For 8 years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, \u201cShe comes from a good family, don\u2019t embarrass us\u201d; Dad added, \u201cJust disappear for the weekend\u201d; I did; then one weekend, I never came back; it took them four years to find out where I went.<\/p>\n
My mother called what happened \u201cyour situation,\u201d like it was a stain she hoped nobody would notice.<\/p>\n
Two days before the first Easter visit, I came into the hallway and noticed six family pictures missing from the wall.<\/p>\n
Mom said the frames were being updated.<\/p>\n
The only photo of me left was my junior-year portrait, centered on the living-room shelf beside a white candle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s for Easter,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As she spoke, she quietly slid my seven-day pill organizer from beside the toaster into the silverware drawer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMitch is bringing someone home this weekend. Her name is Avery Lockheart. Her people are Mountain Brook.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mountain Brook was twenty minutes from Hoover, but to Mom it might as well have been another country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat family has been through a terrible loss,\u201d she added. \u201cThey don\u2019t need to walk into ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought she meant me.<\/p>\n
She did.<\/p>\n
Mitch came home from Tuscaloosa Friday night. He was twenty, studying engineering at Alabama, and still the only person who called me Stace.<\/p>\n
He stood in my doorway while I packed a duffel bag.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sorry about all this, Stace.\u201d<\/p>\n
I assumed he meant our parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry for what?\u201d<\/p>\n
But he had already walked away.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Dad placed my keys beside the sink. At 10:59, I backed out.<\/p>\n
In the mirror, I watched Mitch\u2019s Jeep turn onto our street with a laughing girl beside him.<\/p>\n
She never saw me.<\/p>\n
That was the point.<\/p>\n
I drove forty-five minutes south to Ruth Tidwell\u2019s peach farm in Chilton County.<\/p>\n
Her granddaughter Casey had been my best friend since high school. Ruth took one look at my bag and didn\u2019t ask about February.<\/p>\n
\u201cHands first,\u201d she said. \u201cQuestions can wait till supper.\u201d<\/p>\n
She put me to work thinning peaches.<\/p>\n
A tree sets more fruit than it can carry. If you don\u2019t remove enough, the branches strain under small, hard peaches until something breaks.<\/p>\n
By noon, green fruit covered the ground.<\/p>\n
Late that afternoon, Ruth showed me a tree everyone thought had died during the January freeze.<\/p>\n
She scraped a twig with her thumbnail.<\/p>\n
Under the gray bark was bright green.<\/p>\n
\u201cScratch test,\u201d she said. \u201cBrown means dead. Green means she\u2019s living.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then she released the twig.<\/p>\n
\u201cGreen underneath. She\u2019s just been through a winter.\u201d<\/p>\n
I carried that image home Sunday night.<\/p>\n
The house smelled of ham and lilies. The candle beside my portrait had burned halfway down.<\/p>\n
That summer, Mom began calling Avery Mitch\u2019s fiance even though he wouldn\u2019t propose for years.<\/p>\n
And our house developed rules.<\/p>\n
In May, Mom put a keyed lock on the outside of my bedroom door.<\/p>\n
She claimed it was so Avery wouldn\u2019t accidentally enter my messy room.<\/p>\n
My room was the neatest in the house.<\/p>\n
The key stayed on Mom\u2019s ring. If she wasn\u2019t home, I couldn\u2019t enter my own bedroom.<\/p>\n
My toothbrush moved to a zip-top bag in my car.<\/p>\n
My mail disappeared before visits.<\/p>\n
My car couldn\u2019t be parked outside because someone might ask who owned it.<\/p>\n
The texts arrived before every visit.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery weekend be gone by 11.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes noon.<\/p>\n
For one Fourth of July, 9 a.m.<\/p>\n
I began recording each forced departure in a yellow notebook.<\/p>\n
Easter became number one.<\/p>\n
When I turned twenty, Mom began charging me $400 a month for room and board.<\/p>\n
I was paying rent for a house I regularly wasn\u2019t allowed to occupy.<\/p>\n
After two years, I finally asked what Avery thought about me.<\/p>\n
Mom answered immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe thinks you live in Atlanta. You work there. You\u2019re very busy.\u201d<\/p>\n
For 8 years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, \u201cShe comes from a good family, don\u2019t embarrass us\u201d; Dad added, \u201cJust disappear for...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n