Free Catching Tatum by Lucy H. Delaney Page A

orders; they shook her up. It was probably because she grew up on the farm in Ohio. She lived in the same house her dad had grown up in until she met my dad. They called that plot of land that her WOP of a grandfather left the coal mines and tenements of Pennsylvania to homestead, home for generations. Moving wasn't in her blood like it was the rest of us, but adventure was. The wanderlust in me always said “Let's go!” when a move popped up, but Mom needed a plan. I felt like she always had to get her head in the game for a move first, then she was fine. It was a little easier that time because every good American wanted to do something to help or react to the terror attacks, and we had something to do.
    We headed out just before Thanksgiving and, even though it meant missing a big chunk of school, mom wanted to drive the trek to McChord instead of fly. We stopped at the farm for a week on the way, even though it was out of the way. Everyone was evaluating what mattered most in life; family mattered most to my mom. She wanted time with us while she still had it. Thomas was already gone, it was Theo's senior year, and he had plans to enlist and leave the nest right after graduation. She wanted time with her parents. She wanted us to know our roots, spend time in the soil. It felt good to go and visit the farm. It always did, only it felt more like home that time than ever before. Nothing there ever changed except the tractors and irrigation equipment. The house was still the same old house with shiny wooden floors that were so polished from wear they didn't even creak anymore. The barn was the same old barn; it did have a fresh coat of paint smeared over the ancient layers that sometimes appeared here and there where quarter-sized flecks had chipped away. Gramma and Grampa were the same old grandparents–ageless, timeless, and steadfast. There was something inside me that appreciated how things there could stay the same even if I couldn't imagine living life like that. The farm was a beautiful, gentle reminder that not everyone needed to venture out like I did, not everything needed to change, and there was nothing wrong with staying the same if there was love and contentment in the sameness. We stayed a week before we ventured out to our new home, the last base I ever called home.
    I'm not sure if it was 9/11, or my breakup with Cole, or the move, but something inside me changed that fall. I wasn't the same girl I had been. Too much was different for me to stay the same. I didn't want to be that desperate girl who fell for the first guy to smile at her anymore. I wanted to be strong and brave like the people on the Pennsylvania flight that took the terrorists down. I wanted to be different.
    So ... I cut my hair; it seemed the most logical place to start.
    I didn't even think about the scar when I cut it off. I was tired of it always in my way. I hated tangles; they would make me so incredibly, unbelievably mad. Sometimes I cried in the mornings trying to get the brush through my hair after a night in bed. I tried to flip it up on my pillow, to sleep with it in a ponytail, even a shower cap, anything I could think of to keep it from tangling. Nothing worked. I move like a maniac when I sleep and woke up every morning with a snaggle of rats. If that wasn't bad enough, my hair reminded me of him, he who I hated, who loved to run his fingers through it. I hated that memories of him were stuck in my hair as thick as the tangles.
    A couple weeks after we settled in at McChord, I lost it one morning and had my last fit over tangles and chopped it off. I knew as soon as I sawed the scissors through the left half that I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life but it was too late by then. I wanted my mom to fix it. I was so embarrassed I didn't want the boys to see me. I screamed for her to come to me, “Mom!”
    “What?”
    “Come here, now! I need you.”
    “Tatum, I'm making lunches. You come here.”
    “No! I need