Wish

Chapter Eleven: M&M's and Reese's Cups

I stared at my home in disbelief.  It was newer, cleaner, and very welcoming.  Not that it wasn't welcoming before, just...I don't know.  It was different.  I guess because it was in fact younger.

Me, the baby me, I was only 11 months old.  That's how old I was when my parents adopted me.  My birthday is June 15, 1999, and my parents adopted me on May 18, 2000.

May.  I knew this felt like May in Georgia.

"Bill, the door, please?" Mom said, frustrated.  Baby me was in her arms, along with a bag over her shoulder and a bottle in one of her hands, so she couldn't exactly open the door.

"Hold on, Nessa, you gotta let me get there first," Dad said as he tried to maneuver past her.  "You want me to open the door for you, then you gotta let me through."  He reached for the doorknob, reaching into his pocket for his keys.

The door swung open.

"What the..."  He reached just inside the door, grabbing the gun that he had stashed there.  He had done so in a way that one could only find it there if they knew what they were looking for, and where to look.

Mom held baby-me tightly, worry in her eyes.  To make this simpler, I'm gonna call baby-me "Munchkin", okay?

The me of the present, me me, was carefully walking through the field towards our house.  Now, in 2015, there were a couple more houses where I was standing.  I remembered when they were being built.  I was in my "tweens", as people call them.  I would come home from school each day to the sounds of drills and saws as I did my homework.  It made doing math on the front porch much less relaxing.  Not that math is relaxing, but the outdoors helped calm me down, especially in the warmer months.  When it got colder, curling up in a warm blanket on the couch did suffice.

I stopped behind a tree, peeking around it.

Funny, my parents never told me about this.  Perhaps it was something they didn't want me to know about.

I waited for another minute, then sneaked in through the front door, which they had never closed.  Mom had been holding Munchkin, and Dad the gun.  What kind of gun was it?  A .22 rifle.

I hid behind the couch in the living room.  It was a different couch than I remember, perhaps something had happened to this one that they eventually got a new one.

"Bill, no one is here, and nothing is missing.  Are you sure you didn't just forget to deadbolt the door?"  I peeked over the couch, seeing my father stare forward in confusion.

"As a matter of fact, I don't recall doing that," he said, then lowered the gun.

My father tends to be forgetful sometimes.  Not like he has Alzheimer's disease or anything, just the normal kind of forgetting.  My father's forgetfulness came to my advantage today, since I was able to get inside undetected.

"Well, I guess I'll go close it, then," Dad said with a chuckle.  I heard footsteps approaching.

Castiel poked his head through the doorway.  I waved him away frantically, and he stepped back, hiding just as Dad came into the living room and locked the door, stashing the gun again.

After Dad left the room, Cas peeked through the window, a frown on his face.  Castiel had his wings back, yes, but neither of us were sure how well they worked, so trying to come inside in secret wasn't the best idea.

I crawled to the other end of the couch so I could get a good view of the kitchen.  Mom was putting Munchkin in a high chair, preparing to feed me.  I watched them feed Munchkin for awhile, my eyes beginning to droop.