Her messy room.
Her pain.
Her strength.
His dad was right.
He was breathing easier here.
“Feet apart, DJ. You got your ankles kissing. Back up.” Meadow fussed with a gentleness that her kids never responded to well.
“Iambacked up,” DJ grumbled.
Meadow snapped her fingers twice. “DJ, if you don’t spread them feet, I’m sending you to go pick up balls the whole class.”
The little group snickered. Eight kids in total, four boys and four girls. All between eight and twelve and all over it already.
“This is boring,” Karter announced, dragging his club through the grass. “Can’t we play football or something?”
Meadow cut her eyes at him. “You were late, you talk too much and your stance is ugly so you’re not qualified to make suggestions right now.”
The girls hollered.
Mya covered her mouth, laughing. “Miss Meadow, you wrong.”
“Wrong but right,” another girl mumbled.
“I heard that, Lay.” Meadow turned to her. “Hands up a little higher on the grip. There you go. Relax those shoulders. You look like you tryna fight the club and y’all on the same team.”
They were set up across the little practice area Ray had carved out behind the main green. Bright cones. A bucket of range balls. Old clubs lined up for kids who didn’t own their own. There was a speaker near Meadow’s feet, playing clean versions of whatever playlist she decided the kids could handle.
“This feel like punishment,” DJ whined, adjusting his grip.
“Everything that makes you better feel like punishment at first,” Meadow told him. “Now line up and look where you want the ball to go.”
He sighed big. “I wanna go home.”
“Then hit it clean so you can go home proud instead of pouting.”
DJ swung. The ball barely rolled past the cone.
The whole line groaned.
“Oh my God,” Karter yelled. “Nah, put me back on Roblox. This not for me.”
Meadow pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t laugh. “First of all, the fact that y’all would rather be hunched over a screen than out here with this nice breeze and free lessons is crazy to me. Second, golf builds discipline. Discipline builds money. Y’all like money, don’t you?”
Every hand shot up.
“Alright then.” Meadow clapped her hands. “We gon’ learn today.”
Mya raised her hand. “Miss Meadow?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Why we gotta learn golf though? They don’t be putting nobody like us on TV.”
Meadow opened her mouth to answer, but a familiar voice came from behind them.
