Chapter 5
Meadow tugged her hoodie tighter around her body as she yawned her way across the front porch.
Her boots crunched over the gravel while the dew coated her already moisturized skin.
The air felt cool, damp, and she was still half-asleep.
Everything on the property woke up slowly.
The sprinklers sputtered to life, the old well pump still rumbled in the distance and the birds made noise because that’s all they ever did.
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
She was tired.
She was always tired, but sitting in that feeling wouldn’t do anything to lighten her daily load.
“Should’ve stopped after two rum punches,” she muttered to herself, stepping off the porch and onto the worn path leading toward the greens.
Morning was her favorite time though…before invoices crossed her email…before her Daddy got loud about irrigation flow and blade height. Out here, the world was hers and only hers…quiet and wide and held together by her and her father’s hard work.
She made her rounds like muscle memory.
Checked the sprinklers.
Tapped the irrigation box twice because it always acted stupid on Mondays.
Fed the feral cat that wasn’t actually feral, it just refused to come inside.
Cleared the fallen branches from the heavy wind last night.
Inspected the cart tires.
Re-coiled the hoses so her Daddy wouldn’t gripe about “trip hazards.”
She did it all half-awake, coffee-less, in her bonnet under her hood, with not a single piece of her looking like she ran a whole driving range.
“Phew…” Meadow groaned, hands on her hips as she surveyed the greens. She smiled at the dream of her father being real and tangible. “This will always be my favorite place.”
A bird chirped in agreement or disrespect, it was hard to tell which.
Meadow hated those damn birds.
They were always lurking, always singing those joyful little songs that made her roll her eyes.
Joyful for what?
The world had vicious teeth and bit hard as hell.
Her dreams felt more like chores now, and some days she swore she was running on fumes and memory alone. But this land…this acreage of patchy grass and stubborn soil…it was stitched into her bones.
Growing up, her father, Raymond had her out there in too big and mismatched clothes, before she could spell grass.
She followed him everywhere.
From hole to hole, mower to mower, clubhouse to cart shed.
He taught her how to read the wind before she learned long division, how to grip a club before she knew cursive, how to fix an engine with a hairpin and how to pray when money got tight and they had to make things stretch.
This land raised her.
The grass caught her falls.
The sun kissed every stage of her childhood…every birthday, every scraped knee, and every tantrum about chores.
And back then, she really believed this place was magic.
A little pocket of the world where Raymond’s dreams sprouted right alongside hers.
But the magic faded when life got heavy.
When her mama’s memory started slipping.
When bills piled.
When lessons slowed.
When being the caretaker, the worker, the daughter, and the dream-holder fell on her shoulders all at once.
Now the greens didn’t just remind her of her father’s joy. They reminded her of everything she was fighting to keep alive. Everything she refused to let crumble.
Dragging her foot through the dewy grass, her eyes drifted across the familiar hills and dips of the land. “This place raised me,” she whispered to herself. “And it refuses to let me go,” she hissed.
The birds chirped again.
Meadow glared at them through squinted eyes. “Go somewhere else with all that joy. Some of us are working.”
But even through her annoyance…she smiled, and giggled at herself for talking to the birds… this was home.
And even if life felt like it was spinning too fast, this land stayed steady beneath her feet. The same grass her father walked, the same air she grew up breathing, the same sky she learned to fly under.
The same sky her mama remembered her under.
Here, she was still the little girl trailing behind her Daddy, and the grown woman trying to carry his dream at the same time.
Here, she was both.
Inhaling the air, Meadow let it just sit there before pulling herself together enough to check off her favorite task of the day.
“Good morning, Mama.” Meadow’s voice was always at a low volume and laced in honey straight from the beehive behind the house.
Magnolia grunted, her face balling into a frown.
Meadow’s smile fell.
Not all the way, she never let it fall all the way, but enough.
Enough for the air in her chest to dip.
She always came in hopeful.
Always walked through that door thinking today might be the day Magnolia’s eyes lit up with recognition, with that warmth Meadow grew up basking in.
But that frown…that tiny wrinkle of her Mama’s nose…that soft grunt of confusion…it told her everything.
Some mornings her mama knew her.
Some mornings she didn’t.
And some mornings…like this one…Magnolia looked at her the way people look at strangers in grocery store aisles.
Meadow swallowed down the disappointment and the little sting in her throat.
She’d gotten good at that.
“Mmhmm,” she murmured, forcing a small smile. “You woke up feisty. That means it’s gon’ be a good day.”
Meadow swallowed the ache. “Hey, Beautiful,” she whispered.
Magnolia’s gaze drifted. “Who…are you?”
There it was.
The question Meadow hated more than she would ever admit.
But she’d learned something over time.
Magnolia didn’t respond to explanations, she responded to stories.
Stories were the only doorway Magnolia still walked through willingly…
the only way Meadow could reintroduce herself without saying, Mama, it’s me…
the only way to place her own face back into her mother’s world without forcing it.
So Meadow eased onto the edge of the bed. She tugged the blanket up and touched Magnolia’s hand lightly, not enough to startle, just enough to anchor her.
“You wanna hear a story?” Meadow asked.
Magnolia’s brows relaxed just a little and her eyes lit up. “A…pretty one.”
“Okay,” she sputtered, slipping into the role she’d created months ago,
the one Magnolia remembered even when she didn’t remember her own daughter.
The Black queen…the survivor…the girl who kept her land alive.
A version of Meadow that Magnolia never forgot.
“Once,” she began, “there was a Black queen named Marai. Her kingdom sat at the edge of the world where red clay met river water. The soil was cracked, the air was dry, but her people still planted seeds.” Meadow looked out the window.
“Every dawn, Queen Marai walked the land barefoot so she could feel what needed healing.
When she found a weak spot, she knelt and pressed her palm to it until the earth remembered its strength.
Some said that made her soft. Others said it made her holy,” Meadow looked down at her Mama.
One day, men came from the North with gold on their tongues, promising to build towers if she gave them the land.
Marai smiled and told them, ‘The ground already knows my name. I don’t need towers to prove it.
’ The men left angry. The next morning her fields bloomed anyway. ”
“Aww,” Magnolia crooned.
Meadow did everything in her power not to cry. “And when her people asked how she kept faith through drought and doubt, she said, ‘Because someone has to.’”
Magnolia’s eyelids fluttered. “That’s a nice story…what happens next?”
“I’ll tell you more later, Mama.”
Magnolia hummed already drifting away again, breath evening out, features softening.
Meadow sat there another second, letting herself feel the sting, the pride, and the grief all at once.
Some days her Mama forgot her name.
Other days she forgot the world.
But she never forgot Queen Marai.
And that was enough…it had to be…even if Meadow wished it weren’t the only thing left.
She kissed Magnolia’s forehead. “I’ll be back, Beautiful,” she whispered.
Then she slipped out the room, closing the door with care.
The morning air hit her face as soon as she stepped back onto the porch.
Down by the mower shed, her father tinkered with something under the hood of an old golf cart. His old Army Vet baseball cap was tilted sideways. There was grease on his fingers and he hummed a Luther Vandross song like he had no worries in the world.
“Hey, Daddy,” Meadow called, smiling at the age written all over his face.
Raymond was sixty-five and built from the type of cloth time couldn’t recreate anymore.
Black, sturdy, Southern, and stubborn as hell.
The Juniper Falls’ sun had carved lines into his skin, each one telling a story of long days and even longer sacrifices. His beard was mostly gray now…soft around his mouth but sharp along his jaw. His shoulders weren’t as broad as they used to be, but they still carried everything that mattered.
His walk had slowed a little over the years, but his spirit was faster than a golf ball whizzing through the air.
Raymond moved with purpose, he talked with certainty, and he loved with quiet, steady hands.
To Meadow, he was the safest man alive.
He lifted his head at the sound of her voice, squinting in her direction like the sun was too bright and she was too precious to look at directly.
“Well looka here,” he said, wiping his hands on an old, tattered rag. “My early bird is up.”
Meadow walked toward him, her heart warming just from watching him stand there.
Raymond wasn’t perfect…he was opinionated, set in his ways, and too generous for his own good, but he was hers.
And all her life, he’d been the one constant thing she could lean on.
This land was his dream.
She was his joy.
And Meadow had spent her whole life trying to honor both.
He had raised her on routine and love, on hard work and laughter, on the belief that a Black girl could master a golf course even if the world didn’t expect her to.
Raymond taught her how to mend engines and avoid broken hearts.
He taught her soil, wind, patience, and pride.
He taught her how to be strong on days she wanted to fall apart.
Everything she knew lived in his hands.
“Whatchu smiling at?” he asked, raising a brow at her.
“You,” she simply admitted.
Raymond chuckled, shaking his head. “Go on now before you make me tear up. I’m too old to be crying this early in the morning… Surprised your giggly ass got up like you ‘pose to.”
“I wasn’t giggly.”
“You was.” He pointed a wrench at her. “Like yo’ mama used to get when I took her to the juke joint.”
Meadow rolled her eyes and walked over. “Stop reminiscing. Everything fixed over here?”
“Almost.” He wiped his hands on a rag. “You check the lines?”
“Yep.”
“The pump?”
“Yep.”
“The—”
“Daddy,” she warned. “I run this place. I know the checklist.”
He smirked, the left side of his mouth always lifting higher. “I know. I just like askin’ so you don’t forget who taught you.”
“Please.” She bumped his shoulder with hers. “I been raising this land since before you let me play with dolls.”
Raymond chuckled and tossed the rag onto the cart. His eyes softened in a way only fathers with daughters could manage. “You goin’ to get the guest house ready?”
“Yep.”
He exhaled, rubbing his chin. “Man called last night. Said the young man comin’ is…goin’ through somethin’. Be patient with him.”
Meadow raised a brow. “I’m always patient.”
Raymond stared at her knowing she was lying.
She sighed. “Okay, I’m sometimes patient.”
“That’s more like it.” He leaned against the cart. “You know this place…it helps people, always has. He might need quiet more than most.”
Meadow softened. “I’ll be good.”
Raymond nodded, satisfied. “Alright then. Go on. Make sure the AC in that house ain’t fried.”
Meadow groaned. “Ugh, Daddy, if it’s fried, you fixing it.”
“We’ll see,” he mumbled, already turning back to the engine.
Meadow went to walk away to finish her daily tasks but thought of something. “Who is it?”
Ray only grinned at her. “You just gon’ have to wait and find out…he’s real special though, baby…I can feel it.”
Rolling her eyes, she trekked on toward the guest house that wasn’t too far away from the main house. It wasn’t much to look at either but it was one hundred percent Black owned and that made up for that lack of five-star accommodations most of their elite guest were used to.
Meadow pushed open the guest house door with her hip, letting the familiar scent of lemon cleaner and lavender drift around her as she stepped inside.
Her mother’s signature scent always lingered, softening the edges of the room in a way she could never quite replicate.
Before she could even think about straightening anything, she dropped her phone onto the little dining table, thumbed through her playlists, and tapped the one that always got her through chores.
Nar was a constant on her playlist. The bass kicked in immediately, low and warm.
A sound you felt in your hips before you felt it anywhere else.
“All right now,” she mumbled, pulling her bonnet off as the beat settled into her bones. “Let’s get this done.”
She started moving from corner to corner with an ease that came from routine.
The music wrapped itself around her, sliding up her spine and loosening her shoulders.
Before long, she was rolling her hips while tucking the sheet, swaying while adjusting the blinds, bouncing in place as she dusted the dresser.
She was comfortable here, completely unguarded, her body catching every beat without effort.
She bent over the bed to tighten the fitted sheet, the leggings hugging her the way leggings always did when you bought the right size—the way they held everything together and still let it move.
Her thighs brushed as she shifted. Her curls bounced across her shoulders.
She reached even farther under the bed to grab some random piece of paper that the wind must’ve dragged inside, humming along like she hadn’t a care in the world.