The Mulligan Read Online Free

polo. Thankfully, we only have to wear those stupid jackets one day a week. When I check the mirror, I see how my hair dances with a life of its own. Oh, the complexities of managing thick hair in Florida’s unrelenting humidity. Dropping the brush, I search for my shoes.
    A partially opened box lays propped against one wall where I’d let it fall the day before. A different golf hat will keep me cooler so I dig into the assortment of junk to search for a visor, find an off-white one, and set it on my bed. I flip through more items in search of something to pull my hair up with when my fingers meet a familiar object.
    My mother has slipped my drawing tablet into the box without my knowledge. My breath catches.
    Faint gray sketches of the back mountain on our property greet me. With my finger, I trace the light pencil strokes. Stark images drawn with abandonment on the day of the fire. The only saved remnants. Robert and my father had left earlier that morning for a course in the next town. I’d wanted to get some drawing done for the gallery where I worked so I didn’t go with them to caddie. I’d already sold two paintings and was excited about a request for more.
    It was chilly that day—the thermometer read only forty degrees when they left, but the cold never stopped Robert. His passion for golf rivaled my own passion for art. His dream was to qualify at Q-School and make it on a major tour like Grandpa had years ago. Robert was good—better than good. He was born to golf.
    I hate remembering that awful day, but if I don’t, I’ll never be able to get through this school. My mother keeps saying it isn’t my fault, that it isn’t my guilt to carry. But if it isn’t mine, whose is it?
    Certainly not Robert’s. He didn’t ask to have his life turned upside down. Nor my father, whose dreams for his only son now include relentless doctor visits and therapy and the possibility that the two of them might never share those special father-son moments again.
    Right. Who left the heater on? Who screamed to Robert to save her precious paintings?
    My chest shudders when I replay Robert’s last conversation with me on the day I prepared to leave for school.
    “You can’t do this, Bobbi. It’s not God’s plan for you. You’re an artist. I’ll golf again someday. Let it go, please.” His normally tanned face had faded to a pasty white, making him one with our living room walls. Tears shone in his eyes as he plucked the cotton sheet that covered his lower body. My mother had tried to supply him with everything he needed during his recuperation, but she couldn’t hide what needed to be hid most. Robert’s injuries.
    I studied his strong nose, the playful way his hair fell across his forehead. “You’re my twin. I owe you. Besides, you taught me a lot. I’ll be good. You’ll see. And when I win a tournament, it’ll be for all of us.”
    “I’m going to pray for you every day. Pray you come to your senses.”
    I glanced at his well-worn Bible. Yes, he would pray.
    Robert’s faith is so much stronger than mine. It always has been ever since that day during Vacation Bible School when we were twelve and we accepted what God did for us. He uses the name Jesus as though he is talking about his best friend—in front of his own friends. The first time he did that, I wanted to die from embarrassment, but no one seemed to mind. In fact, it appeared his friends treated him better. Eventually Robert made us pray at meals and Mom dropped him off at church every Sunday until she decided to go with him. I went, too, but worried more about what I was wearing than what I was learning.
    I still have trouble accepting that God loves me like he does Robert. I still have trouble with it, especially now living so far from home. But I’m learning that the circumstances in our lives can’t always be controlled. I learned after the fire that sometimes we have to step up and do what it takes to make things right again. Like moving