Home

Home had always been the little bungalow on South Woodlawn Avenue. She stood in her empty bedroom. It looked bigger without her bed and dresser – now loaded in the back of Uncle Bill’s truck. Her bed had a metal headboard with hundreds of tiny holes just the size of the tips of her five year old fingers. She and her daddy had played a game. He would place his hand behind the headboard and cover one of the holes with his finger. She would try to touch his finger on the other side before he could move it. She liked the sensation of touching her daddy’s fingers through the headboard. She missed her daddy. Her heart was empty without him. She walked from room to room. She walked into the closet of the room where her mama and daddy had slept. The closet was empty but she could still smell her daddy’s after shave lotion. She stayed there for a long time in the dark inhaling the last scent of her daddy.

Her mama had said they were all going home now. She was confused. This was home. Home was the green house with the gum ball trees in the front yard where she and her daddy and stretched out on army blanket and eaten bologna sandwiches. Now, she walked around the front yard picking up gumballs. She filled the pockets of her yellow dress. The one with the sash that her mama could never tie just right. She always ended up taking her next door to Mrs. Evans’ house. “Blair, will you tie this girl’s sash for me? I don’t know why it always looks cockeyed when I do it.”

She wondered who was going to tie her sash at the place where they were going…the place that would be their new home.