Chapel Hill, NC. 1994.

I want to spread my arms out and spin in circles, but they frown on that in libraries, espescially in rare book rooms. I squash my Julie Andrews impulse and choose instead to squeeze the hand of my travelling companion.

"I could live here."

Mark smiles like we're sharing a guilty secret. "Me, too." His breath quickens slightly as we walk past the first editions. "We're going to live here some day."

"Do you think they'll let us just pitch a tent?"

"I think they'll expect us to pay tuition and stuff like that."

"So what do you think?"

"This is it. This is definitely it. The UNC English department won't know what hit it."


********

The Great Graduate School Tour of 1994 we called it. Four days in a cramped car, surviving off sandwiches of organic peanut butter and GMO-enhanced strawberry jam on spelt bread interspersed with occasional attempts to find a veggie plate in the Carolinas that didn't involve bacon. Neither Mark nor I had figured out he was gay yet, so my passive aggressive attempts at seduction were met with his earnest desire to discuss the relative merits of the schools we'd been to that day.

We didn't know then that I'd never make it to UNC, and he wouldn't make it past that first semester. But he would move here and begin a home.

********
Konnarock, VA. 1999.

"I don't know. The boys are still little yet." My hip is starting to ache from holding Ashe through last night's set of pre-bedtime tantrums and pacing the floor for hours. My throat aches from crooning Patsy Cline in an effort to get him to sleep. I'm pacing the house now, with the kids down for a rare simultaneous nap. I should be sleeping.

"C'mon. I'll come up and get you. It'll only be three days. We'll stop at Hardees and get butter biscuits on the way. You need to come to the film festival."

There's too much. I want to go; I want to stay.

"Besides, I told Betty you'd help with the Dyke Band hotdog sale and fundraiser."

I feel what is left of my resolve give way. "Let me ask my grandparents if they can watch the boys. It's just three days, after all."

"So their dad can't take care of them over a long weekend? Isn't that his job?"

"He calls that babysitting."

"Why are you still married?"

********
That was my first North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I'm not entirely sure I slept. Especially after the first night. It was a nonstop whirlwind of films and people and a life I had only seen glimpses of through Ernie and Tim. I wanted more. I had come back to the home I hadn't seen since I left the hanging out with the boys from West Hollywood days.

Mark and I laugh that we're confusing everyone. We seem like a couple. Then we commisserate over Chardonnay and Guinness that we didn't hook up with anyone despite our elaborate hand signals for "I'm not coming home tonight."

***********
Durham, NC. 2001.

My knees are drawn up to my chest. I know I'm cold; I know I'm crying. Somewhere, I can almost hear Mark asking if we should go back to the apartment, if I'm hungry, if I'm going to be okay.

I think his arm is around my shoulders. All I really know is that I just watched a movie that proved to me that I have no business being married.

I lean my head against his shoulder, letting him wipe ineffectually at my tears. "Why don't we go get a drink and go back to the apartment?"

My sniff is undignified at best. "I'd like that." I won't call it home; not yet. That would be imposing, and freak Mark out. I allow him to help me off the cold concrete steps and guide me down the street.

I finally start to smile as he begins to speculate out loud if the bartender will be able to tell that he ordered the white wine and I ordered the Guinness.

******
I didn't know it then, but Julie Johnson would be the movie that made me realize I needed more, more than what I'd settled for, more than what I was living. At the time, all I knew I just couldn't quit crying. And that this place, this person, would take care of me. This was home.

******

Chapel Hill, NC. 2002.

I kick off my cute but uncomfortable dress shoes, contemplating strangulation. "Well, so much for THAT."

"She was too old for you!"

"I thought I was the one who got to pick who I got to go home with!"

"Well...I still think she was too old for you."

I keep the disgusted noise at the back of my throat and walk into the kitchen. The newest housemate is hunkered down at the kitchen table near the communal fruitbowl and the "please don't eat unless you ask first" bread basket. He smiles at either my ridiculous outfit or barely contained outrage and offers me a beer. I thank him and glare at Mark.

This process would repeat itself several times during the night.

Until I went upstairs. With Kent.

*********

Enter the new housemate, name of Kent. The idea of finding home suddenly takes a new and decidedly strange turn.

********

October 2005. Easton, PA.

"I'm staying." My jaw clenches. "I can't leave. Not now. They need me."

"Where will you go? You can move here. We can move next door." Kent has it all worked out: the apartment, the move, living together and all that implies.

I shrug even though I know he can't hear. "How can I go? The kids need me."

I barely hear the rest of the conversation. I think I cried. I know I cried and tried to be silent. But the spot on my lower lip that I'd gnawed raw spoke differently.

*******

I can feel myself fade. I don't want to admit it. But there are mornings when I look in the mirror and seem....transparent. Conversations take place in whispers, or in stolen moments at 5 in the morning while I try to fill the loss with coffee and chocolate pastries.

********
January 2006. Stanhope, New Jersey.

"Okay, now read Scorpio."

" 'Today promises greatness and rich rewards if you are prudent.' What the heck does THAT mean?"

"It means to be nice to your older brother today."

The paper rattles as he throws it down on the floor of the minivan. "Oh, MAN! It always means that!"

"Want to read Kent's now?"

"Yes! And I'll have to tell him that Dratini says hi!"

I hand over the paper and the cell phone, keeping one eye out for the schoolbus while I settle back and listen to the high-pitched voice. "Sagittarius...today is a banner day for you. Banner is one of those wavy flag things, right? Okay...so you are having a wavy flag day..."

********

Waiting for the bus is my favorite part of the day. Some days we're in the van with the heat blowing full blast; some days we're on the concrete bench near the mailbox, blowing on the daffodil shoots (gently, gently) to help them grow. Rain or shine, though, Ashe works his way through the horoscopes--Gemini, Scorpio, Sagittarius--while Kent and I listen, captive, as he sounds out the words.

When he dashes to the bus, my breath comes out in a rush, hurried as the morning before me. "I miss you."

*****
July 4, 2007. Stanhope, PA.

The excitement is palpable. The boys clamber in, arguing over seats. My grandmother grabs me and hugs hard, whispering in my ear, "You're going to be alone. Be careful. We'll take care of the babies."

I wave goodbye, flinch at my ex's arm across my shoulders, then shrug out from underneath to reach for the phone.

I don't whisper. "Yeah, I can be on the plane tomorrow morning."

******

July 8, 2007. Chapel Hill, NC.

"You sound weird. Are you packing up my shit and putting it out on the lawn?" I try not to let on that my throat has gone dustbowl dry.

"Yeah. Don't come home."

This was never my home. But you don't just get to kick me out of it, do you?

I manage to swallow my shakes and tears, put on a brave face and say "Hey, Kent...remember that idea about us moving in together?"

August 1, 2007

The key takes a bit of work in the lock. The neighbors are already proving to be rowdy and disreputable after about 12 minutes. The screen door is ripped.

The door creaks open on floors that glow in the late afternoon light. I close my eyes against the brightness and hear the soft whisper against my ear.

"It took you a long way, but you finally got here. Welcome home."