Page 6 of Barbed Wire Fences
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“No. No. No!” I shout at my mom’s tiny brown Shih Tzu, Bentley, who just picked up his squishy green toy bone and tossed it into my mother’s toilet at the exact moment that I was standing up and flushing it. “Fuck my life,” I grumble, reaching my hand into the swirling toilet bowl to try to dig it out, but it’s already made its way down into the dark abyss below and the water isn’t coming back up like it should be.
Mom’s going to be pissed.
I stare at the half full bowl in disbelief, confirming my assumption that the toy has both clogged the toilet and is lodged somewhere in the sludgy pipes under my mom’s trailer home, far away from anything I can reach.
Dammit.
I grab the plunger and start working furiously, praying for some miracle that’ll bring the toy back to the surface so I can laugh this whole mess off instead of spiraling over how pissed my mom’s going to be when she finds out. Our first real conversation in years, and it’ll be me telling her I clogged her toilet. If I wasn’t already dreading seeing her, this just cements it so heavy in my chest I almost turn around and drive straight back to Virginia.
Of course, my aggressive plunging doesn’t work, and Bentley’s adorable, grinning puppy face with his permanently retracted tongue only furthers my frustration.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” I say, pointing at the dog with the bottom of the plunger, though I know that I can’t be mad at him for long. I sigh, placing it back in the holder as I sink down to the worn, tile floor, head between my knees, trying to figure out what the hell to do.
It's been less than twenty-four hours since I arrived back in the small town of Whitewood Creek, North Carolina where I spent my teenage years, and I’m already starting my trip off quite literally in shit.
Do I want to be here right now? In the trailer home that I grew up in that’s filled with memories of neglect and addiction that no child should have witnessed. Hell no. But after a few more minutes of self-pity, I stand up, realizing that no matter how much I wallow about my current circumstances, the toy isn’t going to reemerge without some action.
I walk out to the kitchen that I’d entered a few minutes prior and grab my purse off the old, wooden table. It’s already noon, and my mom’s shift at the bank won’t be ending for six more hours, but just in case, I scrawl a note, warning her that I’m back intown,the prodigal daughter,and that her toilet is clogged so she doesn’t use it.
“You wait here and don’t cause any more trouble,” I say, pointing at Bentley, who whimpers like he knows what I’m saying, then scampers over to the floral print couch, hops on it, and falls asleep immediately. I wish I was that chill about meeting the wrath of Meredith.
The second I step out of the trailer home, I can feel the sweat start to bead at my temples, my hair sticking to the back of my neck, and the familiar line of sweaty moisture forming beneath my bra band like clockwork. This is why I don’t wear bras during the summer.
It’s one of those blistering summer days in North Carolina, a heat wave, from what I heard on the news, the kind that make you question every life decision that led you to stepping outside. All you can think about is sinking into a pool of ice-cold water while the sun beats down on the earth, relentlessly, killing everything in sight and making it brown.
I pull my hair up into a messy bun, desperate to get it off my neck, and yank off my long-sleeve button-up, knotting it around my waist. It’s a small relief, but it’s enough for now. The old air conditioner inside the trailer hums to life, cranking up as the temperature inside starts to climb.
I can almost hear my mom’s voice in my head—Close the damn door, Jael! This isn’t a barn, and we’re not trying to cool off the neighborhood.
I chuckle, heading across the lot to where I’d parked my car in the gravel driveway when I first arrived. As I slide into the driver’s seat, I cast a glance around the familiar court, smiling at the memories that weren’t all bad. My old friend Molly Patrick’s trailer is right next door, and though we hadn’t been close whenI first moved here, as we progressed through high school, she’d become one of my closest confidantes.
I make a mental note to text her, see if she’s still around and maybe up for a drink. God knows I’ll need one after meeting with my mom and the lawyer next week. I haven’t kept in touch with anyone since I left town. It wasn’t how I imagined things ending, but that last summer after senior year blindsided me in ways I couldn’t have predicted.
Cutting ties was easier on my head…and safer for my heart.
It’s a short five-minute drive into the town square where our local hardware store will hopefully have what I need to fix my mom’s toilet. I glance out the window, smiling at the unfamiliar, small-town faces that whiz past me as my hand enjoys the warm breeze.
It’s been ten years since I lived here, yet the town looks basically the same. Old abandoned buildings that we used to party in, the bank situated in the center of the square right along the town’s favored monument of an eagle, and tall green trees that line the entire drive.
The last time I was here was the summer before I left for college. What started out as a good summer ended with my first heartbreak—the kind you never really forget. I’d left in such a rush that most of my stuff was still in my old bedroom, making the trailer feel like a time capsule. I half-expected my mom to have trashed it all by now, maybe turned the room into a yoga studio or something. She never cared about the things I was into anyway. If anything, I was always more of a nuisance to her. A daughter she never really wanted.
After graduating from college in Richmond, I was hired by a local hospital system to work in their intensive care unit. At the time, I was certain I’d never set foot in North Carolina again.And so, I put roots down there. Made friends. Dated. Dedicated myself to my career. But fate, it seems, has had a different plan for me this summer.
A week ago, I got a call from my mom letting me know the news. My dad, that constant, dark cloud in my life that brought me to Whitewood Creek, had passed away from the alcohol addiction that plagued him my whole childhood and well into adulthood.
She’d asked me to come back to my hometown to help settle his affairs with her since I was mentioned in his will, and at first, I’d hesitated. I was in the middle of untangling my own messes—namely, the relationship I left behind when my fiancé of a year suggested a few months ago that we take a break, told me we should explore other people and relationships, and requested that we end our engagementindefinitely.
Talk about a blow to the ego. But I took it in stride, keeping a stiff upper lip, refusing to let him see how much it had affected me. Instead, I made some drastic changes. I couldn’t stomach the idea of running into him at the hospital where we both worked, watching him move on with my coworkers while I stayed stuck in the same place feeling sorry for myself. So, I switched from my charge nurse role to a traveling nurse position and got out of Virginia.
It was the easiest way to put distance between myself and the mess that I’d left behind, and, frankly, it’s been the right choice.
After finishing two assignments at hospitals in the Midwest, I’d finally started to settle into a new rhythm with career, but then my mom reached out, and something drew me back to Noth Carolina. I’m not sure what compelled me to honor her final request for my father, but I did. And now, here I am, working at the small towns’ community hospital with a staff that knows nothing of intensive or trauma care for the next month.
My plan is simple: settle my dad’s affairs, put that painful chapter behind me, and then leave Whitewood Creek forgood this time—unscathed, if I’m lucky.
“It’s only for a month,” I whisper to myself as I drive through the town square, memories flooding back with every familiar sight.
