“Well, ya’ll could visit!” I say. I look up to the people in the waiting room staring at me. That came out a little loud. The line is silent.

“Listen, if you would just consider this one favor…”
I roll my eyes. I am eighteen again. She whispers into the phone and I hang up, guilty for committing a crime against my mother. Again.

I tuck a strand of my straight hair back into my ponytail. Hand over my eyes, I stand there in thought for a few minutes.

“Doctor Hart?” speaks the intercom’s voice. I look up to see the nurse offering a smile of concern.
“Yes?” I say, patience gone.

“You’re needed in Exam two,” she says, handing over a chart and a pair of ordinary issued green scrubs.

“Thanks.” She nods. Is it that obvious that I am a mess? I duck into the lobby to change and glance over the new chart before seeing my millionth patient of what feels like my millionth day away from Hart. I slip on squeaky white doctors shoes, rushing to attend the name on the chart.

I earned my title on my own accord in a place far from the Hart name. And I am determined not to look back.
As a resident in pediatric emergency medicine, I see dozens of families each week. They come in all shapes and sizes. Other than the few, rare social worker cases, the parents are with their kids. I envy the way mothers and fathers sit next to their babies, holding hands, giving kisses on their cherubic cheeks, be it age two or sixteen.

Smile on my face, I stroll into Exam 2. The mother holds the daughter as she leaned into her lap. The daughter is seventeen. Her mother strokes her dark curls, pulled against her olive skin in a tight pony tail. The mother looks nothing like the girl, her skin fair, her red straight hair cut bluntly at her chin. Her blue eyes shift from her daughter to me as she springs to her feet.

“Mrs.…” I glance down at the chart, “Bates is it?”

“Yes,” she says.

“I’m Dr. Hart. Your daughter injured her left ankle?” I look at her x-rays attached to the chart. “No broken bones,” I offer a smile.

“Yes,” she says, grabbing her daughter’s hand.

“Okay,” my doctor’s calm setting in, I approach the frightened girl curled on table. “Hi Rebecca,” I say, reaching out to her left leg. She looks up, eyes welled with tears and I notice her eyes are the same blue as her mother’s. “Tell me what happened…”

The girl begins recounting how she had been playing soccer with friends when she collided with another player. “I can’t put pressure on it,” she cries.

I feel her toned muscles around the swelled section. Torn ligaments. I explain my diagnosis to her. “I’m going to get you a proper wrap and prescribe a mild painkiller. Once the swelling goes down over night you don’t have to apply hot or cold.”

Rebecca stops crying and sniffles a little, “how long will I be like this?”

“About a month and a half. You’ll need crutches for a few weeks then you’ll be able to wear lose shoes. Nothing tight. No heel.” The girl takes a deep breathe and nods.

“See, sweetheart. It won’t be that bad,” said the mother. She leans over and strokes her hair. I walk over to the counter in the room to fill her prescription and paperwork. I can’t ignore their conversation. Mother and daughter are close.

“Mother, we won’t be able to go on our trip. Just the two of us, without everyone else.”

“Sure we will. We’ll still go, I promise.”

“I love you mom.”

I pause in my writing. The two continue talking a little, about a boyfriend, about an upcoming family reunion. I finish and rejoin the pair at my examining table. “Alright, here ya’ll go,” I said slipping into a tired Southern drawl.

The girl looks at me.

I smile, “No, I’m not a native New Yorker. But I’ve been here so long I claim it as my home.”

“How nice to hear, we’re not natives either. Moved here from Virginia about three years ago. How long have you lived in the city?” the mother asks.

“Twelve years. I did my undergrad and my medical school education here at Columbia.”

“That’s where I want to go,” says Rebecca.

“You should,” I smile, “it’s a good school.”

“Thank you, doctor,” the mother says, shaking my hand, “here’s my card.”

I reach for it. Real estate. I smile to myself not knowing the last time some patient’s parent had given me a business card. This is the North. It isn’t a habit. I leave the exam room as they thank me a third time and watch from the back of the nurse’s station as the pair left, mother helping daughter. She has her whole life ahead of her, and her mother is as excited about it as the girl.

I think about all of my choices in that moment, how I ended up so far from home. I won a scholarship for writing. My counselors sent my work in insisting, “Suzanne’s path is marked a different direction,” to my parents, “Columbia is a perfectly fine school, even though its not in the South.”

“Well, I suppose lots of young proper girls go to be finished in the North. So long as they return with their yes ma’ams and sirs, with their accent,” my mother encouraged after I had won the scholarship. I feel guilty standing in this different state, my mother’s earlier phone conversation weighing on my conscience.

My day picks up. A three car pile-up whisks five patients in, two critical. A female runaway, thought to be a minor, is brought in by a police officer found unconscious in the subway. By six-thirty (an hour and a half after my shift ended) I start my final rounds.

“Seven fifteen and I am out-of-here,” I say, shutting out of my computer files at the nurse’s station. I hand my charts over to the nurse coming in for the night shift.

“Nurse, Dr. Roberts is on call tonight, but will you please page me if that teen runaway comes to.” I shove my numbers over to her, still writing, not looking at her. I fold my lab coat, shove my stethoscope into my knapsack to leave. I look around to check for everything I came in with, wiffing the sterile smell of the hospital. Cold counters and floors, fluorescent lighting speaking to the bright white and light green décor. Impersonal and standard issued, tidy and minimal. I hail a cab right outside the emergency room’s doors.

I nestle against the cab’s stale upholstery and drum my fingers on my lap as I look at my watch. I mutter my boyfriend’s address to the cabbie and shut my eyes. I jerk awake as he pulls up to the apartment. I shove the money owed over and slide out the door, making my way up the stoop.

“Evening Doctor,” the doorman says.

I hurry a quick hello while thumbing through my cell phone messages, then duck out of the now raining New York sky, lit with the menacing, callous buildings, a formal reminder of the citizen’s minute existence. I let myself into Jonathan’s apartment and can smell the sauce on the stove. He heard me come in before I can apologize for the time.

“My love,” he says, gaiting to me and taking my coat off my shoulders. I am still in scrubs. He laughs his big chuckle as I gesture to my scrubs and doctor’s sneakers.

“I guess I’m not so attractive, huh?”

“Nonsense!” he kisses me on my forward and pats my butt as he points me to his room to change, taking my back pack to retrieve the stained clothes for his washer. I am exhausted and it shows, the dark circles under my eyes, my just thirty skin showing firmer lines. I should have gone home tonight and seen him later in the week. I smooth the fly-aways from my straight brown hair back to the ponytail and rub lotion on my neck as I look around his bedroom.

Us. Him and me. Jonathan, a Wall Street stockbroker, is all business but with heart. His warm smile twinkles in every picture under a perfect match of blue eyes. His sandy blond hair is straight and neat, and his jocular square jaw line even toned. His broad body holds all his active pursuits from crew in college to squash and soccer in Central Park.

I smile up at myself from a picture of us taken about three years ago on an early date at a party held for his sister in a restaurant on the Upper west side. I lift the frame and sink into his unused brown leather chair that still smells like the chain store he bought it from two years ago.

He makes me look tiny. And I’m not. Not at five foot ten. I am olive skinned and freckled with green eyes and straight dark brown hair, but he is tanned peach with baby blues and sandy locks. His strong arms wrap around my waist in that picture and his chin rests on my bare shoulder in a hugging tube dress-- very daring for a medical student.

That night he said he knew about me. He told me on our third anniversary when he gave me this same picture. I didn’t really remember anything about that night except the dress. It wasn’t mine. I wore it on a dare. I am quieter than him, less sociable, more private.

That was the first night I stayed in his apartment. (I met the parents the next month.) He had made love to me with such sincerity, with smooth finger tips and lingering kisses, and I had hesitated until he noticed.

“What are you so afraid of?” he asks. I turn away. “Suzanne…,” he kisses my neck and encircles my waist, “let me in.” He cares. I roll back to my side and let him kiss me and hold me. I remember what I need then.

Jonathan comes in the room as I finish changing into a pair of his gray sweats, finish remembering.

“Everything okay, Suzie?” he asks. He is the only person I like calling me that.

I nod, silent, but offering a grin, “Sorry, lots on my mind. Supper ready?”

“Yes ma’am,” he imitates my drawl or what is left of it. We sit, unwinding.

“You’re quiet Suzanne.”

“Sorry,” I say looking up at him. I push the pasta around on my plate, raking it back and forth. I drink water from the tall straight glass and set it against the smooth, new table, absent of chips or worn grooves from family suppers. I look around his spacious apartment, unlived in for the most part, occupied with furniture straight from the pages of a Pottery Barn catalog.

“You haven’t eaten a thing, what’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I chirp, straightening my back, avoiding his gaze, “I just…”

“Your mother called,” he says, his voice steady, eyes at my forehead while I stare at my plate.
I look up, mind filling with questions. “She called me too,” he says. His hand strokes mine across the table and he gives it a squeeze. “Go home Suzanne. Take a break. Listen for once,” he says, gentle voice coddling, “just listen to her kiddo.”

I slump in the straight back chair feeling itty bitty. He stops me before I can speak. We finish the meal in silence—I rack my brain for an excuse.

We carry the dishes into the sink and I run the hot soapy water, letting my fingers whirl in the bubbles. I stretch out my neck and feel his hand run over the small of my back. I like ignoring the dishwasher. Smiling, he leans over me from behind and places the dishes in the soapy water. We scrub together side by side. It is all I need.
After we dry, he leans in to kiss me and his forehead brushes mine. “Take me with you. Anything. Just go. Do it for your Dad if nothing else…”

“Ok,” I whisper, “you’ve got me.”


**********************************************************

I stare out the window of the plane watching Jonathan’s figure at the terminal’s glass, waiting for me to takeoff. Deep breathes. I rest my hands in my lap and try to stay calm as the plane lurches forward away from La Guardia to pick up speed. I look at the massiv airport and bustling New York skyline. People moving like ants, millions and millions in the city that never sleeps. Today, I am going back to Hart. To a town of people I no longer know, who no longer know me. To a life no longer my own.

The heat hit me when I step onto the tarmac. No breeze. Welcome back to North Carolina. The small plane empties onto the tarmac and we walk into the airport through an unoccupied door. More people were on my connecting flight from New York to Charlotte than are standing in the small, one terminal airport.

I shimmy, sweating in my heeled shoes, wishing I wore flip flops, toward the baggage claim. Five bags circle around. Two are mine. (Only four people were on the connecting flight from Raleigh to Greenville.) I’ll take a car from here to Hart. I put the lighter bag on my shoulder, wheeling the other behind me.

Adjusting my sunglasses, I turn toward the car rental department. There is no line. I step up to Budget, pushing my sunglasses up on my head, searching in my wallet for something… identification, credit card, a pen…
HAHAHA! The familiar chuckle roars. I push my glasses down, wanting to hide. I know that voice but can’t place it, don’t want to place it. It comes closer until it rests behind me. I feel my neck grow hot, the impatient man tapping his foot as I keep digging and looking.

“Ma’am, if you’re not going to rent a fine vehicle from this establishment, I would greatly appreciate it if you would kindly step aside.” I stop. I remember the voice.

“Just a minute,” I mumble, hoisting my purse onto the counter. It is large, black leather and worth much more money than a weekend rental car.

The man laughs again. “AH, clearly this fine lady is NOT from the South my good man,” he says to the Budget employee patiently waiting on me and my discombobulated traveler’s load.

“Ma’am,” the Budget man says, “you could at least choose between Compact, mid-size, and luxury.”

“Yes,” I say, propping my elbows on the counter, “I just want a basic compact car, nothing fancy. Something reasonable.”

“Okay,” he clicks on his computer. I adjust the buttons on my suit, press out the crease in the straight knee length skirt.

“Yes!” I find my credit card and driver’s license.

“Alright, Miss Hart. Let’s see what we have…” The man behind me is paying closer attention. He taps my shoulder.
I turn around.

He lifts my sunglasses before I can say anything.

“Suzanne?”

“Hi Ken.”
“Well, I’ll be! Look at you little Miss New York! I thought leather and black were what we Southerner’s called Winter Wardrobe. HAHAA, the likes of running into you! what brings you to town little darling?” He laughs and smiles, slapping his knee, being boisterous and loud. The same Ken. The same high school football star he was when we graduated. Only now he has a sport coat instead of heavy pads and a helmet.

“Fourth of July,” I mutter.

“Um, ma’am,” says the Budget man. “Can I see your driver’s license?”

I pass it over, returning to Ken’s pleading questions.

“New York right? Are you a nurse yet?”

“Doctor, actually. And yes, New York.”

“Well, ha-ha,” he smiles. “I’m in Atlanta, flew in for the Fourth, just like you. Couldn’t miss the family obligations,” he says, straightening his bow tie.
I stare blankly back as he speaks again, “Yea, sounds like a great time as usual, and who knew you’d show up? I’ll see you in Hart missy.”

Nodding, I turn to the counter, expecting to be handed the keys, hoping to be a step closer to Hart.
Mr. Budget holds no keys, “Um, ma’am there’s a bit of a problem here.”

I look back, puzzled.

“Hahaha, what’s wrong Suzie Q? Maxed out them cards on some fancy New York store?”

“No, Ken,” I say without turning around, “I’m sure that’s not the problem here.”

“No ma’am. Your license is expired...”

“WHAT?”

Ken laughs.

Mr. Budget looks inauspiciously at me and Mr. Big Shot. Welcome Home, I think. Following the washed up quarterback out to his rental car- a Dodge Pick-up- I would arrive to Hart in typical style.

“Look, Ken. We’ve got an hour drive. I don’t want to have to compact the last twelve years of my life into a synopsis for you. I have a book I can read. So, if you would kindly just drive,” I say from gritted teeth.

“Well, Suz… hate to see my old girlfriend act so rude to me, but I suppose that’s what the Big Apple does-- hardens the heart.”

“My heart is not hard.”

“You’re right, it’s petrified.”

“Just drive please.”

“I believe you should be a little more grateful darling’. I mean, once again, here I am in your life, showing up to save the day.”

“Getting my cat down from a tree or beating up every guy who hit on me is hardly saving the day. And please, if you could refrain from using darling’, I’d appreciate it.”
I stare out the window, silent. Things do change. More and more fields are over grown, farmhouses covered in weeds on the strip of highway we took to Hart.
“When’d the plant close?” I ask.

He starts laughing. I wait. “Oh… you’re serious?” he says, gripping the wheel. “Ummm, maybe the second year we were in college?”

Hart is different all around, speaks the streets, rambling toward the waterfront where a considerably lesser amount of boats sit. Weeds grow from the cracked sidewalks, and the old homes paint chipping off the siding, slump into the overgrown yards. Stores—that aren’t empty with For Sale signs—look the same way, absent of any life.
When we hit the pavement of my driveway, he hops out, grabbing my leather bags from the back. He squints in the bright light and offers a smile, “here you go, Suz. Glad I could be of services again.” He tips his hand and hops back into the driver’s seat.

“Ken,” I feel bad-- stressed and frazzled, “thanks.”

He smiles.

The massive old house awaits me, old and slumped in the yard, but still picture perfect and manicured, unlike the others on the block. I walk up the old brick walkway to the large wrap around porch with Georgian columns, wicker, and hanging baskets. The Victorian style white house with black shutters pops against all the blooms in the yard. The crepe myrtles and hydrangeas are blooming, the foliage dark and green in July’s humidity.

I shut my eyes thinking about the interior, knowing it is exactly the same. All the main points: high ceilings, hard wood floors, walls in pastels. Old antiques furnish the darker front rooms, shaded by pine trees. Hart’s first mayor, my great, great something-or-the-other granddaddy stays above our fireplace, reminding our family of our place in this town. Wicker furniture sits in the upstairs bedrooms, dressed with crisp linens, summer patch work blankets, bright and breezy, worn and comforting. The narrow creaking stairs empty into the kitchen, yellow and sunny with hanging copper pots and a large old table that creaks when we push against it. Nothing changes. Momma keeps it identical to the pages of Southern Living.
I hear Momma inside in the parlor, yelling for our housekeeper, “Bess! I need some help to prop up this table! Bring a book or piece of cork-- anything, something!”

I face the screen door. Do I knock? I am timid at barging in. Timid to even step in, frightened at what was inside this great big house. I put my bags down, stride to the long end of the porch, and climb into the swing hanging at the end above the gray boards. Pulling my knees to my chin, I sat there. Just as I had when I broke up with Ken after the Senior Prom. Just as I had when I learned my dog died in sixth grade. Or any other time in my life where I wanted to be anywhere but Hart.

Our manicured front yard stretches out to the street. The largest on the block marked with its steep roofs and tall, elongated windows. Maybe I can just sit out here and they’ll forget I’m coming. They’ll sit down at the table and eat supper and go on about their evening and not even know I’m out here.

“You can’t sit out here forever little girl,” says a voice.

“OH! DADDY!” I leap up from the swing, forgetting all my pride, all my New York cool, all my hang ups on this stupid small town. I shriek like his five year-old and ran to hug the big tall man that I favor.

He smiles, his green eyes beneath a few more wrinkles, his dark hair now completely white. He kisses the mole above my lip.

I lean back, grab his elbows and smile wide. “Oh darling’, you look just wonderful,” he says, looking me over.

Sighing, I kept smiling.

“Come on, baby. Let’s go in.” He holds the door open for me, hollers inside then winks, “Welcome home, Suz.”

Walking in felt like Alice in Wonderland. Suddenly the enormity of my house shrinks, fitting my age. I am Alice. When she’s in the house with the small doors and smaller chairs and table. Nothing suits her. Nothing fits right. The door frames are lower, the ceilings not as high. The rooms are smaller.

I know I am grown up—my own home, my own car, my own bills. I am grown woman in a doll’s house. It still is a big house, but everything inside is smaller.
At dinner they are proper, coated in thick slow accents. At this table, I am alone, foreign to their tongues and routines. I watch them. Familiarity is close but vague. I am out of place, I am the jigsaw piece no one can place.

The lights are off. I’m alone in the bedroom beside my parents, hoping they are sleeping next to each other, unconscious to the world around. I stare at my old walls. Nothing’s changed and everything’s changed.

But we’re still here, I think to myself, all of us. I admit Jonathan was right and I beam. My family has made it through thirty-five years, leaving things unneeded behind, shelved in books to be unopened. I feel guilty. I must mend myself.

I walk down the front stairs, avoiding the creaking back stairs outside my bedroom even though they empty into the kitchen. I tiptoe through the side parlor and dining room until I stand on the hard wood of the kitchen floor.

The moon fills the window above our sink. I am tempted.

I sneak out back, barefoot, needing to think.

I walk along the hedges listening to the foreign sounds: toads, crickets, owls. I reach the dock and sit in an empty rocker, my back to the water, my eyes on the house.

Everything’s okay, I assure myself, studying the broad exterior with pitched roofs, a sweeping back yard. See, I prove, they’re not going anywhere.

I sit for a long time, hoping—hoping to block out all a child should not know.

I wake in the rocker as the sun tries to climb the sky. I sneak back inside on tiptoes through the side rooms toward the front staircase.

Wheels grind on our pavement and a red truck enters the yard. The gardener.

I race up the stairs—needing to get under my covers before I see the monster’s face. Their argument after that Fourth of July years ago rings in me ears, echoing. My last month at home blurs with summer’s remainder and I remember the garden shed.

We keep our swimsuits and towels on the line attached. I found them there.

I pull my flip-flops off the shelf, high above my head. The basket teetering the edge falls, tipped from my reaching.
Letters. At least a dozen.
Addressed to my mother. Not to my father.
For my mother. Not from…
Three days, Suzanne.
Suddenly, Jonathan is wrong and I am right.
I am always right.
I am all I have.

I wake up the next morning in my old bed beneath momma’s eyelet summer blanket. The sun shines in, and for a moment I listen for the honking cars of a New York street before remembering where I am.

I slip my feet onto the planked floor and grab the terry robe off the rocker.
Bacon wafts up from the kitchen were people are gathered at the table. “Suzanne, how do you like your eggs honey bun?”

“Umm. Anything’s fine. It’s been so long since I had any.”

Momma smiles. “Right then, just seat over here sugar plum and I’ll fry you up some them.” Daddy is reading the paper, sipping his coffee, piling on extra grits.

“Jay! Mere!” I ruffle, forgetting she yells in the mornings. “You kids going to be late for school if you don’t hurry your tails up! Breakfast! NOW!” Feet race.

“Mere-- grab me a biscuit and juice! I got to find my keys!” shouts Jay from upstairs. Meredith smoothes her blonde curls and butters two biscuits while Momma pours orange juice into some old NC State plastic cups.

“It’s July! Where are ya’ll going?” I ask still in a robe, choking on my accent.

“Cheerleading for Mere, football for Jay. Summer sessions.”

The sixteen year-olds are out the door before Momma finishes.

“Oh,” I mutter. I forgot they did those things.

We finish breakfast in silence, sharing pieces of the paper, or refilling our own mugs of coffee.

“I’m getting in the shower,” I announce after clearing my plate. They are both still reading. Ok then. I turn to go back up the stairs.

I spend the morning laying out back in the yard on the dock. Wading in the sound, doing some reading from the New England Journal of Pediatric Medicine, and relaxing. Laying on the inner tube tied off the dock, maybe this isn’t such a lame idea. I begin to admit to myself that I need time away from the city, and maybe I could have time to myself while still being around the family. After all, they are mine, and it is good to see Daddy and the twins… I drift into sleep on the raft. They leave me alone most of the day, and I wander all along our property in the flower beds and gardens that surround the sides stretching from street to dock. Our house and yard is Momma’s perfect universe, set apart from the run down angles of our worn hometown. Momma finds me in the late afternoon weeding a patch of flowers lining the dock.

“Come on in darling, help me get supper on the table.”

I follow her inside.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” she sings, “nothing like having your oldest daughter around. You’ve made my birthday! Sure, it’s not until the fifth, but I’m just glad to have you here in person instead of some book in the mail…” I let her talk, catching me up on in her mind on the town gossip, the good and bad of it all. She didn’t stop for air, only to kiss my forehead as she handed me a stack of plates and silverware.

“Suzie, I know we don’t visit like we should, its just so darn far. Besides,” she bristles, “still got two in the roost as they say.”

The nest. Its two in the nest. You don’t have an empty nest, I think. I rolled my eyes to myself, my mother. I love her, she is her own kind.

Charlie and his son wheel a large cooker from across the street. I sniff the air.

“It’s hot now Suz,” he warns.

A giant pig lays out—feet spread to the four corners of the grill. Charlie pulls at the meat, offering a taste. He dangles the cooked meat in front of my mouth.

I hesitate then take the cooked pig. The juice filled strings of pork melt, the vinegar sweet taste of a long roasted meat.

Charlie smiles, laughs, and slaps his knee at my reaction. “How long it been?” he asks. I look him over, the college football star worn with age, approaching forty. His belly dressed in a navy polo shirt, hangs over his khakis, his dark brown curls streaked with hints of gray. His eyes are winkeled, but his matching emeralds still shine. Charlie seems so established standing there, his whole life being mapped out by his family and children, his place in Hart.

“Mmmm,” I muse, shaking my head, licking my lips.

I reach for more.

Web’s family comes from around front, each carrying a covered dish. Web is the older version of Jay, blonde curls, still fit from tennis at the country club. His perfect wife, dressed in cool colors stands at his side petite and guiding her younger children. No wrinkles yet, he gleams with youth still, bouncing and smiling. We greet eachother and I stand around my brothers, not knowing what to say. They are married with joining yards and mortgages, country club memberships, children in school.

Momma calls us together and Daddy circles us as we join hands. I listen, engrossed. This moment is my favorite of the meal.

I have been gone for a lifetime. I bite my lip, swallow hard, recognizing.

We eat the large meal, carrying our plates to sit at the picnic tables off the back deck.

The great yard stretches to the water and Web reminds me, “Suzanne and I would dig for hours out there!”
I laugh, “That’s when we were really young, Webster.”
He smiles and looks me over.

We all sit back there as the hours pass, our bellies tight from supper. Stories, one after the other, roll from my brothers’ mouths, accents slurring from the hard lemonade Daddy serves.

I am shocked at some things they say and laugh a lot, having forgotten so much. I listen alongside Jay and Meredith as the two older ones entertain us all. The sun is under the sound, now slick glass. The wives leave, toting our nieces and nephews home to bed.

Meredith and Jay sit up with us, Daddy letting them drink some of the lemonade. Momma and Daddy hold hands, looking over their five children. Charlie, loud and boisterous, bounces to Momma and kisses her cheek. He is still and in shifting tones says, “I love you Momma. You’re going to have a great birthday.”

“I’m just excited about the fireworks,” I say. They look at me. I surprise myself.

We take the plates inside after the lemonade is gone from the deep glass pitchers. Meredith and I wash, Momma and Daddy dry. “Can’t put your grandma’s dishes in the washer,” she says. We separate what can go into the machine and finish. Momma shoos Jay to bed, reminding him of tomorrow’s long day of practice.

“No days off,” he smiles, his white teeth contrasting his tan face.

Meredith and Jay creep upstairs, and I hug my older brother goodnight then kiss little Web on his forehead, “Still your big sister,” I remind him.
I listen to the two brothers bound out of the yard to their houses, singing their college fight song,
Hark the sound of tar heel voices,
Ringing clear and true;
Singing carolina's praises,
Shouting "NCU!"

Hail to the brightest star of all,
Clear its radiance shine;
Carolina, priceless gem,
Receive all praises thine!

I'm a Tarheel Born
I'm a Tarheel Bred
And when I die, I'll be a Tarheel dead
So rah rah Carolina-lina
Rah rah Carolina-lina
Rah rah Carolina-lina
Rah Rah Rah

I'm a Tarheel Born
I'm a Tarheel Bred
And when I die, I'll be a Tarheel dead
So rah rah Carolina-lina
Rah rah Carolina-lina
Rah rah Carolina-lina
Go to Hell State!

Upstairs, I look in my bags. I should hang at least some of this up, I think. I settle in. I hear knocking.
“Come in!”
“Suzanne?” I look up to see Meredith.
“Can I…?” she asks.
“Sure!” I say, gesturing for her to come inside the room.
“What are you doing?” she asks.

I smile up at my baby sister, happy at the attention. “Unpacking…” I say, smoothing the creases of a sheer sleeveless blouse. She takes a hanger from the closet to help me. She looks, curious, at everything I have brought for the trip. She’s never seen my clothes.

“Oh,” she says, cooing over my wardrobe. I beam at the approval.

“I’m glad you’re home,” she says after sometime. I bristle over that word.

“Me too!” I pipe, not knowing if I am sincere.

She sits on her heels in the middle of the floor and I sense she just wants to be near me. I start asking her questions then stop myself.

“I sound like an adult!” I laugh, “I hate those questions.” I shift topics to boys and Meredith bubbles. We sit on the floor chatting as more hours pass. I remember and smile. I am her big sister. She stays home the next day.

We hang out in our pajamas all morning, eating pancakes, watching worthless television. Towards noon we are restless, eager to move about in town.

“Before you leave,” says Momma, “would you mind taking these to Web and Charlie’s houses?” She holds last night’s side dishes.

Charlie’s family lives across the street, and Web and Charlie share backyards. “The old men,” Meredith jokes at the reference. I smile not knowing.

We knock on Charlie’s door and call inside, but no one’s home. His children are older, not teenagers but not toddlers. We walk around back to Web’s back door. Web is gone with his two girls, but his wife Laura is home. She tours me through their home room by room. I am in an outdated picture in their living room taken maybe five years ago at a Christmas dinner. I smile up at myself in a dress I don’t remember ever owning, but for the most part I am absent.

I haven’t been home for a Christmas or Thanksgiving since I met Jonathan. I haven’t been home for a Fourth of July (let alone an entire summer) since I left. No Easters or semester vacations.

I am not in their lives, I think. I made the right choices, I made the right choices.

Laura asks me about the safest topic—work. I beam and straighten to height, recounting the past years accomplishments.

“When are you bringing Jonathan home?” she asks.

I turn to look at Meredith. “I don’t know…” I say, the slow words drip from my speech. Laura looks at her watch and notes the time, telling us she is due for the Women’s Club Fourth of July Luncheon and to pick her children up from Day Camp. Meredith and I walk out, after Meredith hugs her sister-in-law. I smile and look away from Web’s wife.

We walk toward the water and Front Street, down past the oldest buildings in town. The harbor across from the stores isn’t filled but some local sailboats are moored for the Fourth. The sky is puffed with a few white clouds and the sun radiates the warm Carolina heat. Hungry, Meredith suggests we visit a little deli for lunch down on the other end of the corner.
Dillard’s Hardware Store remains the only familiar place on the entire block. As we walk by I peer in the display window at a man straightening the showcase. His head pops up and we look eyes. I stare back for a moment, shocked at who I see.

“What is Tom doing in Hart?” I ask.

She laughs at me, making kissy faces.

“Hey now,” I say, “that was years ago that we were friends.”

“Awww, come on Suzie, you know he’s still a fox.”

“Oh, I’m not arguing with that,” I laugh. “But what’s he doing in Hart? I thought he wanted to be an engineer?” I try to hide my smile from seeing him, “An engineer running a hardware store?”

Meredith stops walking and looks at me. “Suzanne,” she says, “his father died. He was shot at a gas station outside Raleigh on his way home from a football game.”
I look back at her, hearing the news.

“He came home three years ago. He lives in his old house with his momma.”

“Is that right?” I say, very far away.

“Yup,” says Meredith. “He’s got a cute dog, I feed it when he goes on his fishing trips in the spring.”

We order lunch and I try to put Tom out of my thoughts.

My baby sister is direct.
“So… Jonathan,” she says, “do you love him?”
“Yes I do. I really I do,” I say.
“Then… what?”

I start to speak knowing the rehearsed and repeated lines about careers and New York and waiting until we are more financially secure. Then I start over, “Just because you love someone doesn’t mean you should spend the rest of your life with them.”

“Ummm, yea Suzie it kind of does.”
“What I mean is--” I speak slow and search for the right words just now realizing how I feel. “I think there are two kinds of people out there.”

Meredith looked confused and frustrated as I fumbled through. “One contains you,” I say, “loves you for you. He stands at your side, remains steady. He’s your constant… the other lights you. He wants you to break every record, to do everything you need to be passionate, to conquer. Because he knows that if you’re passionate—he’s passionate. He’s free to break every record and conquer too.”

“Jonathan doesn’t do that.”

“No,” I gasp, gluing my eyes to the table, realizing what I wouldn’t allow myself to recognize for the past three years. “Mere, I’ve been wasting our time—mine and Jonathan’s.” I realized then how stuck I was in some place I could not be apart of and that I didn’t have a home or even something to make me more localized.
“But you still love him…”

“Mmm,” I say, gulping tea, “very much.”
“But not in the right ways…” she understands.

“Exactly!” I say, pointing at her. I am out of my chair and people are looking at me. “Exactly,” I whisper.

“What about Tom?” she sang out.

I wave my hand and shake my head no. I look at her a moment. “Hey Mere, want to go duct tape shopping?”

She looks back at me, puzzled. A light turns on. We race back up the street. Hart’s cracked sidewalks and run down appearance melts away, all forgiven, and I rediscover this old town. We fill our day with activity, starting at the hardware store.

Accomplishing everything one can in an afternoon in Hart, we head home. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaims in her sixteen year girlishness. “Did you see how he looked at you? I was sweating!”

Haha, I laugh, “No, Mere…”

“Suzie! Yes! Ya’ll we’re adorable! Why didn’t you all ever date?”

“He and Ken were best friends.”

“Lousy excuse!”

“MERE!”

“What?” she asks. “Well, he was your deb marshal.”

“That doesn’t mean anything…”

“Sure it does!” she insists.

We laugh like sisters.

“Home at last!” cheers Meredith. We walk into the great white house, finding Momma in the kitchen.

“Suzie got her license renewed!”
“And rented a car,” I pipe in.
“Who’s paying for that?” mother asks.
“I am,” I say, miffed. “We bought duct tape too!”
“Oh, lovely.”
“I took Suzie to that new shop on fifth street, Momma.”
“Yea, when did Hart start carrying designer labels?”
“Isn’t that a nice boutique?” my mother asks, smiling to herself.
“OH! Momma!” exclaims Mere, “We got you something!”

“But you can’t have it until tomorrow on your birthday,” I say elbowing my kid sister.

“Quiet dinner now, nothing showy,” says Mom.

“We know, we know,” we say. Meredith runs upstairs to get ready for the fireworks, smiling to herself about seeing all the boys.

“She’s a good girl, isn’t she?” says Momma.

“Yea, she’ll do. I’ll keep her,” I said flipping through a magazine at the table. I laugh to myself, “Momma, remember how you used to always ask me if we should keep the babies?”

She laughs, “Why yes, I asked you if we should send them back to the Indians.”

“I always thought you meant Kinston, like the minor league team in Lenoir County.”

We laugh together, and for the first time it isn’t strained, it is mother and daughter remembering fondly when the big old house was filled with children of all ages. When to me, I wasn’t Alice. The house was large and filled with sunshine and memories. Every room marked with creaky wood floors holding the heat of the Carolina sun. I turn to go up the stairs. “I’m glad to be home again Momma,” I say.

“I know,” she says, tears in her eyes. “It’s just good to hear you say it.” Maybe she will never understand my life because she will never live it; however, she loves me all the same.

“Have fun at the fireworks!” she calls out when I reach the second floor.

“You’re not going?” I call down.
“Oh no darling, your daddy and I stopped going since he’s no longer mayor.”

I nod.

“But we’ll be gone to the after party when you get home,” she calls back with her canary chimes. I nod and walk to my room.

We see and know everyone at the park. People stop and ask me about New York, years blurring since I’ve seen them last. They forgive the absence, not even recognizing the gap. They smile at me, pleased to see me back home.
We find Web and Charlie seated with their families and join them, kneeling in the cushy grass as we spread out our seats. There is no clapboard stage or band, no mayor’s speeches. Hart is different yet still the same. Sharing a blanket with my younger twin siblings, watching the fireworks burn across the dark sky, I enjoy myself. Meredith laughs, slipping her arm through my elbow, no longer a stranger.

We walk along Front Street back up toward Main and the big house. I see Tom leaving the hardware store, his new dog behind him, watching him lock up. I slip away from the twins, “Give me just a minute…”

I walk up as he is testing the lock. “Hey,” I say, steadying my shoulder bag.

His hazel eyes flicker under the street light as his smile stretches across his features. We stand there for a moment, neither knowing what to really say. I start to speak again, but he stops me.

His finger presses against my lips, and I bend to meet him, sliding my arms under his. My cheeks burn, my heart pounds.

“Ruff! Ruff!”
We smile against each other.
“I better go,” I whisper.
“Yea.”

I turn and walk away, wiping my lips dry. Feeling closer to Meredith’s age, I turn my head. He is watching. Meredith laughs at me looking back. Finding the crook of her arm, we finish walking up toward the big house, skipping to Jay’s long strides.

We keep skipping up our street to our house then slow to a walk. We walk up the front steps and see everyone gathered in the side parlor. I see the silhouettes of my brothers and parents. What are they all doing here? Why aren’t they all at the party? I think, knowing that Charlie and Web had babysitters for their children waiting after the fireworks.

Time slows as we enter. The room is a circle—moving—faces blurring. Except Jonathan. He stands in front of me. He sees me and drops to one knee.
I pull my hand to my chest and shut my eyes.
“Don’t…” I whisper.
I shock him.

“Just leave,” I beg. I open my eyes to see his back to me. He cries—silent, shaking. I stand there unable to speak. I leave the room to find that swing.

It starts raining. Harder and harder comes the water, pounding the roof we hear each drop. She comes after me, intending to point out all my mistakes.

“Why are you letting him leave?” she shouts.

“I don’t love him,” I say. “I could never love him how he loves me. How Daddy loves you.” I take a sharp breathe, hoping she wouldn’t follow my thought. She did.

“Alright then,” she says, “maybe you were right, maybe you shouldn’t have come.”

I open my mouth to speak again, but nothing. She walks back inside. I sit there alone. Meredith hugs me. “Goodnight sis,” she says. “I understand.” She winks, forcing me to smile.

I wait until they are all upstairs. I creep to my room. Quarter past twelve, reads the hall clock. I sit on my bed—blank. I haven’t cried. I gave up the rest of my life, and I can’t shed a tear.

I smile.

Soon after, I hear them arguing. I am sixteen again.

Daddy pulls linens out, making up the sofa bed in the master bedroom. They stopped sleeping in the same bed once their children stopped having the kind of nightmares that woke them up at all hours. I twist, feeling conflicted between the romanticism we all embrace and the reality of what we actually face.

Daddy is still lonely. Momma’s still unsatisfied. We aren’t Norman Rockwell subjects! I want to scream, hating myself for knowing, praying I am the only one who did. If anyone walks in after hours, the standard response is, “You’re mother’s catching cold.” For thirty-five years Momma has been “catching cold.”

I want to corner her, to force out everything no one knew but me. I want her to know I hurt too.

I pack my bags, telling myself that this life in Hart wasn’t real. They’re all so ignorant! There’s a whole WORLD out there if they’d only look around! I shuffle around my room, picking up everything I needed, stuffing my bags, willing to ruin a perfectly fine reunion. I am leaving before the house wakes up.

“Where are my…?” I spin around not knowing where my swimsuits are. The back door. I can see them hanging above the washer-dryer. I sit on my heels in the middle of the floor, planning out how I’d get down those creaking steps without waking anyone. I couldn’t leave now. I am forced to wait until the morning. I’d leave early in the morning before everyone was up.

I wake up early, not even showering before dressing to leave. Slowly I put my foot over the first step expecting that familiar creak to wake the whole house. Which step is it? Which makes all the noise? I thought I would remember once I was facing the challenge again. No recollection. Just do it Suzanne.

I lightly step on the top stair.

Nothing.

I tiptoe to the second.

Nothing.

Taking a deep breathe I run down the stairs emptying into the kitchen. Still silence. I look behind myself, admiring my speed. I laugh remembering all the nights those damn things creaked when I was late for curfew or sneaking out with Ken. I stop myself, knowing I wouldn’t let myself ever back here to see those steps again, choosing instead to run away. Leave it all behind like I had twelve years ago. I didn’t escape as planned.

She is in the kitchen.

“Damn it Suzanne, you don’t know everything. I don’t know everything. Can’t you admit you need us?”

“I know enough,” I say determined to face my maker.

“Yes you do,” she admits, “I’ll give you that. You’ve made a perfectly fine life for yourself away from here. That’s what you wanted. You proved you didn’t need us to do it. Not one little bit.”

I look away.

“You don’t even know us.”

“I know them.”

“Do you?”

I hesitate, knowing the answer.

“Did you know Meredith was homecoming queen? Did you know Web bought out Daddy’s investment in the bank? Did you know those stairs don’t creak because Jay remade them?”

I don’t speak.

“If we make you that unhappy, get out, but..” she cries, “We’ll always be here.”

I want to stab at her with what I know—reason out why I hate being in this house. Why I was Alice. I wanted to throw names in her face and see her reaction, hurt her the way she hurt me. But I couldn’t do it.

She made her family her life. Day in, day out she would be here: making cookies, fixing Dad’s pants, organizing family get-togethers, planting flowers.

I pick up my bag and walk to my rental car. I sit needing to be out, wanting out. I have a life in a city a plane ride away. My life is in my lap at a climax with every action verb, cliché, and metaphor poking in my eyes.

On the way to Greenville I stop at the corner pharmacy for aspirin and coffee. It isn’t seven yet, but Mr. Johansson is already there serving breakfast at his counter for the fishermen.

“Ahhh, Doctor Hart, how are you?”

“Morning Mister Johansson.”

I avoid his gaze, shoving money across the counter. He tips up my chin.

“Had to see those emeralds,” he says, winking, “have a safe trip back to the Big Apple.”

“Yes sir,” I say, hand on the door.

“You know we don’t even have a general practice for families here anymore.”

I don’t respond. I didn’t know that.

“Yep,” he says, opening his paper on the counter, “last time Cindy got the flu I had to drive all the way to Greenville. I suppose it’s all in his plan… it’s not that we need a doctor around, just that we’d just like it. We miss the care.” Matter of fact, he turns his page, eyes still on the words, never looking at me.

“Goodbye sir,” I say.

“Aw, goodbye Suzie.”

I drive along awhile on the empty road leading out. I pull off the highway and sit there. All day. I look on at a worn field, unoccupied.

I wander in the bare fields, dark earth beneath my toenails. I think about the fishermen’s dirty faces eating their breakfasts as the counter in the drugstore. I think about all the people I know but am not friends with. I am a stranger to my nieces and nephews. I am a stranger to my siblings. I am a stranger to myself.
I sit there all alone, fighting back all the choices I can make. I don’t have to make them today but I want them out of my thoughts. My timing is bad. I have to be somewhere. I grit my teeth, admitting. She may never understand my view for the simple point that she is not living it—I am. She loves me all the same.

I am wanted.

I sneak around back. They are bustling in the kitchen, each moving around the other: setting butter on the table, serving salad, pouring drinks. The clanking stops.

I walk inside and slide out of my shoes. Bare feet circle our table, and I take my place behind my chair—palms outstretched.

I start to cry as Daddy said grace.

Look for Canadian Tour’s Newest—Will Mackenzie



He’s not the average golfer that tries to make the cut for these events. He doesn’t have a steady caddy, family wealth, or even a collegiate resume to boost his game. But, Will is faces his life mission to make it to the PGA tour and convince himself of all he is. When you meet him, shake his strong hand, watch his determined confident stature you know he will—even with the absence of his biggest fan and supporter, his father. He epitomizes the term underdog, playing to win even with the tables turned against him.

Will Mackenzie, born September 28, 1974 to R.W. “Mac” Mackenzie and his wife Ruggie of Greenville, North Carolina, is the kind of golfer that spawns legends. A natural athlete, Will excelled throughout his youth in baseball, golf, football, and soccer. Playing in AJGA events or a Carolinas Tournament, his vigor and ferocious competitive spirit clearly leaped out at everyone. But somewhere, amid that long list of tournaments and athletic accolade, the game ceased to be for Will what it had once been. His senior year of high school he quit the game and played tennis, earning accolade as a top seated player. Graduating from J.H. Rose High School in 1993, college and golf were far from Will’s list of to-do items. His head, his heart were somewhere else, and having never been a student he sought an alternative education.

For the next eight years, Will lived more like a nomad than a young adult, staying on the move: teaching kayaking in Montana, snowboarding in the Rockies, surfing in Costa Rica, and even selling hammocks door to door. Somewhere along his route of alternative education lay a void. After Payne Stewart’s 1999 U.S. Open victory at Pinehurst, Will recognized his potential and the pages of his life he had neglected to write.

This athlete made a comeback to a sport after more than eight years of absence. One year later, Will secured the first alternate spot for the 2000 U.S. Open. He could not afford to make the trek from North Carolina to Pebble Beach, so the second alternate, Bobby Clampett of Raleigh went and played in his place. Will reworked his entire game physically and mentally, traveling the country to see instructors and try his hand in tournaments. And after these years of grave intensity, Will seemed finally ready to have his day in the sun.

After dominating the Raleigh Triad’s Triangle Tour in the summer of 2001, Will began his first attempt at the PGA in Pinehurst at round one of Q-school. He didn’t make it past the first round, missing the cut by three strokes. Remaining steadfast and determined, Will headed to Florida after Christmas to play in small tournaments and prep for a possible qualified spot on the Canadian Tour. Steady in his long stride and game, Will a wave of victory sat before him, resulting from all he had worked toward.

But tragedy soon struck deep into his heart and his home. Suffering from a rare flu virus, Mac—Will’s number one fan and supporter as well as the family rock—fell ill. Driving all night from Florida, this boy was willing to risk it all. For what’s fame and success when your favorite fan can’t share in your victory?

After Mac passed away in February of 2002, Will’s future as a golfer still looked vibrant and at the brink of success. Pushed by his family, himself, and an entire town, Will returned to Florida the day of his father’s funeral—one day before the Canadian Tour Winter Q-School. Finishing that week, his father’s spirit had to be his driving force. He had done it, tying for 18th among a glittering field of great U.S. Amateurs and collegiate players like Hank Kuehne and Jeff Quinney. Only Dad would never get to see it.

That first year on tour didn’t hold huge paychecks or even first place, but he finished well enough to stay on the tour, traveling in his van, sacrificing trips to tournaments in Western Canada due to finances. He placed high at Pinehurst for Q-school’s first round but slumped into high eighties scores at the second round in Texas. That’s not Will. He doesn’t play this game that way.

I’ve watched him my whole life, hung on every word for advice and encouragement. I was among the group of family and friends when he played last year in Myrtle Beach at Barefoot Landing under the banner of the Canadian Tour. We had been hanging on every Golf Channel broadcast, watching his score school days on the internet. We could always pick out Willy Mac by the way he dressed, the way he moved, the way he focused. The day before we watched him play we watched him bounce around the putting green at the Barefoot Landing resort, thrilled to see people who have known him for years, prior to all the golf talk.

“Look at this place, ya’ll,” he said to us that day, “this course is so key!” He had been having trouble with his putting, using a new grip approach. Thomas, my little brother, brought out his putter from our car packed with suitcases. Will played the next day (and few months) with it, doling out hats and used Titleists to Thomas for practice balls.

He shifts on a whim from golf talk to recall a story about his dad, to discuss fishing, to talk about his brothers or nieces and nephews. He touches everyone who meets him and attaches respect for each person just as Mac did.

Michael Henderson, a friend on tour, affectionately called him Riff Raff, a name that suits perfectly. Where did this kid come from and where is he going? He has an undeniable energy attached to that perfect swing.

Look for him. He travels without a coach, caddy or entourage. He will be the player carrying his own bag, and humbly sleeping in a van on tournament nights, not wanting to bear the superfluous expense of a hotel when he has his own converted bed in his eggplant Toyota Previa. You will find him once his untamed spirit lures you to his raw talent and smooth determination, acting as the underdog and the very brand of player that embodies the game of golf.


Will is currently the leader on the Hooter's Tour money list. Still in active pursuit of the "Big Show", he seems to be well on his way. He still has plenty of free gear to hand out whenever his favorite neighborhood kids visit. He is trying to sell the van.