Army Way of Life

Chapter Two

School was over for the summer and before I knew it, we were loading up the car to head to West Point to see Luke graduate.

"Hurry up, Quinn! We were supposed to leave half an hour ago!"

"Uh uh, don't blame me! I'm ready," I said grumpily as I walked down the stairs. My dad was blaming me, like always, for something that was not my fault. "Mom's the one up there taking her sweet time getting ready. All of mine and Ryker's stuff is in the van already."

"Well please go tell your mother to hurry up."

I huffed and walked back up the stairs. I knocked on the partly closed door and waited for my mom's reply before stepping in. "Dad says to hurry up. We're late."

"Oh, pish posh. It'll all be alright. We have plenty of time."

"I know that, but he doesn't agree."

"I'll be down in 15 minutes."

I didn't respond, just went back downstairs to where my father was oh so impatiently waiting. "She said she'd be down in 15 minutes." I didn't wait for his response before going to play in the front yard with my sister and Ryker. Macie, Luke's girlfriend since 7th grade, and now fiancée, was riding with us up there. She graduated a semester early from Yale as a journalist. Talk about being the ideal daughter...

"Quinn, he's getting so big!"

"Don't remind me. I don't want him to grow up so fast..."

"Awh, it'll be fun, though."

Just then, Dad stormed out of the house and told us that Mom was on her way down, to get in the van. So I waited for Melanie and Macie to climb into the back before fastening Ryker into his seat and climbing in next to him. Five minutes later, we were on the road for a very long road trip.

Luckily, Ryker did really well on the way up. He only fussed a few times and when we stopped to eat dinner, I got him to sleep and he slept most of the remaining time.

We pulled into the Holiday Inn we were staying at almost 11 pm. Dad went to check in while Melanie got a couple luggage carts and we unloaded the van. He came back with the room keys saying that he and Mom were in a room, then the rest of us were in the other. There is a third room for the boys, but no one was to stay in it.

When we were able to go to our rooms, Dad warned us of the long day ahead of us. We were meeting up with our brothers, then going to take tours of West Point and do all the touristy stuff because no one but my dad and brothers had been to it. Not that we cared we never had. Dad wouldn't let us argue against it; said it was important for Army families to know and experience the sights.

So we dispersed into our rooms and I hurried and got in the shower while they unpacked and Ryker was still asleep. I knew that since he had slept so much in the car, he'd wake up and not want to go back to sleep.

While Melanie was in the shower, Ryker started stirring. I held my breath, hoping that he wouldn't wake up. But I wasn't that lucky. He rolled over and sat up. "Hi, Buddy," I cooed.

He rubbed his eyes and looked over at Macie, who was reading a book on the other bed. He started crawling over to the end of the bed and I said, "Macie, I think he wants to see you."

She looked up and grabbed him, hugging him close. "Hi Little Man, did you have a good sleep?"

"Unfortunately. I didn't really want him to sleep that long, but I felt bad waking him up..." I said.

He started jabbering on incomprehensibly and full of life. I groaned inwardly. There was no way he would sleep tonight.

Around 1:30, Macie and Melanie were ready for bed, I could tell. So I slipped on my flip flops and grabbed a room key and the diaper bag and started toward the door. "You don't have to leave," Macie said.