Today's Reading
Chapter One
They say you can't go home again.
But could a man go home for the very first time?
John-Parker Wisdom was about to find out.
The rambling, two-story house on a sunshiny lot on Wedgewood Lane looked the same. Mostly. John-Parker spotted a sag here, paint chips there, but the house was still standing.
He'd thought of this place every day since he was an ornery, wayward eighteen-year-old eager to take on the world by himself. Independence day, he'd thought back then.
Now he knew better.
Miss Mamie's house. The house that had built him.
The closest thing to a home he'd known since he was eleven years old, a time so faded in memory, he couldn't conjure his parents' faces. They were an ache, somewhere deep in his soul, that he rarely visited.
Truth was, he didn't often visit any of his past. It hurt too much.
But that was about to change.
He pulled his gleaming blue Dodge Ram to the curb adjacent to the house and killed the engine. His eyes trained on the old structure, his mind tumbled back in time to the first day he'd come here.
Scared, mad, heartsick, and ready to run away.
He shook his head, amused and amazed at how far he'd come. How disciplined he was now, considering how wild he'd been back then. He'd been wilder than the dark tangle of shrubs and woods bordering the creek behind Mamie Bezek's house.
Would Miss Mamie be surprised to see him on her doorstep? Would she even recognize him after fifteen years? From a boy to a man, he'd changed plenty.
He'd planned this day in his head a hundred times. The day when John- Parker Wisdom had made something of himself and returned to make amends.
His gaze roamed the yard. John-Parker frowned, puzzled.
The lawn was empty. A little overgrown. There was no football some boy had forgotten to bring inside. No ancient pickup truck that one of Mamie's street rats was trying to make drivable.
Street rats. That's what the small Oklahoma town had called them. Mamie's street rats.
He supposed they had been. But in true rebel fashion, the ornery lot of them had grabbed onto the moniker to wear like a badge of pride. A protective mechanism, he knew now.
The derision had hurt, burrowing deep into each of them until they'd believed the worst of themselves like everyone else. Except for Mamie.
At nearly thirty-four, the moniker still stung John-Parker a little. Not much, but some. The lingering scent of some taints never quite went away.
He squinted around the sparse neighborhood, growing uneasy for reasons he couldn't pinpoint.
Where were the kids? The next generation of rowdy boys with trouble in their souls and on their minds. The kids Mamie saved from themselves?
School maybe? Miss Mamie was a stickler for education.
That must be it. School.
John-Parker took his summer Stetson from the passenger seat and clapped it on his head.
Might as well knock on the door and find out.
Hope and a thrill of excitement shimmied through him. Miss Mamie would be over the moon to see him. He was sure of it.
She'd forgive him. He knew she would. All he had to do was ask. She'd wrap her fleshy arms around him and, smelling of talcum powder, she'd welcome him home. Forgiven and loved.
...
