Wayward Home

I sat across the table from my parents, mouth flapping as effectively as a landed trout, struggling to keep from hyperventilating and to form words with my suddenly rubbery lips. Surely I hadn't heard that correctly? They couldn't have just announced with the tone of, "Please pass the potatoes," that they were pushing me from the nest and flying south. Could they?

Thwacking the centre of my chest, to dislodge said potatoes with a cough, I blinked and said, "Pardon?" My mother looked up from her roast, her face glowing and excitement shining in her emerald green eyes.

"It's time dear, you're twenty one years old and your father and I aren't getting any younger," she repeated, "We've been stateside for far too long. We've been offered a great dig in Uruguay-"

"Paraguay, Val, it's in Paraguay," my father interrupted, lifting his head momentarily, stilling the motion of his fork all while his eyes craned to read the text in the book to his far left. 

My mother's lips pursed for a brief moment at the correction, before she conceded, "In Paraguay and we'll be leaving in a week."

All the rigidity in my spine dissolved as I slouched back in my chair, aghast at their announcement. I tried to shoot pleading looks at my mother, but her attention had pointedly returned to her plate. My father was already back to shoveling food into his mouth with his right hand and flipping pages as he read with his left. Dragging the tines of my fork through my mashed potatoes, I pushed the panic away. I'd know this day was coming; in fact, I was surprised that it hadn't arrived a lot sooner.

Dropping my fork against my plate with a loud clatter, I stared at my mother until our green gazes met again. Hesitantly, I asked, "What's to become of me?"

Some of the brightness in her eyes dimmed and for a brief moment they grew dewy as though she might cry, before she cleared her throat and said, "You're welcome to come-," but the twist of my features kept her from finishing her sentence. She tried to hide her hurt, but for a brief second it was blindingly bright before she barricaded it behind her former chipper expression. "Yes, I thought as much," she murmured. Reaching for her glass of wine she implored, "George?"

My father blinked up from his book, swimming between what he'd been reading and what he'd been listening, half-heartedly to, for a moment before he grunted, "Right! Margot's showed an interest in hosting you for as long as you'd like. You'd have your own little apartment above her garage."

Mother's head was bobbing like this was the best news in the word. Lifting one red brow, I stared pointedly at my father until he remembered to tell me the most important detail he'd neglected a moment earlier, "Margot is your cousin, my sister, Catherine's daughter. They live in Minnesota."

"Wisconsin dear," my mother corrected quickly. Her face blanched in that way that it always did when she was going to talk about something I didn't remember. "You spent a month with them before... Scotland." Which would explain the reason I didn't know my father had a sister named Catherine or that I had a cousin named Margot. A sharp throbbing began behind my right eye.

Scotland. I gritted my teeth. You'd think that one would have fond memories of where one's memories began, wouldn't you? Not me. All I remember about Scotland is pain and absolutely nothing before that. Yep, all my memories before the day I woke up in the hospital are gone. My parents tell me we'd been there on vacation, taking part in a medieval castle  re-enactment, but I don't remember any of it. I don't remember Mrs. McCabe fishing me out of the well, saving my life. I don't remember coming around in my room, hysterical and blubbering like I was dying. I don't remember learning my ABCs, or how to count or how to write. Those were just a few of the things I've had to relearn how to do since that day almost four years ago now.