Angelea Roberts, a successful and attractive legislative attorney, is living her best life in the nation's capital. She has the professional cachet that affords social connections and a financially secure lifestyle. With her personal life rebounding from a devasting relationship with a married man, she looks forward to happier times in her first house in Southeast. A phone call upends those plans, and the circumstances take her back home to North Carolina.
Within months Angelea is adjusting to life minutes from her aging parents and beloved grandmother in the community she left behind her college sophomore year. She contends with re-negotiating family relationships and mastering a different practice of law. Life is further complicated when Angelea must come to terms with a teenage crush as well as wrangle with the mysterious coworker at her firm.
"Who knew moving back home could create such complex emotions? Angelea grappled with periodic waves of mixed emotions fueled by familiar words ranging from 'you can't go home again' to 'take me home, old country road' to 'when you don't know what to do or where to go, go home—if you can.' They lingered on the brain like annoying song jingles. One particularly brought levity to her simmering anxiety. Her grandmother often said when having to shoo away visitors overstaying their welcome, 'You don't have to go home, but you got to get up out of here.' Angelea's angst seemed to counter another tidbit of wisdom: 'when you don't know what to do or where to go, sometimes it's best to just simply stay put.' Regrettably, she'd done that; been there and done that. She'd stayed in too many situations and circumstances for too long, denying reality and hoping for a different inevitability, hanging on until the Watcher turned away, her eyes leaving Angelea's dreams to flicker out like the dying flame of a candle. Now it was time to go, to get moving, to get gone. Back home Down South. Her place of origin. Angelea mused about how 'Down South' was used by residents of The District as though not having the faintest idea they lived in the South, too. The Upper South. She dismissed the private joke as she dragged her travel bags to the living room, to transport them with her to Raleigh, North Carolina, the King City.
After settling in The District over six years ago, Angelea believed this kingmaker realm would be her forever home. The city was her destination starting with college at Howard. Family finances and a full four-year scholarship elsewhere crushed that dream. She finally made one of her two childhood dreams come true—attending Howard as a law student after graduating from Smith, and a two-year stint with the DEA in LA. A short detour to Boston in her first attorney job as an ADA was a horrible ten months. She hated Boston and scurried back to The District with all deliberate speed. Work as a lobbyist for public radio, followed by her dream job as a legislative attorney, made life in The District quite grand. She was proud of her professional accomplishments and reputation in legal circles.
Slowly panning the bare space, Angelea sighed as she inhaled memories made in her modest castle. The three-bedroom, two-bath home she purchased over four years ago always held a warm, lived-in feeling from the day of the open house. Saying goodbye left more than a twinge of regret. Over the past weeks, waves of anxiety taunted her about leaving and selling her first home. About two months ago, she heard via a fellow attorney at the Dome about a small progressive Raleigh law firm wanting to diversify its staff. The exchange amused her still. It always did when white people routinely asked Black people if they knew any "qualified" Blacks like yourself. Although it may have appeared to others that her decision was impulsive, it was long in the making. It had tugged along her mindscape like a weary train chugging up a hill, a heavy load of emotional cargo on board. Once reaching the crest, the train plunged downward, all hell breaking loose toward its destination. No backtracking. Angelea's train was fueled by circumstances making it impossible for her to remain who she was or thought she was. But she never imagined rolling down the Southern Railways to Raleigh, in the prime of her life and career. Certainly, not before marrying, birthing two children, and serving on the Supreme Court—all accomplished before being trained Down South in a Lincoln-esque funeral car."