Page 1 of Dear Southern Belle
1
BRADEN
The drive down from Connecticut to Georgia only took about two days, but it feels like it’s taken me a lifetime to get here. As a kid, my parents would tell me stories of growing up in the small idyllic town of Oak View, but one story they never told me about is why they left and never returned. When I would ask them about it they would just glance at one another with a look of sadness in both their eyes and say it was best that they stayed away.
I stopped asking when I was ten years old and found a framed photograph of an older man standing with my mother when she was about sixteen in front of a white Victorian house. They were both smiling for the picture, but the happiness meant to be conveyed in their expressions didn’t reach their eyes. I remember thinking, even then, that there was a sadness in their eyes like something haunted them. When my dad caught me with it, I tried to get some answers from him, but he lost his temper, telling me to stop trying to bring up old memories that would only cause pain to my mom.
But that wasn’t what I was trying to do. I was trying to find some answers, to get to know a family beyond my parents. I didn’t have siblings or aunts and uncles or cousins. It was only ever just the three of us. And while my parents were loving, and I never wanted for anything. I still felt like there was something missing—until now.
The email showed up last week with an invitation from my grandfather to come and visit. After twenty-five years of radio silence from him, I couldn’t help the curiosity that reignited in me to know more about family I’d never met before. So I packed up my bags and headed down south.
“You have reached your destination,” the GPS voice announces as I turn down a long road lined with large oak trees.
The same Victorian house from the picture I saw so many years ago appears. It looks older than I remembered it from the photo, but it doesn’t take anything away from the beauty this historic home holds. This is the first connection I have to my family’s history and I’m sure if the walls in this place could talk it would have some stories to tell.
I pull my car to a stop in front of the stone steps that lead up to the front door. It’s probably dumb, but I imagined my grandfather coming out to greet me when I arrived. I mean, he did invite me down here, but it almost looks like the house could be empty.
Shutting off the engine, I open the door and the southern summer heat hits me. I knew it would be hot, but I didn’t anticipate the humidity to make it feel like I was breathing under water.
“Who the hell are you?” A man bellows from behind me.
I turn and see an older version of the man from the picture, leaning on a can with deep set wrinkles accentuating his angry scowl.
“Are you Wade Foster?” I ask, but I already know the answer. If I hadn’t already seen a picture of him, I’d recognize his eyes. He has the same green eyes as my mother and me.
“Who’s asking?” His familiar eyes sweeping over me.
“I’m Braden Holt. I’m your grandson. Delilah’s son.”
“Grandson?” He wobbles a bit on his cane. “What the hell gives you the right to show up here without so much as an invitation?”
I stare at him in confusion. “What don’t understand? You invited me.”
“Boy, I didn’t know you existed until thirty seconds ago. How the hell would I have invited you to my home?”
I don’t understand what is happening. He’s older, so it’s possible that he might have forgotten that he reached out to me and invited me down here to visit. But besides the cane, he seems to fully be aware of what is going on, besides me showing up.
“You sent me an email.”
“I did no such—damn it all to hell. Martha!” he shouts.
The squeak of the screen door swings open and a middle-aged woman with a blonde bun on top of her head comes running out.
“He’s here,” she says looking at me with a wide smile. But it disappears when she turns to my grandfather. “Don’t be rude, Mr. Foster. Invite the young man in.”
“I told you not to put your nose into my business. I told you not to contact my family.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You said not to contact your daughter. And I didn’t. But I did reach out to your grandson on your behalf.”
He opens his mouth like he wants to argue with her, but nothing comes out. Whoever this woman is, she seems to have found a loophole around his orders to her.
“You’re fired!” he yells and limps back around the side of the house.
When he’s gone, I turn to the woman, but she looks anything but concerned. It makes me wonder if this is something he says a lot but never follows through on.
“Don’t worry about him,” she assures me. “He will come around to the idea. He just has to get used to the idea of you being here.”
“And how long will that take?” I ask, glancing back at my car.
