What he didn’t understand was that without my morning coffee, I didn’t feel like a decent human being. I didn’t want to pretend to be one either. I wanted to bolt over to Barbara’s, grab a single egg, run home, and lounge in my pajamas while I sipped my vanilla-flavored coffee and ate pancakes slathered in butter and syrup. But when it came to Owen, it wasn’t worth the battle because he always won the war.

I headed to the bedroom to change, my anger festering. The echo of my parents’ warning twenty years ago still bounced around in my head year after year like a never-ending death knell.

2000, GODWIN, NORTH CAROLINA

My daddy was your typical small-town Southern daddy: overprotective and ever hopeful that I’d become a nun. Picture a man on his front porch chewing tobacco with a shotgun sitting on his lap—that was Daddy. No matter what breed of boy I paraded in front of him, they were never good enough for his little princess. Even when his princess was twenty years old.

“Daddy, I swear on Grandpappy’s grave that Owen’s a good guy. You’ll see.” I was anything but persuasive when it came to winning Daddy’s favor with a potential boyfriend.

We had just finished eating Mamma’s baked ham and au gratin potatoes while Owen praised her cooking with every bite and Daddy smirked. Mamma sent me outside to talk to Daddy while she finished putting leftovers in Tupperware.

The scent of lilac enfolded Daddy and I, sitting on the porch swing, sipping tea. They had flown me home for Easter break, inviting Owen to join me. I was surprised when he accepted the offer. As the swing squeaked back and forth, I felt nostalgic for the days when Daddy and I had done this daily. I’d tell him about school while he just listened.

Daddy glanced at me and lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “He’s a damn Yankee. You know how I feel about them.”

I shook my head. “You never change, do you?”

“You’ll always be my little girl, Mackenzie. I can’t just turn off being protective of you. Especially from boys like Owen.”

The trend started back in first grade when I invited Louis Douglas to come over one Saturday to find frogs to add to my terrarium. It was the least I could do after Louis had asked for my hand in marriage via crayoned note: Will you marry me? Circle yes or no. I emphatically circled yes in bright pink, my favorite color back then. Watching from my bedroom window, I remember how cute Louis looked galumphing down the dirt road to our house, wearing wading boots that swallowed him whole, and carrying a big plastic bucket and a fishing net on a telescoping pole. Daddy waylaid the poor boy, and in the course of his interrogation reduced him to tears.