“How many acres do your parents have?”

“Three thousand seven hundred and eighty-six.”

“Wow.” My brothers could barely remember to trim the potted hedges my mother grew on our balcony. “How do they take care of it all?”

“From sunup to sundown.”

Together we walk up the gravel path to the front door. Before we reach it, a young man comes around the side of the house, intercepting us. “Looks like someone remembers where we live after all.”

During our trip, Stanton talked about his family—we both did. This blond, handsome boy would be Marshall, one of the twins—eighteen years old and a high school senior. I smile as they hug and laugh and smack each other on the back.

When Stanton introduces us, his younger brother squints shyly, greeting me with a simple “Hey.”

The resemblance is shocking—the same bright green eyes, the same strong jaw and thick golden-blond hair. Marshall’s not as broad in the shoulders, his neck is thinner with youth, but if he wants to see what he’ll look like in ten years, he doesn’t have to look any further than the man beside him.

Stanton lifts his chin, asking, “Where’s my truck?”

Marshall rests his open hand on his own chest. “You mean my truck?” Then pointing near one of the barns to a black pickup with orange flames painted on the rear sides, “She’s right there.”

Stanton grimaces. “What the hell’d you do to it?”

We walk closer.

“Souped it up, bro. Custom paint, new speakers—gotta have the bass.” He demonstrates by reaching in and turning the key—nodding his head in time to the booming music that’s vibrating the ground beneath our feet.

“Tha’s Jay-Z,” he tells us, in case we’re too old to know.

Just then, a blue-and-white older pickup rumbles up to the front of the house, with several boys about Marshall’s age riding in back. He turns off the music. “I gotta go, I got practice.” He taps his brother’s arm. “We’ll catch up later.”

Stanton nods as I call, “Nice meeting you.”

After his brother’s gone, Stanton looks at the truck another minute, shaking his head.

Then we walk around the house through the side door, into the large, bright kitchen. Butcher-block counters, white cabinets, and sage-colored walls make for a warm but simple room. On the wall there’s an antique clock and a framed crocheted piece that reads: Home Is Where the Heart Is.

Stanton’s mother is a beautiful woman, thin, tall, and younger looking than I’d imagined. Her honey-colored hair is tied up, a few strands swinging as she scrubs a black pot in the large sink. Her nose is tiny, her chin the point of her heart-shaped face. When she hears us come in and looks our way, I realize Stanton and Marshall must have their father’s eyes—their mother’s are warm brown.

Her smile is large and wide and she doesn’t bother to dry her hands as she engulfs her son in a hug. Stanton lifts her off her feet and spins her around. “Hey, Momma.”

When she squeals, he sets her down and she leans back. “Let me look at you.” She brushes his forehead, his jaw, and his shoulder lovingly. Then she steps back. “You look good. Tired but good.”

“It was a long drive.”

Stanton gestures to me. “Momma, this is my . . . this is Sofia.”

Before I can extend my hand, Mrs. Shaw wraps surprisingly strong arms around me. “It’s so nice to meet you, Sofia. Stanton’s talked about you—what a talented lawyer you are, how well you two work together.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Shaw, it’s great to meet you too. I’m so happy to be here.”

And what hits me straight between the eyes is, I truly am happy. Seeing where he grew up, meeting the people who made him into the man he is now, fills me with a joy. A sweet excitement that has my feet tapping and a permanent smile on my lips.

“Call me Momma, everyone does. You call me Mrs. Shaw, I won’t even look.”

“Okay.”

She shoos us to the table. “Sit down, sit down, y’all must be starvin’.”

“And so it begins,” Stanton whispers, his breath on the back of my neck giving me goose bumps.

As his mother cracks and scrambles eggs, Stanton asks about his father.

“Up in the north field,” she explains. “For the rest of the day and then some. Mendin’ the fence that was taken out in the last storm.”

Within fifteen minutes there are plates of eggs, bacon, and warm biscuits with butter. “This is delicious, Mrs.— Momma,” I correct myself with an awkward chuckle.

“Thank you, Sofia.”

“Now you’ve done it.” Stanton grins, his mouth full of biscuit. “She’s gonna be stuffin’ your face the whole time we’re here. You’ve heard the freshmen fifteen? Be prepared for the Shaw twenty.”

“Oh my word!” From down the back stairs, into the kitchen skips Stanton’s sister, Mary, Marshall’s twin. With shoulder length blond hair, and her mother’s sherry colored eyes, there’s no doubt she’s part of the Shaw clan.

Being the youngest with three brothers myself, I feel an immediate kinship with her.

She leans down and kisses Stanton’s cheek, teasing, “I’m gonna start callin’ you the Grey Ghost, ’cause you played football, and you’re never here jus’ like a ghost, and ’cause you’re gettin’ gray in your whiskers.”

Stanton pinches her chin sweetly, then rubs his jaw. “There’s no gray in my whiskers.”