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Walking inside Dad’s house was usually exciting. My eyes first found the picture of my sister and me hugging before school one day when we were very young. Then I noticed change again. A knot formed in my chest. I felt myself start to cry again. The baseboards were almost yellow. There were cobwebs in the corners and on picture frames. The once blue carpet was now a dull gray. The house looked tired, and I was saddened by this. But I knew I was not the little girl who used to live there anymore. Many years had passed, and things had aged. I’d aged, but this would always be my home. It was home. Not my home, but it was a place where my heart still dwelt.

“The phone has been ringing off the hook, Nik. I guess word got around you’d be coming home. You know it’s been a year already. Amy and Eliza have called three times looking for you. They both seemed surprised you are going to Will’s wedding,” Dad said with a smirk on his face.

I don’t think anyone was really surprised I decided to go to Will’s wedding, but many, including my father, were not exactly happy about it. He never liked Will. Once Will and I broke up, Dad told me he’d always thought something was off about “that boy.” I always figured it was because he was from Richmond and only came to town to visit his grandfather before he moved to Deltaville permanently. I never thought Dad minded the fact I dated a boy from the big city as much as he was bothered by the fact it was a boy from the big city who came to our town to visit. He never much liked the tourists who came to town every summer. But I never really knew why Dad never clicked with Will. Maybe as a strong adult male who had lived through a broken heart and barely survived, deep down he knew Will would just end up breaking my heart. If that was his reason, he sure was right. And he was there for months after Will and I broke up to wipe each and every tear and give me all the fatherly advice he could cram into a heartache session.

The only person who actually had nothing negative to say about me going to the wedding was my own husband, and personally, I found it sort of odd. “I’ll call them when we get settled. Will you help me unpack the car, Daddy, before Chris and the kids get here? I’d also like to go see Nana for a bit before they get here. I forgot to send her a card for her birthday, and I could use a big hug.” My Nana gave the best hugs. Everyone loved Nana’s hugs, but we knew we all hugged her each time we saw her because it was the best way to measure how short she was becoming. It seemed each year she lost at least an inch. When I hit my peak height at a whopping 5’2”, I was the same height as Nana. I would have guessed that day she was about 4’10”. It was a long running family joke I was not sure she had ever understood. For that and so many other quirks about her, I love her more than the moon. She had been such a rock in our family, yet she had always been the one in the family we laughed at more than anyone else. She was a smart woman and had not forgotten a thing her entire life, except our names, of course. I kept thinking someone needed to sit down with her and get the history of our family because I knew it would die with her one day. She knew everyone in town and who was related to whom and how, and I had confidence her knowledge of the locals went back at least five generations. But the woman couldn’t remember a name to save her life. I’d been called Lori almost my entire life. Lori is my dad’s sister. Natalie had been called everything from Nikki (how she could be confused with me, I’d never understood) to Danny, who is my dad’s younger brother. Yep, Nana wasn’t prejudiced to gender. You could be a girl, and she’d still call you by a boy’s name.

Caught in my daydream, as I was, Dad had to repeat himself again. “Nikki? I said I don’t think we have to go to see Nana; she’s on her way over here now.”

Sure enough, I could see all 4’10” of her walking across the yard from her house next door. She was the only constant for me at home. I knew she was going to have aged each time I saw her, but she always looked solid, young, and the same as she did years ago. The family rock. Strong and sturdy. Even at four feet tall - maybe.

“Nana!” I called to her as I ran out to greet her in the yard. Wrapping my arms around her, bending down further than ever before, I smiled my little girl smile. I was home! It did feel good. Bitter sweet, but good. Good like Nana’s fried chicken and apple pie good.

“Oh my soul,” Nana said pinching my stomach. “Where did you go? You lost weight, Lori.” Lori, Nana had said, almost never Nikki. “How ya been? Where the girls? They came with ya, didn’t they? Dan come too? How was the flight? You know when I used to travel with your Pop, it didn’t used to take all day to get somewhere. I don’t know how in the world you travel like that today.” Dad and I ignored the reference to my husband as Dan. Chris was used to being referred to by another name. It was funny because it didn’t start happening until after we were married. I’ve told him it’s a sign he’s accepted as family. When we were dating, Nana always called him Chris, but after the wedding, he’d been Dan, Sam, Eric, and Steve, but almost never Chris.

“Nana, the world has changed, security lines are long in airports, more people are flying than did thirty years ago, and it’s just something we are used to. Chris travels a lot for work, so it’s a way of life for him. It’s tough with two little kids, but it’s a lot easier than driving thirty hours in a minivan and stopping every hour for snacks and potty time,” I told Nana after our embrace. We were standing under the enormous cherry tree that divided the property line between my dad’s house and Nana’s house. This was the very cherry tree which held three rope swings when I was a kid. I would climb up the tree, jump out while grabbing onto the rope, and swing my short little legs around a small log my dad had tied into the bottom of the rope for a seat. I was always a little shorter than my sister and all my cousins, so when I jumped, I was swinging for about three seconds with just my hands on the rope before I was able to wrap my short legs around the log. I remembered the tree being the biggest thing in the yard growing up, but it never reached the house. I looked up to see a branch overtaking my dad’s roof. It was light in color, and without the leaves the rest of the branches showed.

“Daddy, have you thought about cutting that cherry tree branch? It just might wrap itself around your whole house soon if you don’t cut it. It even looks as if it might be dying. The rest of the tree is okay, right?” In the moment, I noticed how big all the trees were. When my parents built the house, the lot was a soybean field. Now, the holly trees we planted when I was a little girl were taller than the house and wrapped around each corner of the house in giant prickly hugs. The maple tree I ran over with the lawn mower as a young teenager looked to be about thirty feet tall; and to think I was afraid I had killed it summers long ago when it was barely a twig.

“I trimmed it about two years ago, Nikki, but the past two years I’ve had to get Nana’s yard cleaned up from the tornado, so I haven’t had time to work much on my yard,” Dad said. A devastating tornado had ripped through the little town and dropped the tops of dozens of trees close to homes and cars just after it had torn apart one of the many beautiful local churches. The whole town spent the summer cleaning up after the tornado. Many were still rebuilding more than two years later. From our home in Boulder, I watched the news and saw reports of all the damage in the area. I remember feeling helpless seeing images of people I had once known and buildings where I had once played falling apart. When I came to visit months after clean-up had begun, it still resembled a weather war zone. It always amazed me how such a beautiful place could be so unknown or so forgotten in the big world. It was where real life happened. Those of us who live and work in or near cities have no clue what country life is really like. Those people worked their land, traded for food, and drove fifty miles to fuel their cars and gather a few groceries. Those were the reasons I left, but there was still a beauty to it, to which I find myself attracted. But I was always quickly reminded of what I didn’t like about it on my third trip to the grocery store fifty miles away. Life there was not about convenience, it’s about living, sailing, fishing, and gossip. I found it fun about one to two weeks a year.

An hour later, we had the car unpacked and had heard all the latest gossip from Nana. I found her gossip was true since she knew everyone and usually got it all firsthand. I could be away from this place for years, spend an hour with Nana, and be caught up on everyone in town over a couple of cups of hot tea. Chris called to let me know he was on his way with our children in tow. Everyone was worn out and hungry, so I started rummaging through Dad’s cabinets and fridge for food with an ounce of nutrition. One thing I’ve noticed is when men are alone for too long, their diets turn to frozen food, chips, and soda. Vegetables and fruit can spoil, so they tend to not bother buying them. I made a note to drive the several miles to the grocery store and stock up for the duration of our visit. My kids would love eating junk food, but I could only handle them on junk food for about one meal. After one meal, they could quickly become grumpy and downright mean. Many three year old kids throw tantrums, but mothers would agree tantrums are so much worse when their little bodies are filled with sugar and junk.

Minutes later Emily and Bella came running up to the house; Bella walking fast, dragging her blanket along the dirt mumbling something that resembled MeMe MaMa. At her age, she was sometimes confusing. She knew to call me Mommy. But sometimes I was also known as MeMe. Her blanket was MeMe, too, and milk was mostly known as MaMa. I was convinced this was a result of nursing her for thirteen months bundled in her same, now very dirty, blanket. Mommy equals milk. Milk equals comfort. Comfort equals blanket. Many times we are all under the same umbrella.

“Hey, hon,” Chris said to me as he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Natalie gave me the car. Not enough car seats to get the bugga bears and her kids down here, so you’ll have to get the car back to her later tonight. I guess we can blame a long flight with two little monsters on not thinking about you taking the rental with the car seats and all the room.” Chris winked at me. Why hadn’t I thought of switching cars when I dropped Chris and the girls off at my sister’s house? Chris finished, “Also, Liza stopped by while we were there. She must have been watching the road for an unfamiliar rental car in the area, because she showed up almost as soon as you left. It would seem you have some kind of girls’ night you need to attend tonight at her new house. Or her grandmother’s house? I’m not sure. Welcome home. It’s not a vacation unless you have to visit twenty people before you change your underwear, right?” He handed me the keys to my sister’s car and walked over to shake my dad’s hand. He was a good man. After all our years of marriage, he still showed respect to my father, yet was comfortable enough in my father’s home to let me go out with the girls our first night in town.

“The bags are in the house, Chris. I found a frozen pizza and some apples for the girls. I’m sure they will be ready for bed soon after the trip we’ve all had. Maybe you and Dad should order steamed shrimp from Molly’s once the kids are down. I’m gonna grab a quick shower if I am to be presentable and at a girls’ night.” I knelt down, hugged my girls, and hyped up the exciting meal I had cooking for them inside.

Walking back into my father’s house brought back a memory of an argument my parents had when I was about eight years old. My mother had come back from her home in Florida. I never knew why or what she wanted, but she showed up, argued, and left again. I found myself staring at a spot on a door that seemed to have a burn mark on it. I think it was ketchup years ago, a bottle or a dinner thrown out of anger so long ago. It was barely there, but I could see it as clear as it was almost twenty-five years ago. A pillow flying through the room, a TV tray getting tossed aside, doors slamming, and some sit-com on the TV. I didn’t know what the argument was about. I didn’t care. But I did know I didn’t want my kids to be in a house with emotional pain. No one is perfect, but I could try to be perfect around my children. It was them who brought me back to the present. “Mommy, is it pizza night? Pop-Pop always has pizza night on Tuesday. It’s pizza night, Bella. It’s Tuesday!” Emily said with great excitement. It was actually Friday and just so happened to be pizza night because it was quick, easy, and available. I shook my head thinking I wasn’t sure Pop-Pop actually had a designated pizza night, but if Emily thought it was Tuesday, and if she thought her grandfather had a designated pizza night on Tuesdays, then I was sure they would enjoy it all the more.

When I left for Liza’s an hour and a half later, they were both on the floor giggling as Dad tickled them with his beard. My grandfather used to tickle my neck with his beard until I laughed so hard I would pee. I smiled as I watched them, wondering if my own mother felt the warmth I was feeling when she would hear me giggle as a child. I knew the girls would be safe and have fun while I was gone though I wasn’t so sure how I would fare. I took my sister’s car, so Chris had the car seats, just in case there was an emergency or suddenly something fun to do in town. I was sure they would play tickle bug until bedtime.

Chapter Three

“Nikki Jackson Ford in a Mercedes Benz! Get your tight ass in here, and do it quick! Do you want wine, beer, or a hurricane? Howya doin’, doll? I knew ‘dat dern boy’d get married some day. I just knew he‘d breaka your heart. You doin’ okay? Lemme make ya a hurricane, I make ‘em strong, honey. Strong enough to give any cheatin’ heart a makeover.” Liza’s voice filled the humid air around me, and I instantly felt a headache coming on. Each year since marrying, I got a different car attached to the end of my name, but it was seldom my actual last name, Ford. Liza was very southern and very smart, but with her, for some reason, the smart often got lost in the southern. The southern was a bit much; I could tell she had been drinking for a while now. Without the help of rum, she could lose her drunken southern drawl. With the help of rum, it always seemed to get a little worse. But it did provide some good comic relief.