Amy & Roger's Epic Detour

“I guess then your home is the people in it,” Drew said. “Your family.”

“But what if they’re gone too?” I asked, looking straight ahead at the rolling greens and not at him or Roger, making myself say it, trying to keep my voice steady. “I mean, what if your family isn’t there either?” Drew glanced over at me, and I saw surprise and a little bit of pity in his face.

“Then I guess you make a new home,” he said. “Right? You find something else that feels like home.”

After a few moments of silence, as though we’d agreed on a time to leave, we all began to pack up the last of the trash, and when the tee showed no evidence that we’d been there, we walked back across the golf course. We were almost to the end of it before I realized I’d left my flip-flops behind.

“Sorry,” I said. “I forgot my shoes. I’ll meet you back by the car?”

“Want me to come?” Roger asked.

I shook my head. “I’ll just be a minute,” I said, and headed back to the tee. Seeing the open expanse of green in front of me, I broke into a run, feeling the dense grass beneath my feet and the cool night air on my face, feeling my hair stream behind me as I ran faster, past sand traps and over hills, until I reached the tee of the twelfth hole and had to bend over to catch my breath. I picked up my flip-flops and turned back, walking this time, feeling my heart hammer from nothing except exertion. When I passed the seventh hole, I heard the sound of the mower again, and a moment later Walcott crested the hill behind me. He pulled up next to me and pushed his headphones back again.

“Want a ride?” he yelled over the sound of the mower. I shook my head, and he killed the engine, filling the night with silence. “Want a ride?” he repeated, apparently thinking I hadn’t heard him.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Thanks, though.” Walcott shrugged, then reached back to pull on his headphones again. “Walcott,” I said quickly, before he left and before I could think about what I was doing. I rested my hand on the mower, which was surprisingly hot. “Do you like driving this? Is it fun?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling at me. “It’s a good time. You want to give it a shot?”

I looked up, and heard my father’s voice in my head clearly, as though it hadn’t been months since I’d heard it at all. “There’s an art to this, my Amy,” I could hear him saying. “I’d like to see you give it a try.”

“That’s okay,” I said, hand still on the mower. “My father—” My voice snagged on the word—it felt rusty. I forced myself to go on. “He would have wanted to. He would have loved that.” I felt my breath begin to catch in my throat and knew that I’d reached the point of no return. I looked up at Walcott. “Can I tell you something?” I asked, hearing my voice shake, feeling a hot tear hit my cheek, and knowing there was no going back.

“Sure,” he said, climbing down from the mower.

I closed my eyes. I hadn’t said this out loud yet. To anyone. But now it wasn’t that I couldn’t say it—it was that I couldn’t not say it any longer. “He died,” I said, feeling the impact, the truth of the words hit me as I said them out loud for the first time. Tears ran down my face, unchecked. “My father died.” The words hung in the night air between us. This wasn’t ever how I imagined I’d say it for the first time. But there it was, like Walcott had said. A truth, told to a stranger, in the darkness.

“Oh, man,” Walcott said. “Amy, I’m so sorry.” I heard that there was real feeling in this, and I didn’t brush it away, like I had everyone else’s condolences. I tried to smile, but it turned trembly halfway through, and I just nodded. He took a step closer to me, and I felt myself freeze, not wanting him to hug me, or feel like he had to. But he just took his headphones off his neck and placed them over my ears.

Loud, angry music filled my head. It was fast, with a pounding beat underneath driving the electric guitars. There were lyrics, but no words I could make out, and after all my talky musicals, it was something of a relief. I placed my hands on the side of the headphones and just let the music sweep over me, pushing all other thoughts from my head. And when the song was over, I took the headphones off and handed them back to Walcott, feeling calmer than I had in a long time. “Thanks,” I said.

He slung them back around his neck, then turned to his mower and pulled down a black patch-covered backpack. He unzipped it and dug around until he came out with a CD, which he extended to me. It looked homemade, in a yellow jewel case. “My demo,” he said. I reached for it, but he didn’t let go, looking right into my eyes. “You know what my grandma used to say?”

“There’s no place like home?” I asked, trying again for a smile, this one less trembly than before.

“No,” he said, still looking serious, still holding on to his end of the CD. “Tomorrow will be better.”

“But what if it’s not?” I asked.

Walcott smiled and let go of the CD. “Then you say it again tomorrow. Because it might be. You never know, right? At some point, tomorrow will be better.”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I said, hoping he knew I didn’t mean just the CD. He nodded, climbed back up on his mower, started the engine, and headed off again.

I took a moment for myself, alone in the darkness by the seventh hole—par five—of the Wichita Country Club. Then I put my flip-flops back on and headed back. Drew and Roger were waiting for me where the course began and grass met gravel. Roger looked worried, and my face must have betrayed something of what had just happened, since he didn’t stop looking worried when he saw me.

“You get lost?” Drew asked.

I held up the CD. “Ran into Walcott,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “He gave me his demo.”

“Told you!” said Drew. We headed out, and I saw that the girl on the practice court was still there, now practicing her serve, tossing the ball high up above her head before slamming it back to the wall.

Drew insisted on driving us back to the car, saying that it was on his way out. It seemed that while I’d been gone, Roger had been telling him about Highway 50, and they picked up this conversation again.

“You can’t believe it,” Roger said. “It just goes on and on, and you think it’s never going to end.”