3

 

Finding my way back to my mobile home court in Winter Garden is as confusing as the time my mother tried to teach me to knit. My stomach growls and my eyelids barely stay open as I make a right turn and discover a grocery store in a plaza ahead. My new place is empty of food except for the snacks my mother sent with me.

I park and head to the entrance. After a few minutes of wandering, I stop in the bakery section and taste drool as freshly baked bread scent wafts toward me. We don’t have stores like this back home. The selection overwhelms me, but finally I select a loaf of whole wheat marked half off, and then find the cereal aisle where I pick up some shredded wheat. The soup aisle is next, and soon my arms are full of tomato soup, crackers, and a half gallon of milk.

At checkout, I discover I’m short of cash. My credit card is lying back on my dresser with a stash of tissues I took out of my purse that morning. A groan escapes me as I catch the dubious look on the cashier’s face. “I’m sorry.” I dig deeper into my purse—hoping. An older gentleman behind me offers a few dollars but I shake my head fighting back tired tears. “Please take off the crackers and bread,” I tell the clerk, my face heating with embarrassment.

It takes me a while to find my car since the late afternoon sun nearly blinds me. I pull back onto Highway 50 toward home, Golden Acres, a community for the over-fifty crowd. How I find my way back, I’m not sure, but I park under the awning of the compact silver trailer in relief. I found the mobile home development online.

Actually my mother did. She’d pointed out the pictures of the swimming pool and lighted tennis courts as though I’d have all this free time to enjoy them. What would she think now if she saw their real condition? I will not be lying around any pool in the near future. Especially since this one hasn’t been filled since the eighties. Nor will I be playing tennis in the weed-infested courts or walking the non-existent trails in the back.

My home-sweet-home unit sits next to a larger trailer covered with enough purple and red birdfeeders and wind chimes to decorate the entire state. It won’t surprise me to find out the owner is a Red Hat Society member. The chimes thankfully lulled me to sleep last night when two acetaminophen pills didn’t work.

But my rent is cheap and my student loan won’t cover much more. I drop my head on my steering wheel, close my eyes, and let myself dream of the home where I spent my childhood—a two-story colonial with a wraparound porch that rests on a hundred acres. Lush wooded acres surround it. A stocked pond waits out back while the Susquehanna River meanders down the hill across the hard road from the wagon house.

When I turned sixteen my mother papered my upstairs bedroom in a federal blue floral pattern I chose. She updated the frilly curtains (she sewed herself) and bought a new matching throw for my bed. The best part of the room was the closet Dad fitted with cabinets where I’d stored all my art supplies until he built the studio out back for me. In an impromptu party, we hauled all my easels and brushes and paper out there when he completed it. I loved my art studio, as simple as it was for as long as I had it. It served as my oasis, my hideaway, my place to dream.

Until the fire.

I reach for a tissue from the stash I keep in the glove box. Looks like I’d need to refill it already. Did I cry that much on the trip down? I still can’t believe I caused my brother to get hurt. If only I hadn’t screamed to him to save my work. I could have repainted everything.

I check my face in the mirror. A quick scan of the neighborhood assures me that no one will see my red eyes. Not even the older gentleman who rode his golf cart past my car three times last night. I carry in my purchases while leaving my clubs in the backseat for tomorrow. All I want to do is eat and take a hot shower to wash off this sticky sweat.

An hour later, I dig into my purse for my cell phone, noting at the same time that I need to look for a cheaper plan. This one is taking a huge chunk out of my budget, like everything else in my life. A bowl of sesame pretzels waits next to my elbow. My mother sent three bags and enough chips to bump me up another pants size. But then the soup didn’t fill me like I’d hoped it would. I forgot how hungry I get when I golf. I place the call after chewing down another handful.

“Hello?”

Grandpa’s greeting sends warmth shooting through me. The gruffness in his voice brings a smile to my face. At the ripe old age of eighty-five, he is our family hero, the man with the golf legacy and the man I have looked up to since I was old enough to understand what a great feat it is to play the Masters. Even though I wasn’t as enamored with golf as Robert was growing up, I loved to sit next to Grandpa and page through his photo albums, oohing with him about his trophies.

I raise my voice a notch to be sure he can hear me. “Grandpa? How are you doing?” Snapshots fill my head of him leaning back in his recliner next to the telephone stand with a glass of cold soda nearby. He refused to let that chair go when he moved to our home last year despite my mother’s best tantrums. A proud man, proud of his accomplishments and how he lived life the way he chose, he never asked for any help. He seemed to shrink a little the day we came to pack up his belongings to bring him to the farm he’d given my parents when my mother married my father.

But life caught up with Grandpa, and though in his mind he thinks he needs no one, he does. Black and blue shapes tattoo his legs from frequent falls because he refuses to use a walker or a cane. He’d rather die than resort to those “old-man appliances.”

“Is this Bobbi-girl? When will you be home, darlin’?”

“Not for a while, Grandpa. Maybe at the end of August in time for some sweet corn. Will you smoke it for me?” His memory is failing by threads each time I talk with him. Though my mother denies what is slowly happening to her father, I can’t. I want to tell her that Grandpa is slipping and he’ll always be her hero.

But life changes us. If I speak my heart, will it destroy what little strength is left in hers? My mother depends on her father more than a woman her age should, but what choice does she have? I’m not blind to my father’s ways. He’s not always been here for our family. But when Robert began to golf with him, I saw a glimpse of the man my mother said she fell in love with.

I clear my throat. “You know how much I love your corn.”

“Oh yes, my corn. And how about that golf game yesterday?”

“I didn’t get to see it, Grandpa. I was driving.”

Will he lose all memory before I have the opportunity to make him proud? Will I have enough time to go on tour while he still remembers my name?

“What a shame you missed it. Here’s your mother.” I picture my mother dressed in her stretch-waist polyester pants, baggy sweatshirt embroidered with red kittens, her tight perm (leftover from the 80s) and her makeup free face. She comes on the line sounding out of breath.

“We miss you, honey. How is it there? Did your first day go all right? Bobbi, I wish you’d change your mind and pack up and come home. You aren’t to blame. Don’t give up your own dreams.”

I grip the phone tighter and lift my bare feet onto the only other piece of furniture in the living room—a stuffed chair that looks like the dogs have taken a liking to it. I trace the muddy stain on the bottom cushion with my big toe. At least I haven’t found bugs like I did in the kitchen sink and cupboards. Tomorrow I’ll buy insect spray and air freshener for the horrible musty odor that struck me in the face when I came inside.

I ignore my mother’s plea—one I’ve heard over and over since my decision.

“I took a lesson today. Have another tomorrow and I stopped at a grocery store for food for supper. You’d love the bakery section. All kinds of bread. I miss all of you. How’s Robert?” I swallow hard. It’s expected I include him in my conversations though talking with him makes me cry every time.

A long sigh trails into my ear. “He misses you.”

“Tell him I miss him, too.”

“Why don’t you tell him? Wait, I’ll take the phone to him.”

My heart thuds louder.

I’m sure she rushes toward the front of the house—once the good room—now having been transformed via a hospital bed and a three-point commode. He’ll be lying with his open laptop next to him and a stack of golf books piled on his nightstand. Of course, his Bible will be there, too, marked up in his color-coded fashion.

How can I end this call in a hurry?

“Hey, sis, how’s it going down there?” His voice is deep and familiar. He sounds pleased I’ve taken the time to include him in my call.

“I’m good. Really good, but a little tired. I had my first classes today.”

Silence.

“Are you there, Robert?”

“I was thinking about what you said before you left. How you plan to be the best female golfer ever. Are you sorry yet you’re doing this?”

My brother has this way with words. Direct. To the point. Not always what I want to hear and certainly not tonight when I’m bone-tired and trying to survive on rocky emotions. I love him with all my heart, but he has to know that my taking over where he left off is a good thing. For the whole family.

“You know why I’m doing this.” The words squeeze between my teeth.

A long sigh. “Come home, please. It won’t change anything. Stop being a martyr.”

Is that what he thinks I am? I pluck a pretzel from the dish and throw it against the wall.

“That’s not why I’m doing this. And don’t make me cry.”

“I don’t want you to cry. I want you home. I want you to be who you really are.”

“And then what?”

Watch Dad withdraw every day from a life he doesn’t want? Watch Mom hide her tears because her life isn’t anything she ever planned it would be? No thank you.

“Listen, put Mom back on.”

My mother comes back on the line, breathless again.

“Bobbi, he’s right. You should be home with us. You should be painting—opening up your own shop.”

I ignore her since there still remains one more person for me to talk to and I will need more than energy for that. “Dad? Is he there?”

“He’s in town at a meeting. I’ll tell him you called.” My mother pauses as though plotting her next words in a minefield. “He misses you, too.”

My mother is a good liar. My father hasn’t spoken more than three words to me since the accident except to hand me pepper spray for my trip. But of course, it wasn’t that much better before the accident. Who am I fooling? Before the fire, he had his hopes set on seeing his son become a major golfer.

I found the faded clippings years ago in the attic. The ones with my father and his trophies. I did the math and figured out why there weren’t any more pictures of him on tour. He’d been handed a set of twins and all the trappings that went with us, saddled with a desk job he never wanted.

Robert and his love of golf changed all that. So would I.

I fiddle with a nearby pen, scribbling my name on a napkin. “Tell him I’m doing fine. Tell Grandpa again, too. Remind him about the trophies I plan to win. He likes hearing about it.”

“Now, Bobbi, you know he doesn’t care about those things. You need to stop thinking that way. The only reason Robert—”

“Mom, I need to do this so let’s not discuss it. OK? Listen, I’m going to hang up. I’m beat and we start early again tomorrow. I’ll call soon.”

I give another fast good-bye and end the call. No need rehashing with them why I have chosen to give up everything I ever wanted in my life to attend this golf school. Besides, it isn’t their responsibility. It’s mine. It was my studio that burned down. It was my stupid dream that destroyed Robert’s. No amount of denial on anyone’s part will change that fact.

 

****

 

The alarm wakes me earlier today. I stumble around in the darkness until I find the wall switch, adding a bedside lamp to my shopping list. I passed a discount store on my way home yesterday. If I can remember how to find it, I will stop today.

After squeezing into what passes as a plausible shower stall complete with moldy shelving, I throw on another pair of khakis, this time matching them with a yellow polo. Thankfully, we only have to wear those stupid jackets one day a week. When I check the mirror, I see how my hair dances with a life of its own. Oh, the complexities of managing thick hair in Florida’s unrelenting humidity. Dropping the brush, I search for my shoes.

A partially opened box lays propped against one wall where I’d let it fall the day before. A different golf hat will keep me cooler so I dig into the assortment of junk to search for a visor, find an off-white one, and set it on my bed. I flip through more items in search of something to pull my hair up with when my fingers meet a familiar object.

My mother has slipped my drawing tablet into the box without my knowledge. My breath catches.

Faint gray sketches of the back mountain on our property greet me. With my finger, I trace the light pencil strokes. Stark images drawn with abandonment on the day of the fire. The only saved remnants. Robert and my father had left earlier that morning for a course in the next town. I’d wanted to get some drawing done for the gallery where I worked so I didn’t go with them to caddie. I’d already sold two paintings and was excited about a request for more.

It was chilly that day—the thermometer read only forty degrees when they left, but the cold never stopped Robert. His passion for golf rivaled my own passion for art. His dream was to qualify at Q-School and make it on a major tour like Grandpa had years ago. Robert was good—better than good. He was born to golf.

I hate remembering that awful day, but if I don’t, I’ll never be able to get through this school. My mother keeps saying it isn’t my fault, that it isn’t my guilt to carry. But if it isn’t mine, whose is it?

Certainly not Robert’s. He didn’t ask to have his life turned upside down. Nor my father, whose dreams for his only son now include relentless doctor visits and therapy and the possibility that the two of them might never share those special father-son moments again.

Right. Who left the heater on? Who screamed to Robert to save her precious paintings?

My chest shudders when I replay Robert’s last conversation with me on the day I prepared to leave for school.

“You can’t do this, Bobbi. It’s not God’s plan for you. You’re an artist. I’ll golf again someday. Let it go, please.” His normally tanned face had faded to a pasty white, making him one with our living room walls. Tears shone in his eyes as he plucked the cotton sheet that covered his lower body. My mother had tried to supply him with everything he needed during his recuperation, but she couldn’t hide what needed to be hid most. Robert’s injuries.

I studied his strong nose, the playful way his hair fell across his forehead. “You’re my twin. I owe you. Besides, you taught me a lot. I’ll be good. You’ll see. And when I win a tournament, it’ll be for all of us.”

“I’m going to pray for you every day. Pray you come to your senses.”

I glanced at his well-worn Bible. Yes, he would pray.

Robert’s faith is so much stronger than mine. It always has been ever since that day during Vacation Bible School when we were twelve and we accepted what God did for us. He uses the name Jesus as though he is talking about his best friend—in front of his own friends. The first time he did that, I wanted to die from embarrassment, but no one seemed to mind. In fact, it appeared his friends treated him better. Eventually Robert made us pray at meals and Mom dropped him off at church every Sunday until she decided to go with him. I went, too, but worried more about what I was wearing than what I was learning.

I still have trouble accepting that God loves me like he does Robert. I still have trouble with it, especially now living so far from home. But I’m learning that the circumstances in our lives can’t always be controlled. I learned after the fire that sometimes we have to step up and do what it takes to make things right again. Like moving here.

The tablet snaps shut. My mother should stay out of my business. I shove the drawings back into the box, grab my keys, and stomp out to my car.

“Good morning. Welcome to the neighborhood.” The unfamiliar voice scratches like worn windshield wipers on a dusty day. An elderly woman—who definitely shouldn’t be outside in that housecoat—comes toward me carrying an aluminum foil-covered paper plate pressed against her sagging chest. A gold chain with a thin cross circles her neck, and she wears pink flip-flops on her bird-like feet. Her frosted blue eye shadow momentarily distracts me from her sunken cheekbones covered in blush.

She holds out her offering and grins, showing two missing side teeth. She reminds me of the last jack o’ lantern Robert and I carved before our father decided he didn’t need any more pumpkins cluttering the front porch steps.

“Thank you.” I accept the gift with a matching smile of my own. The lady who loves chimes also bakes. I peek beneath the covering. “Chocolate chip cookies. My favorite!”

My neighbor chuckles and holds out one blue-veined hand. “Call me Mattie.”

I take the offered hand and shake it politely, hoping she will cut the introductions short. I’ll be late again if I don’t hurry, and Drew might lock the door. “Bobbi. With an I.”

“I once had a nephew named Bobby. With a Y.” She winks. “Never could get him to do much for me when I asked. Died in a crash.”

“I’m so sorry. Listen, Mattie, I hate to be rude, but I’m going to be late for school if I don’t get going.” I glance toward my car.

“What school do you go to?”

“A local golf college.” Balancing the cookies in one hand, I grab my backpack that I’d set by the car.

Mattie steps away and gives a small wave as I call out a quick good-bye.

The cookies will be great for the break between classes. Even though they are the last thing I need to eat. My kinesiology teacher has impressed me with the need to get into shape—so much that I’m considering joining a local gym if I can get a student membership since the one at school is worthless. It’s been over year since the last time I jogged. Robert begged me to run every morning with him. I lasted two days.

I pull onto the busy main highway and make it through three green lights before the traffic starts backing up. Two cops speed past me. I look to my right and then my left. Several cars cut through a parking lot but I don’t have a clue to an alternate route. I’ll be late for sure. I throw my turn signal on and inch my way out of the backlog of traffic to follow behind a pickup truck through a shopping center.

The road curves past several newer housing developments and for a second a wave of fear rolls through me that I might be lost. When I’m about to turn around a sign appears. Orlando Golf School 1 mile. A rush of relief leaves my chest.

Nearing the school, I admit that a part of me looks forward to seeing Drew again, though my heart warns against it. I reach for a still-warm cookie and devour it in two bites. It’s silly to entertain any romantic thoughts about my teacher. I’m not a schoolgirl anymore. I also don’t need complications—especially when I have so much to accomplish. I will stay focused.

The classroom doorknob doesn’t budge. Great. He’s kept his word. My parents did a similar thing to me the time I stayed out with friends the summer after I graduated. I came home well after one in the morning. A curfew at my age made no sense so I’d stormed around to the barn where a pallet of fresh straw kept me comfortable most the night until a mouse squealed near my head nearly sending me into hysterics. Fuming with anger the next day, I swiped my father’s house key and went to Big Mike’s hardware store in town to make a spare for my purse.

The door opens as I stand entrenched in my memories of Pennsylvania. Drew speaks first. “Miss Bobbi-with-an-I. I assume you want in?”

Most people back home think I’m the artsy dreamy type—a girl who would rather paint scenery than attend the Wyoming County Fair and shoot hoops for a stuffed teddy bear. But they are wrong. I won more than Robert last year. I snap back to look up into an expression I would entitle ‘the look of impatience.’

“You want to come in or daydream in the hall?”

Drew’s height gives him a distinct advantage over me, not to mention he’s the teacher and I’m the student.

“There was an accident.” My tone always turns deep and scratchy when confronted by anyone. “A bad one.” I hate that I don’t sound all high-pitched and feminine like other women do when they want to impress someone. “Police and everything.” No, my voice finds the basement of my voice box and etches out sentences like blades on ice.

Clearing my throat to try again, I stop as he steps aside to hold the door open for me.

I dip my head and hunker past to the seat in the back, praying it will still be mine to claim on day two. Again, the stares and whispers trail behind me.

“Please don’t go to Orlando.” My brother’s voice comes to me as I slide into my seat. Our conversation happened two weeks before I left home. “You don’t understand how tough the competition will be,” he said as soon as I entered his room.

“Then you don’t know me.” I gripped my coffee cup tighter as I settled in the big chair in the front room near him.

“I know that most people who go to a golf college end up working in the industry—not as golf pros.” Robert tossed me a magazine. “Read the article.”

I picked up Golf Today. An article about how to gain employment on a golf course caught my eye. I tossed it back on his nightstand. “So what. That doesn’t mean I can’t be the one who makes it. I’m going to get the training and maybe learn something more in the process.”

I’d found a website the day after the accident and had pored over the details about a golf college. Normally I could convince Robert of anything. Normally.

He and I share this deep sense of closeness. When one of us hurt, both hurt. As kids, we’d watched out for each other, and that didn’t change during our growing-up years.

The last time I needed a subject for a portrait, Robert offered to help rather than attend a golf tournament down in the city with some friends. When he needed to snag a date for a last-minute event, I turned down my own date and attended with him. I even bought him a new offset putter for Christmas last year after hearing him talk about it with my father. It had taken a huge chunk out of my savings, but seeing his eyes light on Christmas morning made it worthwhile. But a new club will never make up for this.

A cough sounds beside me. I try my best to pay attention, but can’t seem to manage it today. With half a night’s sleep, it’s a wonder I’m sitting upright.

“We’re having a tournament next week for the freshmen. It’ll be down at Reunion right after class lets out on Monday. Bring your best attitude and effort.” Drew passes out information sheets and drones on about what to expect.

A tournament. I’ve hardly had an opportunity to improve my shots. One quick glance around the room tells me what I need to know. I’ll be living on the course until then.

 

****

 

When I was twelve, my father built us a tree house in one of the old maples that borders our property. He made certain I could use the narrow steps he’d nailed into the broad trunk before he left me alone to climb up and daydream among the branches.

I’m sure it was there where my dream to paint landscapes was born. No matter what direction I gazed from my towering perch, the lush scenery jolted my imagination like a glass of lemonade on a hot summer night. I would try in vain to press the scenes into my subconscious so I could take them out later at night and study the finer details when I was alone and when sleep eluded me.

My young heart almost stopped beating when I caught my first sight of the distant murky waters of the Susquehanna River. Right then and there, I vowed to paint the river as only I saw it.

Later that day, it took three threats from my mother to get me down from the tree house.

I think of that tree now as I focus my attention and driver on the flag three hundred yards ahead of me.

My lessons with Drew have taken place every day of the week, but today is Sunday and I found a cheap tee time at a nearby club. The pro shop guy tried to get me to start with someone, but I was adamant to play a round alone.

How long has it been? Months? Since last winter before it got too cold to go out anymore. I’d been caddying for spare money on weekends since the gallery didn’t pay that much. We hadn’t played in a while until Robert made me come out with him one crisp morning.

He drove us to his favorite course. Paradise Hills. And yes, it looked like Paradise there—huge oaks and rolling landscape. My blood pumped at the sight. I knew it would be a good day.

“I can’t believe you made that shot!” Robert high-fived me after my putt from fifteen feet rattled in the cup.

I birdied.

I made par on the next hole and finally an eagle. Robert still won, but I did a pretty impressive job of keeping up. So good that I saved the scorecard in the bottom of my dresser drawer back home. But that was months ago. Today is today, and it’s hotter than a bonfire in the middle of a desert. Today I need to improve my playing.

“Loosen up on your grip.” A deep voice resonates beside me.

I look up to see Drew ambling in my direction. I tug on my pulled-back hair. “It’s Sunday. What are you doing here?”

“Does that mean you can’t learn anything?” A whisper of a smile appears. He wears his golf hat low on his forehead so I can’t see those eyes. “I play here every Sunday. Now take your shot.”

I take my shot.

“Not bad. Want to go another nine holes and I’ll show you what to do in a real game? Winner buys soda.” He’d parked his cart nearby and cocks his head toward it.

This will be the first game we play together. I’m acting as though it’s my first date instead of a golf game. Maybe I should save the tee as a memento.

“Are you going to beat me?”

Drew removes his cap so that his blond hair glistens in the sun. He squints. A nice kind of squint that puts my heart into overdrive. “Going to let me?”

“Not a chance.”

“That’s my girl.”

And forget my heart pounding from his nearness—it leaps right out of my chest into the water hazard to my right. I remind myself that I’m here to learn to be a great golfer, not connect with a jock who might not understand what loyalty means in a family.

He waits as I pack my clubs and stow them into the back of his cart. “What about my cart?” I glance where I’d parked it near the tee.

His even white teeth show. “Already on it.” And when he pulls out his cell and speaks into it, I figure he is. More than I am. By the time we take off to the ninth hole, I don’t care about a little old cart.