"Echoes," pt. 2

Here's part two...you'll have to wait a week for part three -- I'm going on a canoe trip to Minnesota!

At eleven years old my world was rocked like the carefully balanced tray carried by a server. I had meticulously placed each platter and drink, each friend and family member, on my tray, and now I was knocked off-balance. I struggled frantically to grasp at the sliding dishes, but with no success. My diligence had come to naught; I was left empty-handed and embarrassed.
Hugging myself in the brisk fall air, I stood outside our new home in Pittsburgh, 400 miles away from Baltimore. 400 miles away from Nan. Away from Shelby, my best friend and confidante.
Goodbye.
I looked at the old, brown shutters and compared them to the freshly painted black ones of my old house. The huge pine tree in front of the townhouse covered up the big window on the first floor and almost the entire half of the house. Cold and hostile, it seemed to echo the fact of its rental nature: not a home where the floorboards are worn out with your regular steps or the wall of the bedroom dented where you continually slammed open your door year after year. Here, I was a guest.
At thirteen, I had regained some of my lost confidence – Nan, though far away, still poured out her grandma-love to me and I wrote letters to her every week. She came to visit each summer, bringing Shelby with her. It was my favorite week of the year. Nan would bring peach buns and crabmeat; Shelby and I would climb under the covers of the same double bed to whisper secrets and dreams, and, for a brief moment, I could almost imagine that everything was the way it always was, that I had a place to belong.
Goodbye!
Again, my Nan and Shelby would get in Nan’s car and return home to Baltimore. After a couple of summers, though, Shelby wouldn’t come back when Nan did.
Goodbye!
I have said this word often in my short life, and each time it feels excruciating. Each time it feels as if my tray has been knocked over, just after I’ve finally picked up the pieces. This simple phrase contains the word “good,” and yet nothing about saying it seems good. It seems only to bring heartache and loneliness and desire for a time, a place that was, but is no more.