For the next year, the family rules continued with such regularity that I could predict them by season.
Easter meant I left.
Memorial Day meant I left.
Fourth of July meant I left earlier.
Thanksgiving required a bag packed before sunrise.
Christmas depended on who was visiting.
I stopped asking why.
My yellow notebook became a record of departures rather than a diary.
Date.
Time.
Destination.
Reason given.
Sometimes I wrote only one word in the final column.
Avery.
I knew almost nothing about her, except that she came from Mountain Brook and that my parents seemed terrified of embarrassing themselves in front of her family.
Then, one Tuesday afternoon, she walked into the garden center.
I recognized her immediately.
She was older than she had been in the photographs I'd seen around the house, but there was no mistaking her.
She wore jeans, a pale sweater, and a pair of muddy shoes.
“I need a dogwood,” she said.
I stood behind the counter with a clipboard in my hand.
“What kind?”
“A good one.”
I almost smiled.
“That narrows it down.”
She laughed.
“It's for a memorial garden.”
The word made my fingers tighten around the clipboard.
She didn't notice.
“My boyfriend's family lost someone,” she explained. “His family does a sunrise service every Easter. My mother wants something living there instead of another plaque.”
I assumed she meant Grandma June.
I had no reason to suspect otherwise.
I walked her through the nursery.
She wanted something that would bloom reliably and tolerate the Alabama heat.
I showed her several trees.
Eventually we stopped beside a Cherokee Princess dogwood.
The graft union was clean.
The branches were balanced.
The roots looked strong.
“This one,” she said.
I crouched beside the trunk and checked the graft.
“It's a good tree.”
“Can you write care instructions?”
“Sure.”
I wrote on the nursery tag.
Graft is good. Water deeply the first summer. She'll bloom.
Avery watched my hand.
“You write beautifully.”
“Occupational hazard.”
She smiled.
Then she studied my face.
“You look familiar.”
My stomach tightened.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
She tilted her head.
“Have we met?”
I could have answered.
Instead I stood.
“Probably just one of those faces.”
She accepted that.
At the gate, she thanked me.
I watched her drive away with the dogwood secured in the back of her vehicle.
For several minutes, I stood staring at the empty driveway.
Then I went inside and washed my hands.
I didn't tell my mother.
That Christmas, Mitch proposed.
Mom sent me a text.
Wedding is June 13th. Keep that weekend free.
I stared at the screen.
It took me a moment to understand what she meant.
I called her.
“Am I invited?”
Silence.
Then she said, “It isn't the right time.”
“For what?”
“For you to be there.”
I laughed once.
“What does that even mean?”
“You'll make things difficult.”
“I haven't spoken to Avery in years.”
“That isn't the point.”
“Then what is?”
She ended the call.
The wedding was postponed twice.
Then the pandemic arrived.
For eight weeks, I couldn't be sent anywhere.
Everyone was home.
For the first time in years, I existed in the same house as my parents every weekend.
It was strange.
The walls seemed smaller.
The silence was louder.
One Sunday, Avery called Mom on FaceTime.
I was making lunch behind her.
Mom saw me appear in the background and immediately covered the camera with her hand.
“Out of frame,” she mouthed.
I carried my plate into the corner of the kitchen and ate standing up.
Avery talked about wedding plans.
Mom talked about flowers.
I listened to the woman who had bought my dogwood without knowing who had sold it to her.
She believed I lived in Atlanta.
At least, that was what Mom had always told me.
When the call ended, Mom wiped the phone screen with a dish towel.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
“Doing what?”
“Pretending I don't exist.”
Her face changed.
“You're being dramatic.”
“No. I'm asking.”
She turned away.
“You're on our insurance until you're twenty-six. Our house, our rules.”
That was the argument she used whenever I pushed too hard.
The garden center didn't provide health insurance.
My medication and therapist were covered through Dad's employer.
So I stayed.
When I turned twenty-six, I bought my own marketplace insurance.
The card arrived in the mail.
Only my name was printed on it.
I kept it in my wallet for a week before I realized what it meant.
I no longer needed permission to leave.
But I still didn't know where I belonged.
In late 2021, I returned from Ruth's farm for Thanksgiving.
My medication was missing.
I searched the bathroom cabinet, the kitchen counter, my car.
Finally I asked Mom.
“Where did you put my prescription?”
“In your room.”
“My room is locked.”
“You have a key.”
“No. You have the key.”
She sighed.
“People use that bathroom. You need to keep your things somewhere private.”
The room had been locked for years.
I didn't argue.
I told myself she was being cautious.
Months later, I would understand exactly what she had been protecting.
In January 2022, another package arrived from Ingred.
Inside were cuttings and a handwritten note.
Ruth read it aloud.
“She says the offer still stands.”
I looked at the number Ruth had copied onto a paper towel.
“You should call her,” Ruth said.
“You call her.”
“I've been doing that for years.”
She pushed the phone toward me.
“I've decided I'm tired of being the middleman.”
I called.
Ingred answered almost immediately.
“So you're the hands.”
I laughed nervously.
“Apparently.”
“I've seen photographs of your grafts. Come in April. Bring gloves.”
I told her I would think about it.
Three months later, Mom sent another message.
Lockhearts for supper Saturday. Sunrise service Sunday. Be gone by 10.
The Lockhearts were no longer just Mitch's future in-laws.
They had become family friends.
Church friends.
People my parents wanted to impress.
I left at 9:40 Saturday morning.
Tally mark 211.
I drove to Ruth's farm and spent the afternoon helping her in the greenhouse.
That evening I opened my pill organizer.
Saturday was empty.
I stared at it.
Then at Ruth.
“My medicine is still in my bedroom.”
She didn't ask whether I was sure.
“Go get it.”
“I don't want to cause a scene.”
“Then don't.”
She tied her scarf around her hair.
“Get what belongs to you and come straight back.”
I drove home after ten.
The Lockhearts' SUV was still in the driveway.
I parked down the block.
The house was dark except for the hallway.
I approached through the side yard.
One window near my bedroom was cracked open.
I could hear voices.
I stopped.
Suzanne Lockheart stood outside my bedroom door.
Mom was beside her, holding a tissue.
Avery stood close to Mitch.
Dad was near the kitchen, staring at the floor.
Suzanne placed her palm against my bedroom door.
“May I?”
Mom nodded.
Suzanne lowered her head.
She looked like someone standing beside a grave.
Mom dabbed her eyes.
“I still can't bring myself to open it.”
My breath caught.
I remained hidden outside the window.
Suzanne touched the door again.
“I understand.”
“You don't,” Mom whispered.
Avery began crying.
Mitch put an arm around her.
I stood in the dark and watched a woman I barely knew mourn something that was apparently inside my bedroom.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
After they left, I waited.
The house eventually went quiet.
Near midnight, I slipped inside through the back.
The dining-room table was covered with memorial materials.
Photographs.
Printed programs.
A candle.
And one framed photograph of a blooming dogwood.
I stepped closer.
A granite marker stood beneath the tree.
The name carved into it was unmistakable.
Anastasia Dunaway.
1995–2014.
She is not dead but sleepeth.
My knees weakened.
Beside the photograph was a small card.
We'll read her name at sunrise.
I looked at the tree.
Then at the nursery tag.
The handwriting was mine.
Graft is good. Water deeply the first summer. She'll bloom.
I touched the paper with two fingers.
The memories returned in pieces.
The obituary.
The woman at Grandma's funeral.
Mom hiding my medication.
Avery telling me her boyfriend's family had lost someone.
The locked bedroom.
The memorial service.
Eight years of being removed whenever Avery came near.
My mother had never told Avery I lived in Atlanta.
She had allowed Avery to believe something much worse.
She had allowed her to believe I was dead.
And somehow, I had personally sold her the tree planted in memory of me.
I sat in my mother's chair until the refrigerator hummed twice.
Then I stood.
Her keys were on the counter.
I took them.
My bedroom door opened with a soft click.
Everything looked exactly as I had left it.
I packed one bag.
Medication.
Birth certificate.
A few clothes.
Ruth's grafting knife.
The yellow notebook.
I left everything else.
Before leaving, I turned on the bedroom lamp.
Then I unlocked the door and left it wide open.
If they wanted to pretend they couldn't open it, they would have to explain why it was already open.
Outside, I called Ruth.
She answered on the first ring.
“I know,” she said.
“You don't know anything yet.”
“I know your voice.”
I swallowed.
“What do I do?”
There was a pause.
“Go see Ingred.”
I drove north before dawn.
Near Memphis, I pulled onto the shoulder and looked at the yellow notebook.
Two hundred eleven marks.
I drew a line beneath the last one.
Then I sent my parents a message.
I'm alive. Don't look for me.
I turned off my phone.
For the first time in eight years, I wasn't leaving because someone had ordered me to.
I was leaving because I had finally understood why.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: I Crossed the Country With One Bag, While My Family Stood Beneath a Tree Planted for Someone They Believed Would Never Return
My Mother Removed the Family Photographs Before Easter, Then Told Me to Pack a Bag Before My Brother Came Home
Part 2 of 20
