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PEYTON
Ernest Hemingway once said, “I regarded home as a place I left behind in order to come back to it afterward.”
Crossing over the county line into my hometown of Fallen Brook is like a religious experience. The green of the grass is more vibrant. The trees taller. The sky bluer. With the driver’s side window rolled down, I breathe in the air that seems that much sweeter. It’s all psychosomatic, but I don’t care. I’m home.
The scenery flying past as I do forty-five down the road blurs into one long memory of growing up here. Funny how you never realize how much you miss something until you see it again after being away for so long.
Slowing at a four-way stop, I flick my blinker and turn right. Passing through open metal gates, I drive at a leisurely pace down the private road lined by gorgeous magnolia trees with their palm-sized white blossoms that look like fluffy pieces of popped popcorn. Bright bursts of color from various flower bouquets are sprinkled among the manicured lawn, giving beauty to the sadness that surrounds this place.
Tiny pieces of crushed rock crunch under the tires as I pull up along the side of the road. I park my car, turn off the ignition, and stare off into the distance, not able to get out just yet.
Deep breath in, exhale out.
Reaching over to the passenger seat, I clutch the wildflowers I found in a field on my way here and get out of the car. The wet paper towel I wrapped the stems in so they wouldn’t wilt, drip water onto my bare toes exposed at the top of my sandals. The late spring afternoon sun shines brightly in contrast to the nip in the air that still lingers. May in North Carolina can be a seesaw, one day hot and steamy, the next, cool and comfortable.
Bright red cardinals and majestic blue jays flit from tree to tree, chirping their unique calls. A gorgeous zebra swallowtail flutters by on the currents of the light breeze. So much life in a place of death.
Deep breath in, exhale out.
Tucking the flyaway wisps of my long wheat-blonde hair behind my ear, I walk around the front of the car and stop when my feet align with the curb where tarmac meets grass, hesitating for a brief second before I’m able to take the next step. Then another. And another.
My heart thuds harder with each footfall that brings me closer to the gray granite slab carved with my brother’s name.
Parker Emmett Marley
May 20, 1999—August 13, 2019
Beloved son and brother
I look at the older, more weathered gravestone next to his where my mother is buried and let the tears flow freely. Almost my entire family is buried here. Mom, my brother. So much damn loss. So much heartache.
Gently placing the flowers on the ground in front of Parker’s gravestone, I smooth my skirt and lower to sit, tucking my legs underneath me.
“Happy birthday, Parker,” I tell my brother, the torrent of tears constricting my throat and making it hard to talk. “Hey, Mom. I miss you both so much.”
It’s the first time since Parker’s funeral that I’ve been home.
“I kept my promise,” I tell my brother, pulling a few dandelion weeds at the roots that have sprouted around the base of the headstone. “I kept it, even though it broke my heart,” I whisper, the pain almost choking me.
I stayed away for almost four agonizing years. And last week was the end of my purgatory. I graduated with top honors from Carolina University. A promise begged of me by my brother with his dying breath. A promise forced on me byhim, the only man I have ever loved.
But now I’m back. For good.
Thatwas a promise I made to myself.
When I was nine years old, I fell in love. The type of love that fills your heart completely so that no other person ever has a chance of stealing any tiny piece of it for themselves. The kind of love that ruins you because your heart will never want another. It’s a forever love. A finding your soulmate love. A love that doesn’t care how old you are and can take hold even at the tender age of nine. It’s perfect and wonderful and completes you in a way that nothing else can. Not money or success or material things.
But that perfect love comes at a price.
There’s a saying.“If you love something, set it free.If it comes back, it’s yours. If not, it was never meant to be.”
Well, I came back.
Because I will always belong to him.
Tate Kingston.
TWO
