Delaney James was wearing Chanel the night her husband told her he didn't love her anymore.
In an instant, her picture-perfect Manhattan life-complete with a brownstone on the Upper East Side, a blossoming career as a fashion journalist, and a devas...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Fourth of July might as well be Christmas in South Grove, and on Magnolia Lane – where Delaney and I grew up – the whole street feels like it's been pulled back into something familiar.
Tables stretch down the barricaded road, crowded with casseroles, every kind of salad, and pans of fried chicken, ribs, and brisket. The smoker in my parents' driveway sends heat rippling into the air, the smell of burgers and hot dogs drifting through the crowd. Music blasts from a speaker rigged up in the Slates' garage – oldies, because God forbid they play anything recorded after 1960.
Kids run in and out of the houses, their laughter carrying down the street, and for a second it pulls me straight back – cookies stolen before dinner at age eight, beers lifted from coolers at seventeen, getting caught every time like we thought we were smarter than we were.
The first Fourth after I came home wasn't anything like this. People couldn't stop asking questions – why I was back, how long I was staying, whether I thought I'd play again – and every conversation came with that same look, some mix of curiosity and something they were trying not to say out loud. It took more patience than I had and more alcohol than I should've needed just to get through the day.
That was the moment it really settled in – nothing was going back to what it was.
Things are quieter now. People have moved on, or at least stopped asking, but it doesn't change the way I fit here.
I'll never just be Greyson again. I'll always be the guy who came back. The one who didn't start what he finished.
The street is packed, but my attention lands in one place without trying – Jo's mom, holding onto Delaney like she might disappear if she lets go, Delaney smiling back like she never left.
"Well, I'll be damned. Delaney James."
Cole's voice cuts in beside me, pulling my focus away. He's got his eight-month-old daughter Blair balanced against his chest, her legs kicking as she grabs at his shirt. I reach out and squeeze her thigh until she lets out a high-pitched laugh.
"Mom told me she was back," he adds.
"Of course she did."
My brother is six years older than me. He was already gone by the time I was figuring out high school, off at Wake Forest, then Raleigh, building a life that didn't have much overlap with mine. He and Lydia, his wife, moved back after their son Stephen was born so my parents could be close, but we've never really found a rhythm with each other. Different lives, different priorities, and when I came back from Missouri, whatever space was there only widened.
It's better now. Not close. Just... manageable.
"This must really suck for you," he says. "You talk to her yet?"
"Briefly," I answer, keeping it even. "It's been fine."
Cole huffs, like he doesn't believe that for a second.
