I am sitting in a taxi ten minutes away from the house I grew up in. Everyone knows me here. Back then I was little Holly Way, now I am Holland Wayne big time New York news paper editor. Steve, the driver, takes a look at me. “ well I’ll be Holly little Holly is that you. He says and for a moment I want to say no, crazy Steve can’t stop asking questions once he starts but what’s the use he will find out sooner or later. “ Yes Steve it’s me” I reply. Well Holly I am sure sorry for your troublesome time.
” Thank you, I appreciate it”
“ so what’s with your hair?”

I stand outside the door for seems hours before my father steps out to check the mail
“ Oh Goodness miss I am sorry have you been out here long this retched door bell I think its going to have to be changed” he says I don’t think he even recognizes me.. I can’t say I blame him. I left this town
A hundred and thirty pound tom boy with red curly hair. Soon after arriving in New York I lost twenty pounds. I now go every three months to get my hair straightened and dyed blonde and I would die without make up as soon as I woke up.
“ Daddy it’s me” I say shyly”
“ Holly?” he sounds as unsure as I feel
“ Yes daddy”
“ Well honey I’m sorry I…I love the new look. Now come on get in side you’re going to get sick standing out here like this”
I walk in and everyone stares, all looking at me like I am a clown about to dine with queen Elizabeth. My brother Tex and his very pregnant looking wife Nancy, To my dismay my sister Amy and what looks to be her boyfriend, and of course Tilda, our maid. “Well honey sit down” daddy says to me. Stupidly I sit in the big red chair that was my mommas, Amy jumps up so fast you would think she had just caught fire.
“ You think you have the right to sit there holly!” she shouts
“ I…I didn’t think” I say stumbling over myself.
“ oh you didn’t think! Just like you didn’t think to come see her first ? Holland Wayne big New York star to busy to see her dieing mother”
“I’m not…”
“ oh now she’s trying to be humble or is that just stupidity. You sure as heck look like a star. What did you think pretty looks were going to make us forgive you?”
“ hush now. This is not the time for this” Tilda cuts in. Amy and this new boy storm out of the room. I changed my decision on where I was going to sit and went next to daddy.
“ Honey to be completely honest we didn’t expect you to show up”
“ she was my mother I wasn’t going to miss her funeral. I…I was afraid if I had come here before that I wasn’t going to be able to make it back”
“ Honey I think she would have rather seen you alive then you see her dead”
“ I had the phone then. This way I can be here with everyone else now that it is time to say goodbye”
“ well I guess I understand”
This excuse is pathetic but it is the lie I have been telling everyone including myself hoping that if I continued that it would eventually become true.
“ Well Holly you sure do look different” Tex pops in
“ well I kind of like it makes her look real pretty” Nancy follows
Nancy has always been real child like. She’s four years Younger than Tex. He’s a year older than me and I’m a year older than Amy , Amy had met her in high school. Their story is one often told. Nancy fell head over heels for her best friends older brother. Tex was too much of a “man” to date a freshman. Well a few years down the road Amy asked Tex to go with her to Nancy’s Graduation and he finally saw in her what she has always saw in him.
“ thanks Nancy I wanted something knew.” I left here right after graduation. I wanted a new. I wanted out of here. I wanted away from Amy.

Thankfully Amy and Ben, who’s name was told to me by Nancy during the meal, went out to eat that night, it made things a lot less awkward for me. After dinner I helped Tilda with the dishes. About half way through Amy walked in. At first she looked like she wanted to say something to me but she only scowled and left the room. Tilda then puts down the cup in her hand. “What happened” she says
“ she’s mad cause I didn’t come before….”
“ no what happened there’s more I know there is something from along time ago. We all know but we don’t know what it was. What happened”
“Lyle. Lyle happened”
“ Lyle cardheart that stupid boy she was with all through school?”
“ Yes, he came to my dorm about two weeks before I graduated from college. As you know at that point they had been together about eight years and they were about to get married. Well he came in with this story talking about how they got into a fight and she through him out crying and all the mess. So we talked, we drank a little wine, and I messed up. The next morning she came bursting through my door terrified cause she hadn’t seen him in two days and there he was only half dressed and in my bed. No matter how I tried she wouldn’t believe me so I left.
“ and you have been gone ever since”
“ I didn’t want to face her anymore so I changed my name, my look, and my life calling momma and daddy every so often but now , now I can not hide I shouldn’t have hid this long.”

The funeral was two days later. Being at that grave site was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. After we got back Ben purposed. At first I was a little angry that he chose this day to do it, but after learning that he didn’t want to push Amy to rush into a wedding and he didn’t want momma mourning an even she would never see and that this was his last gift to her I was ok with it. I suck past the commotion and up to mommas reading room, looking around was bittersweet. After a few moments Amy walked in. “ maybe this time it will happen” she says waving her fingers.
“ do you love him” I ask
“ so much” she chuckles “ oh and did momma ever. There were days the two of them went off on their own leaving me and daddy to our boredom”
“ well that sounds… different”
Well it’s definitely not common. When she lost the use of her legs she no longer wanted to leave the house. Their favorite thing had been going to the movies. So he stopped as well and the day one would come out he would get it and they would have their date.”
“ That sounds sweet”
“ It was. He is. Lyle was never that sweet”
“ Lyle was a jerk”
“ A jerk I let come between us”
“ Amy…”
“ No let me say this. I knew. I knew he no longer wanted me, but I kept going. He was a coward and I didn’t want to admit it. I wanted it to be you, I didn’t want it to be something I messed up on. The truth is he was a boy, he didn’t want to be a man and tell me he had changed his mind. In the end he hurt both of us.”
I walked over to her and for the first time in four years I hugged my sister.