Page 4 of The Choices I've Made
With a crumpled-up phone number in hand, I said my good-byes to the overly eager Makayla and headed out of the airport.
The first breath of that sticky Southern air just about knocked me backward.
It was barely April, and already, the humidity had found its way to North Carolina. It smelled sugary, like sweet tea on the porch. It smelled like flowers and sunshine and afternoon bike rides.
It smelled like regret and sorrow.
Although I hadn’t been here in years, I hadn’t forgotten my way around. I took a quick glance across the baggage claim area, locating the rental car area almost immediately. The Raleigh airport hadn’t changed a bit, and as I ambled my way toward the shuttle that would take me to the rental area. I found myself smiling as fond memories of college football with the gang and long road trips to this small airport with my family to pick up relatives came rushing back.
A life that had long ago since passed.
I should have flown to Norfolk, I said to myself.
It was the shortest distance by car and didn’t carry nearly as many memories as this town did, but I’d wanted the driving time.
The preparation time.
No doubt, that feeling I was getting in the pit of my stomach would become a permanent fixture in my belly for the next several days.
Hell, the next few months, I reminded myself.
Especially when I saw her.
Molly McIntyre.
The girl who had once been my entire world…until, one day, she wasn’t. I’d thought I’d never see her again. I’d counted on it. I had left that life behind and everything that went with it. But, when I’d gotten the call last week, informing me of my father’s death, I had known our paths would soon cross.
No one ever really left Ocracoke Island.
At least not when you were a native. To the eight hundred or so people who called it home, Ocracoke Island was a treasure. A glimpse of the past, where life moved slower and the wordneighborstill meant something.
To me, however, it was simply the place I had grown up. A stopping point that had eventually catapulted me to where I was now, and I’d never had any intentions of returning.
But my father had worked his magic, making it impossible for me to stay away.
I should have known.
“You must be present at the reading of the will,” the lawyer informed me over the phone. He was formal and to the point, ignoring the fact that, twenty years earlier, I’d been one of his best friend’s kids rather than just a nameless benefactor.
“That’s horseshit, Alan. You and I both know my father wouldn’t have put such a ridiculous stipulation on his will. Besides, I don’t want anything anyway,” I said, hearing his immediate sigh, knowing he’d been caught in a lie.
“He said you would say that.”
“Then I guess I’m predictable. Just send me a copy in the mail, and give away his stuff to someone else, or donate it—hell, I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with it.”
“We need you here Jake.”
My hands went through my hair. “I’ll come back for the funeral and make all the arrangements. That’s all I can give you—a single day.”
“He left you the practice, Jake,” he finally said.
“Jesus, Alan,” I said, hearing the regret in his voice. “Why would he have done that?”
“Because he knew it was the only way to bring you back for good.”
And he was right.
If I chose to ignore it, the medical practice my father had kept and maintained for more than forty years would fall apart in a matter of weeks. With only one doctor and a single nurse doing the jobs of five, I knew they’d never get anyone in their right mind to take the position.
