On the day I’ve finally chosen to return to California, I turn around in the carport and there, sitting next to my suitcase, is the ugliest Yorkie mix I’ve ever laid eyes on. Reaching carefully for my bag, I avoid any sudden movements as the last thing I can possibly stand is more drama. But to my complete and utter surprise, Puffy remains motionless, blinking her one good eye, as if the idea she’d ever do anyone bodily harm was ludicrous. Calling her bluff, I move my hands this way and that. Still, no reaction. I raise my arms Frankenstein-like above my head, but Puffy just scratches her chin, looking out over the last of the summer roses in the garden.
Sis embraces me in silence, pulling me so close I think she might break me in two. Fanny walks over and gives me a big, twisty hug. Looking past her shoulder, I can see my father just over the fence, methodically scooping dead poplar leaves from the pool’s surface with the net. Fanny pats me on the arm and gently pushes me toward the rental car.
* * *
On our way to the airport, the long, dark shadows of the ancient oaks stroke our faces like playful witches’ hands as we drive through the streets of downtown Jackson. At one of the only red lights on Commerce Street, a boy around the age of ten races across the street, a clumsy sand-colored puppy on a leash charging ahead of him toward Quincey Drake’s Hardware on the corner.
Squirming down in her seat, Caroline pulls a sweater around her arms. “Mind if I sleep till we get to the airport?”
“Go ahead,” I say. I’d wondered if her coming out to retrieve me would feel like we were falling back into our routine, but the vibe was already different. We were two people who had moved on with our lives, but our bond would be forever sealed.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say. “Sleep.”
She touches my knee and lets the seat back.
“Good grief,” I say, staring at the tall, unshaven fellow coming down the steps of Quincey’s carrying a cardboard crate under one arm and stopping to finger one of the bright crimson garden tillers out front.
“What?” Caroline says, scooching up an inch.
Joe Tucker smiles and calls a greeting to the boy as he and his puppy disappear inside the hardware store.
“Is that him?” Caroline practically presses her nose to the passenger window.
“Yes.”
Joe sets the crate down on the steps and picks up the handles of a tiller, steering the damned thing down some imaginary garden row.
“What are the odds?” she says.
“You could say the same thing about my entire trip, doll. It never ends.”
“The light’s green,” Caroline says in a hushed, reverent tone, God love her. She lets her seat back up for a better view.
Over Joe’s shoulder, I can make out the puppy sitting obediently next to the boy near the front counter just inside the store.
From behind, an impatient driver taps his horn three times in succession, but as a veteran of rush hour traffic on the worst freeways imaginable, I am not easily moved. As the car behind me honks again, this time more urgently, Joe glances in our direction, a hint of recognition as he scrutinizes the inhabitants of the car causing the fracas on the otherwise bucolic street.
“I think he sees us,” Caroline says.
Joe waves enthusiastically and motions us to pull over. I can feel my shoulders tightening up around my neck.
“Well, let’s do this,” she says, like a question.
Joe is now waving both his arms in the air.
Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, I hear a tiny voice inside me ask a childish, hypothetical question. If someone said I would have to relive every second of the past two and a half years if I could start on the day when Joe first hollered at me from the roof of his parents’ house, would I?
“Come on, you’re gonna pull over, aren’t you?”
Before I can even attempt to, Joe approaches the car with a big excited grin, knocking once on the hood on his way over to my open window.
The top of my scalp begins to tingle, and the tension in my shoulders melts.
I ignore another irksome toot as an antique truck hauling bales of hay to one of the inland farms passes us from the other lane, flecks of dust and earth suspended in its wake.
Like a good Southern boy, I close my eyes, bow my head, and make a wish.