The Roses of Fairhope

Finally the author, his mother, and her two sisters set off on a road trip into the past.

- Rick Bragg

WE HAD THREATENED to do it for years. We would pack a car with cold chicken and flip-flops and drive south like we used to, till the Alabama foothills faded into souvenir shops, shrimp shacks, and that first ragged palm. They had taken me there, when men still whistled at them and WALLACE stickers papered the bumpers of cars. How could I not take them now?

But we never got out of the driveway, somehow. My aunt Edna’s heart was failing. Aunt Juanita had to care for my homebound uncle, and my mother, Margaret, did not leave home unless blown from it by tornadoes or TNT. So I was stunned a few years ago when my 72-year-old mother told me to come get them. I found the three oldest sisters in the yard, suitcases in their hands. Aunt Jo, the youngest sister, stayed home to watch the livestock.