Tell me what life is like past that city limits sign. (Doc Walker)

The plane rocketed down the ad hoc airstrip we used to call a driveway. Thank God we were so far from the roadway because if our driveway had been any shorter they would have landed in the trees. I loved our house. I loved the grounds: the meadow, the forest, I loved it all. As I sang Leaving on a Jetplane loudly but muted under the noise of the engine I realized that would be me. I would be leaving. I felt a twinge of sadness in my chest and mentally began to say goodbye to my home.

Scotch hung around for the evening. We ate cake for dinner and drank coffee. We cried and complained and all our drawn words were ripe with concern. We watched Grease, the movie not the slimy oily substance. My mother and Scotch argued about who looked more like John Travolta: my father or Uncle Tony. The joke was on both of them because a blind man wouldn’t mistake either of them for John Travolta. It was nice though to sit with women and chat, I don’t know if I had ever chatted before. We sipped on red wine and I was nearly sober but I didn’t mind. I forgot what it was like to be a girl.

Scotch slept over. Uncle Tony’s bed would have been lonely without her. Since Scotch had come back into his life, no matter how intermittent her presence was, he slept well once again. Thus my father did the night shift alone. I’ll never understand how he lived his life without sleep. I guess the occasional hibernations were what got him through. He would crash sometimes and sleep close on a week. Still, if I pull an all-nighter with him I have to write off the next day. I need sleep – I think that’s human though. I don’t know what that says about dear ole Dad.

My mother drove Scotch home. Sometimes I forgot that she could even drive. I stayed in the backseat of my father’s Cadillac even after we dropped Scotch off. I pretended I was being chauffeured around town. When the car slowed in front of a modest little house, I was confused.

“Where are we?”

“This is where I grew up.”

“No,” I disagreed.

My mother had a faraway look and I thought she might cry.

“This is a dump.”

“No,” she dismissed, “this is a decent part of town.” She sighed as the car slowed to a stop. “It’s just as it was back then.”

“Why have we never been here before?”

“Your grandparents and I had a bit of a falling out.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“We didn’t see eye-to-eye on some things and they tried to take matters into their own hands and, well, here we are: estranged.” She wasn’t talking to me anymore. “I never imagined that I could be estranged from my family. We were so close and…” she swallowed as tears began building in her eyes. I thought she might be holding her breath. She cried a lot lately. I didn’t get it. Save an occasional spike in hormones that made me cry for no real reason, tears were foreign to me. Sometimes I cried to be dramatic and fuel fire to my cause of the day, but those weren’t real tears. Maybe I could be an actress when we moved out to the City of Angels.