Chapter Eighteen

Hale

 

I stare at my childhood home for what seems like too long. The wraparound porch is exactly that, curving around the modern Victorian as if hugging its beauty and refusing to let go.

My brothers, Daddy, and me spent the entire summer before my sophomore year of high school building that thing. It was a brutal summer, as far as summers here go. The ocean is less than a mile away. During the summers, the breeze skimming along the water does a lot to cool the harsh sun painting our skin a deep gold and soaking our skin with sweat. But not that summer. It was like the breeze took a vacation, leaving our skin to bake with the permanent taste of salt on our lips.

The sun bleached my hair almost white that summer. But it left my brothers’ hair alone. Back then, I attributed it to the baseball caps they wore. Except, back then, I was still mostly in the dark. I knew I was a little different. In the way I looked and in the way I carried myself. I just never dreamed how different I was and how much I didn’t belong.

Emer and Carson have light eyes like me. I remember Mrs. Stevenson from up the road coming up one morning to drop off fresh peaches from her grove so Momma could bake us a pie.

That’s the excuse she gave for visiting. Mrs. Stevenson, being the busybody that she was, wanted to see how our project was coming along.

“Three boys doing all that work? I don’t believe it,” she said. “Even if they are Jacob Wilder’s boys.”

Well, she wasn’t quite right about that.

Mrs. Stevenson did stop and admire our work, scrutinizing to see if all the boards were laid right, even though that woman probably never swung a hammer in her life. She also stopped to admire our young strapping bodies. Mrs. Stevenson was always like that, checking out the young men around the island when she thought no one would notice.

I remember that day so well. Ever since Becca started my interview about my upbringing, I remember things I hadn’t realized I’d forgotten.

Becca and me are lovers, first and foremost. She’s become the most important person in every aspect of my life. We haven’t spent a night apart since the first time we made love on the beach. There are dinners with our friends, our share of meals on our own, and lots of work to repair my legacy and business. She cares about me and what happens. It’s obvious by the way she touches me and fusses whenever Mason calls. Her love, her devotion, it shows in every way, even with respect to these interviews.

The questions she asks probe deep despite their simplicity, painting those memories of my time with my family in vivid colors, bringing back the good times I remember, but also the torment that haunts me to this moment.

That day Mrs. Stevenson arrived is so ingrained from all the probing into my life Becca’s done, I can almost see Mrs. Stevenson standing before me. She had the basket of peaches tucked under her arm, their amber and red colors bright and luminous under the sun. Her head shifted from side to side, taking in the detail of the woodwork, her large sunglasses hiding most of her face.

“My, Jacob,” she told Daddy. “What handsome boys you have. And they look so much alike. The girls are going to give you a hard time, fellas,” she warned.

My brothers laughed, knowing how she was and how she used those large glasses to hide the blatant stares she’d throw our way. I started to laugh as well, even though at fourteen, she made me strangely uncomfortable. But my laugh didn’t quite release as it should, not when I saw the look on Daddy’s face. He bowed his head, staring hard at the ground.

“Hale looks more like his mama,” he said.

Mrs. Stevenson paused, turning to him because Daddy was a good-looking man too. “Don’t they all?” she asked, clearly confused.

“Not as much as Hale,” he said.

I didn’t understand what he meant then. But I recognized her confusion, even though I was still young and blissfully blind. I wasn’t hurt, exactly. I still thought I was loved and one of his boys. But as I look onto the porch and everything I thought my family and me had built together, all I feel is a bite of pain.

The door swings open without much care and the screen slams just as rough against the siding. My brother Carson steps out. I don’t think it’s much past eleven yet, but here he is, taking a swig from the half-empty bottle of beer in his hand. I think he’s pissed I’m here and that’s why the doorframe hit against the house as hard as it did. It takes a few sloppy steps forward on his part for me to realize that he’s not angry, he’s just way past drunk.

His feet shuffle forward, coming dangerously close to the edge of the porch. His dark hair is mussed and his beard is long enough to brush against his stained white T-shirt. It’s not one of those fashionable beards that are in style. It’s tangled and speaks of a man who no longer cares about anything, let alone shaving.

“Well, well, well,” Carson say. “Look who the fuck finally showed.”

I’m sure he’s talking to me until Emer, our middle brother, emerges from the side of the house. The gray shirt he’s wearing is coated with dirt, and he’s holding freshly pulled weeds in both hands. He has a beard, too, but his is neat and trimmed close to his jaw.

In New York, everything I wore cost a lot, right down my drawers. But here in Kiawah it’s not about dressing for success. It’s all about being comfortable. Today, I’m in a pair of jeans and light navy T-shirt. The way Emer eyes me from head to toe, you’d think I’d shown up in fur and diamonds just to fuck with him.

Unlike Carson, Emer isn’t drunk. Very much like Carson, he’s not happy to see me. There’re no warm brotherly hugs, not that there ever were. Those touchy-feely kind of brothers, we were never them. Roughhousing came naturally for us and usually ended in blood and Momma ordering us out of the house to run a few miles until we “stopped acting like wild animals and more like the Wilders we are.”

“Go walk it off,” Emer tells Carson, his steady gaze never leaving mine. I expect a fight today. I’m prepared for it and I’m not afraid. Regardless, the next few steps I take to meet Emer are the hardest yet.

Emer tosses the weeds in his hands aside. I already know they’re from Momma’s garden. Like all southern women in the area, she used to pride herself on a garden that overflowed with grand flowers and tomato plants that produced fruit almost too pretty to eat.

Carson hobbles down the steps, missing the last two. I hurry toward him to help him up, but he smacks my hand away. It doesn’t hurt like I think he wants it to. He almost misses me, the tips of his fingers barely connecting.

“Are you here for your birth certificate or something?” Carson asks. “Maybe some money you think you’re owed from the will? Shit, I hate to break it to you, but I think all that’s done and used up.” He rises, barely keeping his balance. “Isn’t that right, Emer? Didn’t we up and spend that money together, brother?”

The emphasis on the word “brother” is supposed to hurt me. For all I’m trying to be that stone figure I was on Wall Street, the one nothing could penetrate, Carson accomplishes his mission. Pain boils my insides. I do my best to not reflect it on my face. I’ll admit, it takes some doing.

“Shut up, Carson,” Emer spits out. “Take a walk and sober up.”

Carson is three years older than me, and two more than Emer. For some reason I never figured out, Carson has always followed Emer’s lead. Carson is loud, boisterous. In the best of times, he was the life of the party. In the worst, he was obnoxious and the first to start a fight.

Emer is borderline mute. Born leaders don’t have to say much. They don’t have to beat their chests, demanding to be heard. The few words they speak just need to be the right ones for people to listen and understand this is who they need to follow.

Carson spits out a few curses under his breath, but ultimately obeys. He staggers forward, trying to shove past me by ramming me with his broad shoulder. He almost falls when I don’t budge. I don’t try to help him this time. I just watch him recover, struggling to come to terms with how much he hates me.

Ramming me with his shoulder is something he used to do all the time as a kid. He stopped doing it as much when he realized I was too fast, and regretted doing it altogether when I knocked him to the ground. Carson had four inches on me then. I think I have four on him now. But alcohol is like that. It gives you courage you shouldn’t have, and makes you stupid in ways that embarrass you. Not that I’m expecting Carson to be embarrassed anytime soon.

Me and Emer watch Carson stumble off. He doesn’t make it far, choosing to slump on the first step leading down to the reflection garden Daddy built for Momma. His beer slips from his grip and rolls with a clink down against the slate steps before it stops on the thick lawn.

“What are you doing here, Hale?” Emer asks.

It takes me a second to pull my attention away from Carson and the way he’s curled forward and swaying.

“I wanted to see y’all,” I admit. I don’t mention the mess I’m in. He’s probably heard and probably celebrated. I especially don’t mention the interviews Becca has conducted and how they brought up too many memories of a family I no longer see.

“Why? Missing Momma? Her letters?”

It’s a strange question he asks. It affects me all the same. Just like the trip down memory lane Becca takes me on every time the mic goes on and the camera rolls.

Momma was a bright woman. She knew the Internet, technology, and anything high-tech probably as much as the rest of us. But she always wrote letters by hand when she wanted to get our attention.

Rarely, it was because she was disappointed in something we’d done. More times, it was to tell us something personal following one of our accomplishments or something she was proud of that we’d said or done. It could be something as basic as a good grade we received in class or kindness she witnessed.

“Keep the letters,” she once told us, when Carson questioned why she didn’t just tell us how she felt. “When I’m gone, you’ll understand why I wrote them.”

It was the only time she’d mentioned writing them. For the most part, she’d leave them under our pillows, in our drawers, somewhere we’d find them.

“You have my letters?” I ask.

There’s only one thing that hit me harder than Momma’s death. It was realizing she’d never write me again. When I left for college, I didn’t take the letters with me. They’d still make an appearance every month, celebrating my achievements on the football field or congratulating me on making Dean’s List. Sometimes, they were just to talk about what was going on at home, how Daddy had received another few contracts or to gush about how her indoor plants were doing. Every time I came home, I’d place my new letters with the old ones in a box I kept on the floor of my bedroom closet.

When I left for New York a few months after graduation, I expected more letters, but they never came. Daddy got sick. He died. Then Momma followed him to heaven soon after.

The letters stopped long before I was ready to stop receiving them. It was like she said, I’d understand why she wrote them when she was gone.

“We have all the stuff you thought you were better off without,” Emer replies. “Including dem letters.”

I hate the way he says that. Like Carson, I’ve always admired Emer. I wasn’t particularly close to either of them and always felt like an outsider long before I found out I wasn’t full blood.

If I was a better man and a smarter son, maybe I would’ve figured it out on my own. Like most kids in the world, trying to find their way, all I cared about was that my parents loved me. I didn’t go out in search of the truth. I didn’t realize there was truth to find.

“They’re upstairs in your room. You want them?”

“My room,” he still calls it. Damn.

When I was a boy, I thought I lived in the best place on earth, taking advantage of the sun and surf with groups of friends too large to count. This place always felt like home. That all changed abruptly, leaving scars I swear I can almost see.

I shrug. It’s mostly all I can do. “Yeah. I’d like them.”

Emer doesn’t move, watching me closely. He’s not someone that’s ever been easy to read, choosing to keep his trap shut good and tight, silently pondering his next move and comment.

Most people speak just to speak. Emer never says anything he doesn’t have to.

He keeps still, barely breathing. I’m not sure what he’s trying to do. He seems to be testing me. But this test isn’t one I can pass. It’s bitter, lined with questions that go without being asked. I start to think this is mistake. That I shouldn’t have shown up like I did. But from the first moment I woke up, I felt I had to be here.

Becca lay contently against my chest. She’s exhausted from all the work she’s doing to help me, keep the Cougars on top, and that dimwit Denver from getting bitch-slapped by the press. I left quietly, trying not to disturb her and overpowered with the need to see my brothers.

I couldn’t explain why I needed to see them, exactly. And by the hard and merciless way Emer continues to regard me, he sure didn’t share the same sentiment.

When the seconds turn to minutes and Emmer remains silent, I know I have to say something. “If this is a bad time, I’ll leave. You have my number. Just call.”

A laugh erupts from Carson. It’s neither vicious nor filled with good humor. It’s maniacal, bordering on psychotic and enough to send a shiver peeling its way down my spine.

“You hear that, Emer? You should call. Maybe we should call? It’ll be a grand old time, don’t you think?”

I frown in Carson’s direction, watching the way his back jerks and quivers as he continues to laugh in that crazy way. Emer doesn’t sport the “what the fuck?” expression I’m currently wearing. He barely blinks, as if he’s forgotten Carson is present. I’m not sure what’s happening and I’m no longer certain leaving is an option. Not given Carson’s fragile state.

“Let’s sit on the porch,” Emer says.

It’s all he manages. I suppose it’s enough.

His heavy feet march up the stairs and across the wooden floor. He reaches the porch swing painted a bright turquoise and takes a seat. I follow behind him, giving him plenty of room when I sit beside him.

There’s a good amount of space separating us. Emer should feel even further away. There’s not so much as a speck of warmth between us. But this is the closest I’ve sat to my brother in years. I welcome it in a way, but there are more ways that I dread it.

It takes a long damn while for either of us to say anything. I’m the one who speaks first. I suppose that’s the type of relationship that Emer and me have always had. “You before me” so he can figure out the best way to answer, but only if he thinks I chose to say enough. It’s how Emer rolls and one of the reasons I’ve always respected him.

I lean forward, resting my forearms against my legs and clasping my hands. “How are you?” I ask.

I think he expected me to press about the letters. Maybe I should have since it’s what he brought up. Except, as much as I would love to retrieve that box stuffed with memories of my mother’s love and vanish, I need him to answer what I ask even more.

Emer jerks his chin in Carson’s direction. “Better than him,” he replies. “Delilah filed for divorce. She took the kids and left. He hasn’t seen them in almost five months.”

“She can’t do that,” I say.

“She can if he’s not willing to stop her,” Emer counters.

Carson and Delilah were college sweethearts and those kids meant everything to him. I don’t have children. But if I did and that was Becca trying to leave, I’d do anything to make it work. “Why won’t he do anything? File an injunction or something?”

“Because he doesn’t think he fucking deserves them,” Emer responds like it’s obvious. “Look at him, Hale. Look at what he’s become. You think any of us have been the same since Daddy and Momma died, and we found out about you?”

It’s not just what Emer says that cements me in place. It’s the amount of words that come out of him. Emer is the type that shuts down when people are losing their minds, choosing to watch and listen, to take it all in, becoming invisible until it’s time to act.

At Daddy’s funeral, he tucked Momma against him, becoming her human shield and pillar of strength as they lowered the casket into the ground. He glared across the way to where I stood with Mason and Sean flanking my sides.

After learning I wasn’t Daddy’s real son, I no longer felt like I belonged with the family. The only place I felt I should be was with the family I’d made throughout the years. That family was Mason, Sean, and Trin’s family, who stood directly behind me.

Emer didn’t say one word to me during the service. Not one. But it’s like everything he didn’t say throughout the years, he makes up for now, spitting the words like fire from a dragon to sizzle against my skin.

“It wasn’t just about you, Hale. It was about us, too.”

“How?” I ask. I’m not trying to be an asshole or pick a fight. I honestly want to know. “How is me not being Daddy’s blood ever about you?”

Emer presses his mouth into such a straight line, his lips disappear. His muscles tense like he’s ready to take a swing, instead of separating me and Carson like he did when we were kids.

“You don’t think you’re our brother. Do you?” he asks.

I don’t realize how much I’m clenching my jaw until I jam the words out through my teeth. “Is this a serious question? If it is, I have a serious response.”

“Then let’s hear it, bigshot,” Emer says, leaning back. “I’m all ears.”

Rage burns me from the inside out. I’m not sure whether to start hollering or to start punching. I’m pretty sure I’ll do both before I leave. Hell, I have all day. Let’s get this family reunion started.

I start with the hollering. At least, that’s my intent. But for as loud as I want and think I deserve to be, my voice grows oddly quiet, despite its deepening tone. “The man I thought was my father died telling me I wasn’t his son. All those games I played as a kid, the ones only Momma would attend since Daddy had to work. Do you remember those, Emer? The same games he never missed for you and Carson? You know the real reason he was noticeably absent, don’t you? All those times I begged him to play with me, but he was always too tired? He never seemed too tired out when it came to you and Carson. I suppose it all makes sense now, doesn’t it? He didn’t want to have to love me. He didn’t want to have to be there for me. Why would he? I wasn’t his real son.”

“Yeah, you were.”

It’s not the insult I expect from Emer. What it is, is the slap across the face I never saw coming.

The slow shake of his head follows the reddening of his eyes. “You’re right about one thing,” he says. “Daddy didn’t want to love you. But he did.”

Emer stands, walking to the end of the porch and walking back again. This time, it’s me who’s quiet and watching him closely.

“You weren’t even two years old when you got really sick. Momma was up all kinds of hours, rocking you, trying to soothe you. Daddy was nowhere to be seen. I was just a little over five, but I remember looking for him and wonderin’ where he’d gone.”

I don’t move, worried that if I do, Emer will stop talking.

He doesn’t.

“I walked into his office and found him in the dark trying to sleep. He couldn’t, you know? All he could do was stare at the ceiling, listening to Momma pace above him, her soft voice trying to comfort you, and you crying like you were in pain. I watched him for a long while. Kept waiting on him to go up and check on you. It seemed odd for him to be hiding away like that, being as worried as he was and unable to sleep.”

“Did you ask him?” I question.

“No,” Emer replies. “Hell, even then, I didn’t like talking much. But all Daddy did was stare at that ceiling. He knew you weren’t his, Hale.” He releases a breath. “And it broke his Goddamn heart, because he wanted you to be.”

“You don’t know that,” I snap, my temper flaring. “That’s just an excuse, something a kid would tell himself to feel better about what he felt or saw.”

“Don’t tell me what I felt or what you think I did or didn’t see,” Emer fires back.

“I can and I will,” I grind out. “It’s the same thing I did as a kid, Emer. Every time Daddy ignored me, every time he hurried away, I tried to justify why he didn’t treat me the same, coming up with any reasonable excuse to explain his actions away. I didn’t want to think I wasn’t his or that I mattered less. But even then, I knew, Emer. I knew he didn’t want me. Except there I was, trying to convince myself that Momma’s excuses were true. That he was just busy.” I huff. “Busy for me, but not for the two of you.”

“All right,” Emer says. “You want more proof? How about everything he did show up for, you attention seeking whore? It wasn’t enough to be a football star. You were an academic scholar, too. You were a lifeguard and saved lives. When that wasn’t enough, you made All-American.”

“Are you listening to yourself? How much I had to do? How hard I had to work to get a speck of attention? I killed myself so he’d notice me, Emer. I did everything and more so he’d see and recognize that I was worthy. I couldn’t just be me. Not if I wanted his attention and love. I had to be better—”

“Than us?” Emer offers, cutting me off.

I don’t want to admit as much as I do. But I won’t lie. “Maybe,” I reply.

“There is no ‘maybe’,” Emer shoots back. “You were better and you always will be.”

I try to deny it, but Emer interrupts. “You couldn’t just take one honors course. You had to take all of them. A 4.0 was never enough. You had to exceed that and duke it out with Trinity Summers for class valedictorian. Sports? Why only be good at one? Let’s make you captain of the football team, captain of the basketball team.” He held out his arms. “While we’re at it, maybe you should co-captain the baseball team, too. All in one year. Splitting them apart would’ve been too much.”

“You don’t get it,” I say. “All the things I accomplished and worked my ass off for had to be done. It was the only way I could get Daddy to see me. Do you have any idea how many times he turned his back on me? How many times I wish he’d just talk to me. Two words, Emer. That’s about as much as he’d feel obliged to say to me for every twenty to forty he’d easily share with you or Carson. You had his attention. You had his love by simply breathing. By being his boys. I had to earn it.”

“And you did,” Emer adds, casually. “Not because you were the glory boy this entire town couldn’t get enough of, but because you were the son Dugan Myers had the balls to touch.”

That’s a name I hadn’t heard in almost twenty years. But it’s a name I remember well.

“You remember good ol’ Dugan Myers? Rich asshole, pseudo Christian, and mouthiest mother-fucker you’ll ever meet? Four daughters, four sons, all scared to death of him?”

Hell, anyone with any sense was scared to death of him. Dugan wasn’t just mean. He was crazy.

Emer laughs about as friendly as Carson did. “I remember him, too. Tonya Myers, his middle daughter and perfect princess, got knocked up. She couldn’t tell him the father was Blane Rogers. Not when Blane’s family barely had two nickels to their name and not when he worked at that shoe store. So, she up and told her daddy it was yours.” He scoffs. “She probably thought you were the only guy Dugan wouldn’t beat her ass for being with. She was wrong about that, wasn’t she?”

I don’t reply. I remember seeing Tonya not long after that sportin’ a black eye. Everyone knew her daddy had hit her. Just like they knew I’d never been with her. Everyone except Dugan.

“Daddy could’ve easily believed Tonya’s father and let him kick your ass when he showed up here. But he didn’t, Hale. Daddy jumped on top of him the moment Dugan struck you and ran him off this land.”

My eyes widen. Despite all the memories bouncing around in my head, this wasn’t one I’d thought about, not really.

“You think it was all about sports and academics? Do you really think our father was that heartless? Then you don’t know as much as you think you do and you sure as shit aren’t as smart as you thought. Daddy couldn’t fight worth a damn and you know it. But he did that day. He fought like a lion. He bled for you. And it wasn’t because you had won us the State championship a few days before. It was because someone had dared to put his hands on his boy.”

I don’t feel myself rise or ball my fists. But here I am, standing and staring at the porch we’d worked so hard to build. A breeze sweeps in from nowhere, scattering small leaves across the wood boards. The porch needs sanding and a fresh coat of stain. I see it when a tear falls and permeates into the wood.

Emer’s feet step into my line of sight. “I’m not saying Daddy didn’t try to keep from loving you. Regardless of what you think of me, I’m no liar. He wasn’t supposed to love you, Hale. You were the result of another man taking his wife. And, I think, if we’d known sooner, rather than later, about you, maybe we wouldn’t have loved you, either. But we did. All of us, even after we learned the truth about you.”

He motions toward Carson, the gesture barely perceivable like most of Emer’s ways. It’s only then I raise my chin. “Daddy needed you. We all did. But maybe you’re not our brother, after all.” He meets me square in the face. “A real brother wouldn’t have left us like you did.”

“You have no idea what you’re saying,” I mutter, my rage and disappointment slicing my veins like a blade. “The hardest thing I ever had to do was walk away and leave you behind.”

“Then why did you?” Emer asks. “I get that you needed a few days, weeks, maybe even months to process what Daddy said. We would’ve given you that. Years, Hale? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I don’t know who I am,” I answer truthfully. “But I can tell you who I became, a man without a father, trying to live a life that wasn’t a complete lie. Everything I thought I was, I wasn’t. And everyone I knew to be real was furthest from the truth.”

“Except your friends, right?” Emer asks. “Mason, Sean, Trinity, and let’s not forget her brother, Landon, and their folks.” He looks like he’s ready to break me in two. “And then there’s Becca. Sweet as sugar, gorgeous as the rising sun, Becca.” He shoves a finger at me, not quite touching me, yet hurting me all the same. “It was okay to stand with them. Be there for them when they needed you, wasn’t it? But God forbid you stand by those who called you their own.”

“Don’t bring my friends into this.” I was already pissed when he dragged my posse into this conversation, but when he mentioned Becca . . . that was a whole lot of rage I could’ve done without.

“Why not, Hale?” Carson drawls.

My head whips in his direction. I thought for sure he’d passed out on the lawn by now. “I would think we’d be worth as much as them. Then again, we’re the ones who were never good enough. For you or for Daddy.”

He rises from where he sits near the grass on wobbly feet. It’s only when I see how red and swollen his eyes are that I realize he’s been crying. Damn. I can barely recognize him. A beer gut has formed over abs that were once as flat and rigid as mine. The muscles on his arms are nothing more than loose skin and fat.

Carson was the brother with more notches on his bed post than seemingly possible. Young women would turn on each other for a chance to be his, if only for a few hours. Now look. He had his choice of women only to have the one he married leave him and take his kids with him.

“Daddy wasn’t supposed to love you,” Carson says, repeating Emer’s words like I hadn’t heard them. “But he did. Just like the rest of us. Just as Momma did from the start. You were our brother, Hale. Our blood. And you up and died on us. You think we lost our father that day in the hospital? And our momma soon after that? Well, we did. But I guess we should have dug another hole beside them, because we lost you, too.”

Carson stumbles across the lawn, tripping over his own feet. “You think watching you on TV, reading about you in the paper, seeing pictures on the Internet of you beside whatever woman you were fucking was enough? It wasn’t.”

Carson stops short near the bottom of the steps, his face purple and his veins popping with how loud he yells. “Goddamn you, Hale. You should have been there for us.” He chokes on a sob. “We would’ve been there for you.”

My eyes burn as if dipped into acid and I’m not alone. Emer, our leader, the reasonable one, the one who never showed a hint of his emotions, looks away before the first of his tears can show.

“I’m sorry,” I say, my voice cracking with how much I mean it. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

I didn’t come here to apologize. Knowing what I know about my family, I expected to fight, to yell and roll around the dirt as my brothers laid into me. It’s what I’ve expected for years and maybe what they expected, too.

Except here we are, three tough as nails men, fighting back tears like three little boys. Boys that spent years running around this property, scraping their knees, climbing trees, and overall pissing each other off.

But maybe loving each other, too. No matter how much we all tried to fight it.

The wind blows again, scattering more leaves and bringing a fresh stream of ocean air. For a moment, I’m that young man again, tasting salt from sweat on my lips, carrying planks and hammering boards into place to make the porch what it became.

Emer isn’t crying. He’s too busy sawing wood. Carson isn’t drunk, he’s flipping through the blueprint, making sure we’re following it to a tee and talking about heading into town to fetch more lumber. Daddy is reaching for the tray Momma hands him, topped with sandwiches and large glasses filled with the best sweet tea this side of the island.

I look toward the front gate, almost expecting Mrs. Stevenson to pop out of her brand-new Lexus with her basket of peaches. But Mrs. Stevenson died a long time ago. And my Momma. And my Daddy. And so should the bad memories.

“Let’s go,” I say.

Almost as fast as they arrived, Emer’s tears stop.

I motion toward the house. “Inside, if that’s all right.”

Carson looks to Emer. Emer keeps his attention on me. He’s wondering what I’m up to. I don’t know myself. All I know is I can’t leave them again. Not like this.

“We can order ribs from that barbecue place Daddy liked,” I offer. “The one with the fried corn and homemade coleslaw.”

Neither replies. “We don’t have to,” I add. “I just . . . I’m not ready to say goodbye is all.”

“Brisket,” Emer says. “Momma liked the brisket.”

“The fried pickles, too,” Carson agrees.

They don’t flat out say yes, but they don’t argue with me, either. We wait for Carson to walk up the steps. He gets to the door and plows through it. Emer follows quietly behind him.

I wait, unsure what to do. It’s only when Emer holds open the door that I know I’m welcome.

And that maybe I always belonged.