You Can’t Hurry Second Chances

Chapter 1

My daddy always said he was keeping his mother’s house in East Texas in case somebody in the family was ever “down and out.” Though my family moved away from the town, Daddy wanted to keep that stake in Robin Creek.

I always thought Uncle Sherman, with his gambling habit, or Cousin Gail, with her failed multilevel marketing schemes, would be the first one to desperately need a roof overhead after Daddy died two years ago.

But despite having checked off all the prescribed boxes for optimal success and respectability, turns out it was me who needed the house.

Only I wouldn’t exactly say I was down or out—more like moved-over and reset.

And old, and single, and currently broke, but no one could have known about the broke part because I drove up that uneven driveway in my blue Mercedes sedan, rocks kicking up a plume of dust.

Not that it mattered.

Well, yes, it did.

I was sixty, recently divorced, old enough to earn full retirement from teaching but not old enough to withdraw the highest levels yet. By all accounts—and by all, I mean my daughter Terri’s and my friend Dawn’s accounts—I should have stayed in my thirty-year marriage to Eric.

“He’s not terrible,” Dawn had fussed. “Girl, you cryin’ with a loaf of bread under your arms.”

But now wasn’t the time to worry about other people’s opinions.

So there I was, pressing the silver button to park my car, boxes and laundry baskets filling every inch possible of the passenger’s seat, back seat, and trunk. I’d driven all the way from Austin nonstop, a fact neither my bladder nor my knees appreciated.

My bones needed to unravel slowly from the four-hour drive, but the weight in my midsection said that the moment I stood up, I must beeline it to the bathroom to avoid an accident.

I hadn’t had one yet. A blatant bladder malfunction, I mean.

And God knows I didn’t want my first memory back in town to be peeing on myself.

In a little Texas town like Robin Creek, it wouldn’t just be my memory—it would be everyone’s memory.

I’d already seen the living room curtains fluttering open as I drove down the street.

People knew I was there. I could hear the gossip already.

“She did what?”

“Splatted a puddle, right there on the porch!”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as I’m Black.”

Keys in hand and a prayer on my lips, I speed-walked across the gray stepping stones, past the screen, and into the house, my hips rolling side to side, my pelvic muscles defying gravity.

I swear, it was one fluid move from the driver’s seat to the toilet seat.

Thank goodness the layout of the left side of the house had remained as I remembered it.

I didn’t know what felt better: the whoosh of liquid leaving my system or the relief of making it to the bathroom in time. Yes!

You have to celebrate the little victories, you know.

Glancing around, I noticed subtle signs of change in the hall bathroom, the fresh paint masking old memories.

The carpet was gone, replaced by laminate flooring designed to resemble hardwood.

No one would have been fooled, but I’d picked the faux floors because, according to the contractor, they were more durable.

And then, like clockwork, I began to scold myself. Who was I kidding? The floors looked cheap. Like rental-house floors. If I skimped on real wood, I had no business trying to play this game of landlord. Unlike me, folks who flipped houses were rich.

Shoot, I’d barely made it inside the house before I peed on these floors. Then again, it wasn’t my fault. Everyone knows teachers have the worst bladders from “holding it” for so long. You can’t leave eight-year-olds unsupervised for a second.

As the stream of relief continued to flow from me, I defended myself to my own conscience all the more: What do you want me to do—drink half my weight in water every day or get myself all dehydrated? You can’t have both!

This was the story of my life. Warring within my own brain.

Wanting what I wanted, needing what I needed, but not feeling like I could have both.

Water and bladder control. Marriage and love.

Peace and people. Something always had to give because, cutting it this close, I was going to make a mess of myself one of these days.

I texted my daughter to let her know I had made it safely. She replied only with a thumbs-up, which I’d expected. She and I hadn’t been on the best terms since I made the decision to move away.

Well, at least the toilet in the main unit flushed properly, which had been a concern a few weeks ago.

Looked like the construction company I’d used had finally gotten it right.

In fact, the entire bathroom looked amazing, now that my biological crisis had passed and I could fully see straight again.

Those cabinets had turned out smooth and shiny.

The washroom, with its claw-foot tub and intricate tile work, whispered of practicality mixed with a touch of luxury.

I finished my business, washed my hands, and ventured through the rest of the house to see what had been accomplished despite them not being able to create the second kitchen and separate both sides of the house completely because I’d run out of money. For now.

As I walked the first few steps away from the bathroom, the home’s old character returned step by step—a creak here, a groan there.

I passed through the living area, where my grandmother’s old rocking chair still sat in the corner, the wooden armrest glossy from years of use.

This was not the house I’d grown up in, but these walls knew me as a child—wide-eyed, tracing the patterns on the rug, counting the ticks of the old grandfather clock, which was now missing from its nook.

In the newer bathroom, someone had made a sorry attempt at cleaning the mirror, leaving streaks of dust that skewed the reflection staring back at me. It was comforting, actually. This woman staring back wasn’t the real me. She had a dusty filter. The real me looked way better; I was sure of it.

I rolled a paper towel from off the holder, dampened a square, and wiped to reveal a better view of myself.

It had been three years since I’d stood in this bathroom looking at myself, but from this angle, and these extra countrified rays of sunlight…

It seemed like time was moving a little faster.

My lips, always my most prominent feature, still held their softness and strength, accentuated by a neutral shade of brown with a pop of gold in the center.

Learned that trick on YouTube.

High cheekbones and a broad forehead carried my wide nose in a way that somehow made me look serious all the time. Black don’t crack, but it does sag with years, gravity, and stress. Those three factors know no race, color, or creed.

Maybe if I hadn’t divorced Eric…

Sweat beaded around my receding hairline, reminding me that the house hadn’t been occupied in nearly a week and the air-conditioning had been turned off. At a little under two thousand square feet, it wouldn’t take long to reach a comfortable temperature in the house.

I made my way through the primary unit’s living room, stepping over an area rug with curled edges.

Continuing on, I crossed into what used to be the main hallway but was now in the renter’s unit.

The walls on this side had also been painted a neutral grayish-white color.

They were bare, but in my mind’s eye, I could still see faded photographs of relatives I had not thought about in years.

I couldn’t help but pause at each one, memories flooding in to welcome me back to Grandma Jewel’s house.

This was where I encountered my first problem: The person with hot flashes needs control of the AC. I made a note-to-self about ordering a personal fan to mitigate this oversight.

With the gentle push of a button and a hopeful click of the thermostat, the system hummed to life, a promise of relief soon to come. I continued surveying the house, the air from the vents beginning to stir, inviting the curtains into a lazy dance.

Two thousand square feet was about half the size of our home in Austin.

The kids had their side of the house, Eric and I had ours.

“Master suite,” they called it back then, before folks started waking up to Black history and women’s history more.

When I’d begun looking at homes in the city, just before I announced my intent to divorce Eric, I noticed they called the main bedroom “primary” now.

It’s a step in the right direction, if you ask me.

There’s much to be said about changing a name, which was why I decided to return to my maiden name, Hicks, in the divorce.

Joyce Marietta Hicks. Formerly known as Joyce Jackson through the biggest chunk of my life. My married name had a nice ring to it, I have to say: Mrs. Jackson. Eric and Joyce Jackson; it’s proper to say the man’s name first, I was taught.

Anyway, when I’d listed the other half of the incomplete duplex for rent, I made sure to call it the “secondary” unit.

And at the time, I’d thought it would be completely separate, which was why I could charge a pretty penny, by Robin Creek standards.

But now that my new tenant would be sharing my kitchen and the laundry room—at least for now—I’d had to let the previous signee out of the contract, re-advertise in the local paper with the reduced price, and lower my standards to get somebody who wasn’t as particular as me.

Gabriella Santos.

I wondered if she was Mexican. And then I wondered why I wondered.

Because the same way I appreciate the Realtors changing the name from “master” to “primary,” I’d like to think someone would welcome me despite whatever reservations society and/or their entire family had taught them to think about people who looked different from them.

Letting go goes a long way, and it goes both ways.