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He walked across the green tennis courts, dodging the errant balls that were flying everywhere. He sat down on the other side, with the cold wind to his back, and waited for Ms. F to finish teaching a girl how to hit a backhand shot. As he waited, he noticed the ice that was still stubbornly holding on along the fence, refusing to melt despite the 50 degree weather.

She sat down next to him, and he fumbled for a pen and some paper. He was interviewing her about the South, and the misconception of Southerners in the north. She adjusted her wild red hair, and began talking about life in the South. She described having a garden, baking for others, saying "sir" and "ma'am," and inviting her students over for dinner before finals. She told stories of colleagues in the north who talked as if they wanted to "reeducate" her, and teach her the "proper way" to live. The more she talked, the more he was reminded of home. Images of his mother working in the garden, baking a cake for his father, and making the family's favorite meal jumped into his head. He remembered one of the last conversations he had had with her face to face before coming back to school, when she talked about women back in India who saw the life she had now, and tried to force her to live the way they did. It was that single aspect of life there that told them that they would never move back. He remembered her hug at the airport, and how she had changed from very seriously telling him to maintain his grades to telling him to enjoy himself and have a good term.

Although it had been four years since he had first gone away to school, and he went back home every two to three months, he suddenly realized that the homesickness never really went away. But, for a moment at that tennis court, Ms. F had brought him home.