Forsaking Lilly

Chapter Two

Mineral Wells was nothing like I had expected it to be. 

I will admit, I expected a small town consisting of a few houses surrounding a dirt covered road with a few tumbleweeds blowing around. ( Well, I'd only seen Texas in movies! ) But, instead, the first thing you saw when you drove into town were hotels. Cars, even this late at night, were busy going to their locations and people still walked down the street. As you drove further down the street, you could see that to the right, the main road split off to a shopping district. I could see a Walgreen's, Chile's, and even a Walmart. On the left side of the road, a line of fast food stores made themselves known. This was no where NEAR, a barren town.

" Oh, see honey? Isn't this place amazing?" I suppose it wasn't awful.I kept my eyes glued outside the window as we drove through the town. We took the turn at the walmart and continued straight. I watched as we passed my new high school, a few nice homes sitting on top of a hill, drove by a road that led up this gigantic hill, and turned down another road. Trees covered each side of the road and it was pitch black except for the moonlight and carlight. Every once in a while, the trees split into a clearing and revealed a nice ranch style home. Would we be living in a home like this?

Suddenly, we turned down a road that I hadn't even seen, and continued straight. This road was even darker, and the tree line was closer and thicker. The moonlight wasn't able to penetrate through the leaves and left only the car light. This is sort of...eery, I thought to myself. I looked over at my mom with a questioning face. How did she know her way around here so well? Did she used to live here or something? Tagging the thought off as something to ask later, I turned back around and watched the road. 

We seemed to travel thicker and thicker into the woods until, finally, my mother made another right and we began to travel onto a graveled road on top of a soft hill. As our little Buick slugged its away up the hill, I noticed that we were approaching a very, very nice farm house. The house was a brown painted, three story with a wrap around, screened in porch. The lawn was well manicured, lush, and very green. And as we pulled further up the driveway, it made a soft curve to the right (again) and ended underneath a steel, parking, awning. My mother parked the car here, and killed the engine. 

" Common, kiddo." She reached over, patted my leg, and exited the car. I hesitantly followed suit. To the left of the awning, a little concrete path led from the parking spots up to the house. Cute little lawn lights lit the path, which made it easy not to trip over my feet in the darkness.

The porch to the home was raised, so we had to step up about two or three steps just to get to the front door. The front door, however, didn't match the house. It was wooden, with iron vines worked into it. It was very lavish, and expensive looking, and stood out against the rest of the southern home. In the middle of it, there was a knocker that looked like an elegant, iron, daisy. My mother lifted it and used it to knock on the door twice. There was someone inside? After a moment's pause, we heard the door unlock and took a step back as it swung open. Inside, a tall, beautiful woman stood smiling brightly at my mother. " Nora, oh heavens! You made it." The two made high pitched noises and hugged each other at once. Wrapping an arm around my mother's shoulder, the woman led her inside. Again, I followed. 

Tactfully, I closed the door behind myself and relocked it.  Accomplishing the simple task, I set myself free to take in my new home. The inside of the house seemed to be quite spacious, and lavish. It looked nothing like the outside had influenced it to be. After a step or two, two stairs led the den down a level and onto a nice beige and black rug. In the den, four nice couches were set around a flat screen T.V hung on the wall. An iron coffee table was placed pleasantly in the middle with a vase of orchids on top of it. How pretty.

I followed my mother and the stranger to the kitchen, which was very clean, very spacious, and very new. The tall woman sat on a stool that sat beside the open counter, and smiled at my mother. I took in the woman's thick, wavy, and beautiful light brown hair and admired her hazel eyes. I had never met her a day in my life, but I had to respect her beauty. Finally, she seemed to notice me and introduced herself. " Oh, hello! I'm Lynette, an old friend of your mother's. I've never met you, but I knew your father and I'm sorry about as his death." I eyed my mother. It was glad to see some one else who cared. 

Catching my expression, Lynette laughed nervously and offered my mother a smile. " Well, we can catch up tomorrow. See you ladies later." She winked at my mother and let herself out of the home. My mother's smiled faded as soon as she left.

" How is she getting home, there wasn't any other cars out there," I pointed out.

" Oh, she lives in a house south of ours. So she just walks to it through the woods." I nodded my head, and was suddenly hit by a wave of  exhaustion and my eyes watered slightly. 

"Can you show me my room? I mean, if you know where it is?"

" Yeah, honey. I'll take you to it."  My mother sauntered out of the kitchen, through the den, and began leading me down a hall I didn't see. We passed two or three doors on the way and stopped at one at the very end of the hall. She turned the nob and pushed the door open . Inside, there was large lofty room with a wonderful canopy bed. I decided to take the room into more detail the next day. But for now, I told my mother good night and slugged longingly over to the canopy. I threw myself on top of it and was asleep almost instantly.