Rainie chews her sandwich, considering this. She looks at me with worry in those big brown eyes. “You won’t have anything left if you give it all to other people,” she says.
“I have a lot of furniture in my home in San Francisco,” I say. “I don’t need any more.”
“Are you keeping anything?” Reed asks. “Memorabilia?”
“Oh, just a few things.” My smile is quick and, I suppose, secretive, because no one presses me for more information.
I found, buried in the back of my old closet, the cigar box I’d kept with me during my weeks with SCOPE. It was stuffed with yellowed newspaper articles and photographs that made me weep. Pictures of Win and Jocelyn, Chip and Paul and Curry and Greg Filburn at the school in Flint. Little DeeDee Hunt sitting on my mattress in her bedroom closet. Me, standing in front of the Daweses’ house looking serious and so committed. And a picture I’d completely forgotten I’d taken of Win sitting on the porch steps of the Daweses’ house, smiling one of his rare smiles at me. It was the night I told him about Mattie Jenkins. My throat tightens as I study that small square photograph of a young man who never had the chance to grow up. To grow old. I’m so sorry, Win.
I’ll take that box back to San Francisco with me. But first I plan to make copies of all of the photographs and newspaper articles. Reed managed to track down Win’s sister, the one who had polio as a child. The one Win cared so much about. I never knew how much Greg Filburn told Win’s family about what happened to their son and brother and how much I had to do with it, but I guess it was enough, because when I contacted his sister through email, she wrote back that she didn’t want to meet me. I don’t blame her. Still, when I found the old cigar box, I knew I wanted her to have a copy of those memories. She has children and grandchildren. They should know what a fine and committed young man their uncle was. They should know what the world lost that long-ago night.
Reed’s also helped me figure out how to make my financial plans a reality, now that I have more money than I ever expected from the sale of this property. I want to set up a scholarship in Win’s name at Shaw University, the school he attended, and I want to feed money into the community organizations that are my passion back home.
And, of course, I have to pay for the assisted-living place Mama despises. I sent her back there the day after the truth came out, ignoring her protests, her anger, and her panicky crocodile tears of remorse. When the authorities got around to questioning her, she denied everything. Pled ignorance. I shouldn’t have been surprised. It doesn’t matter. I believe her tiny shared room with its pee-yellow walls and faded blue-striped curtains is better punishment than any prison cell. I’ll never see my mother again, and that thought gives me only relief.
* * *
Two days after that last meal in my house, Reed, Kayla, Rainie, and I watch from across the street as the bulldozers and cranes pull my childhood home apart, crushing it in mere minutes to a pile of rubble. We’re surrounded by a few remaining Shadow Ridge construction workers, who whoop and holler as my red roof crunches like tinfoil and the walls turn to splinters.
“Will they do that to our house, Mama?” Rainie sounds worried. She glances down Shadow Ridge Lane toward her house, all the huge glass windows sparkling in the winter sun.
“No, honey,” Kayla says. “We’ll never let anybody hurt our home.”
I thought I might cry when it happened. In spite of everything, it’s a sad thing to see the house you grew up in turn to dust. Yet I feel a weight lift from my heart. I’m finished here. When I look at Reed, I see understanding in his face. His warm blue eyes. His sad smile. He puts an arm around my shoulders. He knows I’m about to leave Round Hill behind me forever.
* * *
Three days after my house is gone, Reed drives me to the airport in Raleigh.
“I’ll park and come in with you,” he offers, but I shake my head. We’ve already said our goodbyes and I’m ready to be back on my own. Nevertheless, once I’m in my window seat on the plane, waiting for takeoff, I find myself thinking about how nice it would be if Reed visited me in San Francisco. I imagine walking across the Golden Gate Bridge with him. Introducing him to my friends. It will probably never happen, and maybe that’s for the best. He deserves someone who can give him all her heart. Although we rekindled a bit of something from when we were young, he will be fine without me. I realized that at the pig pickin’。 He knows everyone, and I could tell that there are a few women in Round Hill who have had their eye on him for years. He won’t be alone for long.