The Late Matthew Brown. Paul Ketzle

door neighbor Alfred was clipping hedges below his front windows. Alfred was a veteran, a widower, and seemingly obsessed with how I organized my affairs. He was not only my Magnolia Grove block president, but also vice-chair of the entire Neighborhood Association. He saw to it that the rules were followed, and when they weren’t, he made sure a penalty was paid. He also took a surprisingly dim view of my reconstruction plans. It wasn’t the retrofitting that was the problem, given the popularity of neoclassical homes; rather, he found my insistence on an authentic renovation perplexing. In a neighborhood perpetually reaching toward modernity, there were specifications and regulations to follow, security elements to maintain, beautification standards to meet, and my idea of a historically accurate home was, as he put it, “potentially depressive of property values”—all of which explained why he, along with everyone else on my block and the Neighborhood Association itself, was in the process of suing me out of house and home.

      He stopped clipping to wave and smile. I waved back.

      “This place isn’t what I expected,” Hero said, as we climbed the set of meandering public stairs into the upper level of the neighborhood. “Not at all.”

      “Worse, then?”

      “Hard to say. My expectations were pretty low.”

      I nodded, but said nothing.

      “When I think of the South, I picture everything in black and white. Fire hoses. Police dogs. We Shall Overcome.”

      “That’s the Old South. Things are different now.”

      “It’s so lush here. The trees, the vines.”

      “We’re doing our best to change that. It’s a constant battle for supremacy.”

      “And it’s got all this history. But what’s freaky, though, is how much of it isn’t different at all. Standing around, sometimes, I think I could be anywhere. I mean, that could be anyone’s McDonalds and Jiffy Lube.”

      “Is that a compliment or a criticism?”

      “I’m not sure yet.”

      We walked side by side, her hands swinging loose. I started to reach out to hold one of hers, then laid my arm on her shoulder instead. She let it rest there for a moment. Then she stepped forward with a shrug—gentle, but firm and definite.

      We passed a series of lawns with poster board signs for competing political campaigns—judges and congressmen and governor.

      “You should know I don’t blame you for all this.”

      “The South?”

      “No. My birth. It’s not your fault,” she said, walking ahead of me. “Wait. Strike that. I should say, it is your fault. But I still don’t blame you.”

      “Look on the bright side,” I said, feigning cheerfulness. “You’re a girl with two fathers.”

      Hero shook her head. “Right now, I’m a girl with no father.”

      “I see.”

      I didn’t argue with her, even to protest for my own sake. The man she had spent her whole life up to this point believing to be her father was Geoffrey Grace, a community college professor and Val’s now ex-husband. What little I knew of him had come from brief and bitter rants over the phone from Val. Hero hadn’t really talked to me about him at all. As we strolled about in the fading light, I began to wonder if her coming here was turning into something of a mistake. Just another in a long line for me. In a short three weeks, we’d be facing an unspoken reality: we had no plans beyond this moment and no need, either. Our lives could continue on as before, as if we didn’t exist. Once she left, we could easily never see each other again.

      There were times, like this one, when it felt like this choice might even be best.

      “You sure don’t talk like the stereotypical Southerner.”

      “Not folksy enough for you?”

      “No,” she said, “it’s not that. You’ve got a nice but subtle twang.”

      “Thanks. Been practicing my whole life.”

      “You just don’t sound like a dumb hick.”

      “Fair enough,” I replied. “You don’t sound twelve, either.”

      Hero paused in front of an expansive yard. The house was a good thirty yards off the sidewalk, largely hidden from view behind a cluster of palms and extensive tropical landscaping and iron fencing. On every avenue and lane, the remnants of long-deposed Southern aristocracy lay cloistered.

      We moved deeper in, left on Summit Avenue, past Coral Court, up Inspiration Drive. The roads sloped upward, toward the crest of a hill that gave Magnolia Grove its towering quality. In a countryside otherwise flat, it had a feeling of regality that I’d always admired. Heavy rains barely touched us here as waters ran slowly, gradually downhill and downtown. But it was the aged and rising trees that gave it a presence, its soaring majesty.

      Our path took us around and through the lavish and overwhelming. The streets wound and curved about. Everywhere deserted and still but for the occasional motorist, the slam of a door, the sputter and jerk of the automated sprinkler systems. Dim figures in windows watched as we passed, cautious and concealed and searching for signs of suspicious activities, for loitering, for an errant step onto private property. Mobile phones at the ready. Eyes following our every move.

      three

      My position as associate director of the State Department of Corrections was a point of contention between my daughter and me. It was my job to ensure that our convicted thieves, rapists, killers, and casual drug users were clothed, fed, warm and moderately—just not especially—content. Hero made no secret of the fact that she wasn’t especially pleased with this career choice.

      “I’m just not sure I can get that excited about having a jailer for a father.”

      “It’s not like I’m passionate about it. It’s not like I’m doing cell inspections. Shackling the inmates. I’m a paper pusher. A petty bureaucrat.”

      “Look at me,” she said. “Swelling with pride. Really.”

      Corrections was merely another step on a ladder, I pointed out, another in a string of political appointments I’d ridden for the past decade, and one I’d been doing for only the past year, at that. I’d worked for campaigns, think tanks, and, of course, other departments in government. Prior to Corrections, I’d been director of the Bureau of Environmental Study, which, I quickly pointed out, made me a friend of the earth and all its small and defenseless creatures.

      “Don’t patronize me,” she said.

      Bureaucracy was my trade, but more than anything, I was a political animal—or, more accurately, the scion of political animals. I was following a life of government and politics that had run for generations in my family. My father had started out as an aide to a state legislator before taking up a lobbying career in the textile industry. My grandfather Devon had worked for a governor and run the Public Works Agency for decades, and off some downtown alley, there was a small office building dedicated to him. And on and on, back to before the War. I was following in a tradition as rich and antiquated as this place itself.

      We lived in the era of the New South, but the Old South was still remarkably persistent, more enduring than mere memory, enshrined in its crumbling and rebuilt structures and traditions, its registry of cherished landmarks, its mansions and battlefields and overgrown natural wonders and sense of inherent majesty. The original Capitol Building was a symbol at the crossroads between old and new. Built up from the charred ashes of the War, it had frustrated and bored the politicians and lobbyists who roamed its corridors for over a hundred years. Those who wanted change dreamed of state-of-the-art, longed to be the envy of our neighboring states. For those who had to work there, change was about practicality, with nostalgia a mere afterthought. And finally, after decades of wrangling and debate, an actual proposal had been put into motion. A new capitol was to be commissioned—a high-tech