Waiting for Augusta

by Jessica Lawson

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “My son, eating in Augusta National’s clubhouse,” Daddy said, shaking his head. “Man alive, of all the inconvenient times to be stuck in a cremation urn.”

  We ordered fried chicken in the clubhouse restaurant and were the only children in the whole place. I put Daddy’s urn on the table as an authority figure, right by the window view. I could picture his face perfectly while I gave him every detail of the room, the server, the menu.

  Halfway through her plate of chicken, Noni reached out and clutched my hands, a worried look on her face. “Wait,” she said. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What?”

  She pointed to a man across the room, eating a piece of cake. “We forgot to get you a birthday dessert.” And with that, Noni grinned and ordered the biggest ice cream sundae the kitchen would make.

  When it arrived, she sang me a soft happy birthday with her beautiful, low voice. And after she’d polished off most of the dessert like it was the last ice cream she’d ever get, we got serious about figuring out where to wait for nightfall.

  After getting soaked the night before, having a roof over our heads would be nice. The clubhouse closets and bathrooms were out. Too much security and chance of getting caught. The maintenance sheds were out since they’d have people going in and out long after the crowds left. We were running out of options, and I can’t say that a piece of me wasn’t thinking maybe we should just go back to Uncle Luke’s with Daddy and see what happened. Maybe Daddy was wrong about being out of time.

  No.

  It was a more forceful no than most objects would give me.

  Don’t go.

  I couldn’t be certain, but I think that voice was coming from outside the window. From Augusta National itself.

  If I squinted my eyes, the grass, the trees, the flowers, the hills, the water . . . it was all breathing. What better place to hide on Augusta National than to become part of it? What better floor and roof than Augusta itself? It wasn’t going to rain again. That storm had already come and tested us. No, Augusta was calling to me, letting me know that it would keep us safe this time.

  Earlier, the course had looked like a painting I could step inside. I scanned the possibilities, then remembered the perfect spot. I pushed a finger against the window, pointing far across the land and sky, past a crowd that watched a caddie hand a club to a player putting on the eighteenth, past all the people who loved golf and straight to a spot where it couldn’t be played at all. “Abbott Meyers,” I said.

  Noni held a hand over her eyes and looked in the direction I’d pointed. “What? Where are we hiding?”

  “The boy from my daddy’s goodnight stories. He used to hide out in trees after caddying so he could sneak down and play golf courses at night. We’re gonna pull an Abbott Meyers.”

  Beyond the window were acres of the most beautiful ground in Georgia, divided into yardages and challenges, tee boxes and holes, hills and hazards. Most of the big trees on the grounds had tall trunks and pine needles, but there was one that might work. An oak with low enough first branches and plenty of leaves. “That one,” I said.

  HOLE 17

  Never the Hard Part

  Noni sat in a branch opposite mine. She looked out over Augusta with a blank expression. The temperature on the course had dropped steadily since sundown, and it was chilly. I’d put on a pair of pants and two extra shirts, but she’d refused the extra clothes of mine from the backpack and had her jeans and Coca-Cola shirt back on, like she wanted to feel as much of the world as she could, even if that meant being uncomfortable.

  That bruise of hers was the worst I’d seen it. Whenever I’d bumped her left side throughout the day, she’d clearly been in pain. The rest of her was pale, like the more that bruise hurt, the closer she was to fading away. I had a horrible feeling that she’d disappear on me. She’d been so quiet. Thinking about her daddy, I guess.

  “Did you hear that?” Noni turned in her perch, glancing beyond Augusta National’s property.

  “Hear what?”

  She frowned and held her elbow bruise. “Maybe nothing. I thought I heard a train. Are there any rail yards or tracks around here?”

  “I don’t know. You thinking of stealing my backpack and hopping another train?” I felt my smile fall when her face didn’t change.

  “Noni, where are you from?”

  “Alabama,” she replied. “You need more?”

  My fingers traced a leaf. I was about to pluck it, but didn’t. Looked nicer there on the tree than in my hand. “Don’t need more. I’m glad you came to Hilltop.”

  “Me too.” Her leg reached out to tap my shoe. “And just because you don’t need more doesn’t mean you don’t want more. Or deserve more. You’ve been a good friend.”

  “Did you find your sign?”

  “Not yet. I feel like time’s just about up.” She closed her eyes. “I thought I’d find it by now.”

  “We can look somewhere else,” I said. “Where are you going after this?”

  Her big eyes stared right into me, the way May’s did. “I’m not sure.”

  I hoped whatever happened in the next hours, she would come home with me. Noni’d said she didn’t want to, but I couldn’t believe that was true. I was sure I could convince Mama to keep her. We’d been pretending to be brother and sister for just a few days, but it felt like it was meant to be. We fit together somehow, I was certain.

  As for what was about to happen with me and Daddy, I felt the opposite of certain. I’d had seconds and thirds and fourths of both happiness and heartache that day, and now I had the happiness-heartache meat sweats.

  “Did you have a good birthday?” Daddy asked.

  “The best,” I told him, which was true. But it was a shadowed best, with What-I-Have-To-Do-Next standing over it and blocking a good part of the light. I didn’t want to say goodbye. I didn’t see how I could.

  “You need anything else from me?” he asked. “Words of wisdom for your future, like why it’s a bad idea to drink a lot of beer or reasons not to get a tattoo on April Fools’ Day? You want some advice about girls? How to throw a right hook without breaking your hand?”

  I hugged him close. “I guess I’ll figure that stuff out. But thank you for asking.”

  Daddy didn’t talk much more as we sat up there, keeping track of time on a watch we’d borrowed from Uncle Luke, waiting for Saturday to become Sunday. That was okay. We’d had more talking and listening between us in the last week than in my life altogether. Any idea I had about keeping Daddy for myself seemed nothing more than selfish now.

  I had so many memories of my father. The good ones were there, but the painful ones outweighed them, and for a moment I wondered if that’s what made the golf ball in my throat so heavy. The lump in my throat was the heaviest it’d been. If only I could find a way to let the dark, heavy memories go. Watch them drift away like colored balloons that would fade and disappear into the midnight sky.

  It was one o’clock in the morning when we hopped down. Noni buttoned her father’s shirt around her and we stayed among the trees as much as possible. The air was moist, and clumps of fog drifted here and there along the course. I nearly stopped myself once, my feet not wanting to walk forward, choosing instead to trip me so I landed straight on top of the urn.

  It knocked the breath out of me, and I felt like I’d gotten sucker-punched in the belly at the school yard. Rolling onto my side, I pushed Noni’s hand away. “I’m fine,” I told her, trying not to let my voice tremble. “Daddy’s just nervous, I think.”

  She moved to let me stand by myself. “I’ll bet he is.”

  Hurrying between pockets of cover, islands of brush and trees that dotted the course, we made our way to the length of trees along the right side of the eighteenth fairway and tucked ourselves far within, walking north to the final hole. The plan was for me to walk out of the masked area and take care of Daddy while Noni stayed in the trees, ready to scream and provide a distr
action in case anyone tried to stop me.

  “Okay,” Noni said. “If I have to hide and you come to find me, walk around and whisper the password and I’ll pop out. Password will be—”

  “ ‘It’s a fine night for trespassing,’ ” I supplied.

  “That’s not a word.”

  I squeezed her hand. “No, it’s not.”

  Underneath dropped pine needles, a small group of flowers still had their purple blooms opened to the moonlight. They weren’t four inches high, but stood thin-stemmed and straight. Other blossoms around the course had closed up when nighttime approached, but these tiny things looked good and awake.

  Noni plucked two and held them out to me. “For your father.”

  I picked two for her. “For yours.”

  She took the ones from my hand and twisted the four together, knotting them loosely near the flower base and the ends. “Whenever my daddy and I got in fights, I’d always make him a flower wreath like this,” she told me softly. “He’d say ‘I forgive you,’ and then I’d say, ‘No, I forgive you,’ and then he’d say, ‘Are we okay?’ and I’d say, ‘We’re okay.’ ” She set the little wreath on the ground next to a tree root, then stood, looking at it for a moment. “Leave it there.” Digging in her pocket, she came up with a wrinkled newspaper article. She tucked it in my pocket.

  “What is it?”

  “Read it later. It’s the whole truth,” she said. “For luck.” Noni stepped closer to me, her eyes shining. Her father’s shirt moved in and out from her chest with soft breaths. “Benjamin Putter,” she whispered, lifting her hand toward my neck, “tell me what’s stuck in your throat.” Her fingers reached and gently pressed against my skin, right over the lump.

  I swallowed and felt it move. “A golf ball.”

  She let out a long sigh, lowered her hand and head and smiled at the ground. “You have a golf ball in your throat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Benjamin Putter, when you get it out, can I have it?”

  “You believe me? And you actually want the ball?”

  “I told you I was looking for a miracle.” She stared out at something beyond the course. “Huh. There it is again. I could swear I heard a train whistle.” She reached out to squeeze my hand. “I believe you. And I believe in you. Now, go and set your daddy free.”

  I stepped out of the bushes, holding my daddy’s urn. The sky was covered with stars that whispered among themselves, saying words that I should have known all along.

  Getting onto Augusta National was never the hard part.

  HOLE 18

  Daddy, Me, and the Whole Truth

  The eighteenth hole of Augusta National Golf Club was named Holly. It shared a name with my mama. I must’ve seen the word a hundred times over the last few days, looking in Daddy’s Augusta book and checking the course map, but it hadn’t hit me until I was walking to the final green. It hadn’t sunk in that those 420 yards could be more than a golf hole to Daddy. Or that a golf course could be far more than just a place where a game was played. I’d heard those words from Daddy time and time again, but they’d always belonged only to him. I felt a shift inside me as I walked, like something moving over to make room so those words could belong to me, too.

  There was a clear path to the hole, not a security man in sight to slow me down. I almost wished one would appear, just to take away my chance of doing what I came all the way from Hilltop to do.

  “Hey, Daddy, you didn’t marry Mama because her name was part of this golf course, did you?” I was only half-joking. Nervous joking, really.

  “No, Ben,” he replied, a coarse, unshaven noise coming from his throat. “Do you know why I named you after Ben Hogan?”

  “Because you didn’t like the name Byron or Bobby or Sam or Walter?”

  He didn’t laugh. “I named you after Ben Hogan because when you came into the world, it was like winning my own personal 1951 Masters. You were my miracle. My second chance to do something important. To become something that was bigger than myself, something that would live on.”

  Well, the fairway asked me, how are you doing?

  I wasn’t ever going to be a bigger or better version of my father. The things he was good at weren’t the things that my heart wanted, and I’d come to realize that there were other ways we weren’t the same. It was like we were staring at the same painting, just from a different place in the room, so we each got our own view.

  I ran for a tree a hundred yards from the green, his words echoing in my ears. You were my second chance.

  “You still there, son?”

  “Yeah.” I sniffled.

  “I know you don’t understand, son, but to me, you and this place are connected. Hey, are you crying?”

  “No.” I hadn’t cried since he died. But wetness was there now, just behind my eyes. I hunched down and tucked him under my armpit, not wanting his urn to see me weak. Daddy had never seemed weak, not even when he knew he was dying. He’d been strong in ways I’d never known. I thought of the things I’d learned about my father in the past few days, both the good and the troubling. His ability to listen. His feelings about golf, which were deeper and more meaningful than I’d ever realized. His views on the world and its hard parts. The childhood that maybe made him the man he turned out to be. “Daddy, you’re Abbott Meyers, aren’t you?”

  His breath smiled. “I wasn’t born and raised in Augusta, but I sure would’ve loved it if that were the case. And I didn’t get to eat those Georgia peaches that Abbott was so fond of. But, yes, I’m pieces of Abbott Meyers. I never shared much about myself with you, Ben. I was never good at that kind of talking. I guess those stories were my way of trying to show you parts of me.”

  And now I’d never hear another. “Oh,” I managed to say.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I didn’t answer. It was too big of a question.

  “Ben, I said before you were born, if I had a child, I would be a real father. Mine ran out on me and my mama and your uncle. I promised myself I would never do that to my child. Ben, you were the most important thing in my life. I’ve always known that, even if I haven’t shown it right.”

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.

  “That’s why I’m still around, I guess. Thank God I didn’t leave without you knowing, that you, Ben. . . .” He had tears in his voice now. “You’re what’s left of me. You’re what I’m leaving behind in the world, and I couldn’t be prouder of that. You’re a good boy.”

  I moved him to my chest.

  Wind murmured through the leaves and needles and grass of the most beautiful place I’d ever seen, and a fog bank emerged from behind me. Then one from the right. They began a strange dance, gathering at the corners of the dimly lit clubhouse.

  Slowly, methodically, a white curtain was forming along the edge of the eighteenth green, creating a gift. A barrier of protection for me.

  For Daddy.

  All the world’s colors were inside me. Shifting. Changing. Purple flames of disappointment. Orange flashes of neglect. Yellow flickers of loneliness. Blue bursts of sadness and longing and love. “I don’t want you to leave again,” I said. “I wish you could stay. I can be a barbecue man and a golfer. I can be whatever you want.”

  “Ben,” Daddy whispered. “Listen to me, now.”

  Listen to him, the far-off rustling trees told me. Listen.

  “There are about a million things you can choose to do in this world, Ben, and there are only two things that I knew enough about to teach you. So that’s what I did. That’s what a father does. I don’t know anything about painting or drawing or art. But you say you’re good and you love it? Then you go after it. Call that teacher and let her help you. Ben Hogan wasn’t great because he wanted to be the greatest golfer in the world. He was great because he wanted to be the greatest golfer he could be. He wouldn’t settle for less. I want you to be your own best, that’s all. I got you those canvases to paint on, didn’t I?”

  “What?”
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  “I went to Mobile. Found an art store, and brought those home. I left them on your bed.”

  Those words were like a golf ball to the head. Knocked over, I stood there while the world went spinning sideways and backward in time, making a good part of my past different. Those words unhinged me. Something I’d assumed was true my whole life suddenly felt like a lie. My daddy hadn’t hated my art. He’d tried to show me that. I felt dangled upside down in front of a portrait I’d been seeing all wrong.

  “That was you?” I stared at the urn. At a daddy I hadn’t known existed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought you knew. And when you didn’t say anything, I figured you didn’t want me busting into something that was yours and yours alone. Ben, I want you to do whatever your heart tells you.”

  I shook my head, confused. “You want me to have the heart of a golfer.”

  “What?”

  “Uncle Luke said that I didn’t have the heart of a golfer. That’s part of why you kicked him out. Because that’s what you want me to have. It’s okay, Daddy. I’m not mad.”

  “No. Ben, no.” I saw Daddy shake his head, and a thin line appeared where his lips pressed together. “That had nothing to do with golf. I kicked him out because you have the biggest heart I’ve ever seen. It’s so big . . . Ben, it’s so much bigger than mine that I couldn’t understand it all the time, son. I’m sorry for that. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t know it was there, just waiting for you to find out how to use it. I kicked your uncle out because any man who says my son doesn’t have enough heart is a man I don’t want to know. Ben, I swear, I was never trying to make you a golfer. Or a barbecue man.”

  I kept quiet.

  He let out a choked chuckle. “Well, maybe a little. But mostly I was showing you things you can use anywhere. Patience. Hard work. Focus. Not giving up if things don’t turn out how you planned. I should’ve done better, though. I should’ve just loved you.”

  I felt glued to the ground at those words.