Finding Home

Chapter Two

"Hey Gunner." Patricia says sympathetically as she invites herself into the apartment. Normally I would make a sarcastic comment about this, but my brain isn't functioning at that level at the moment.

"I have some news. It might shock you, so you might want to sit down." She informs me.

"Okay." I reply, taking a seat at the coffee table. She sits down and for a moment we just stare at each other from across the table, sitting in an uncomfortable silence.

"It's about your Dad." She starts slowly, like she's easing me into it. "We've found records of him, living in a ranch in Wyoming."

"Wha–r––really?" I stammer, I feel my blood rush to my head. "Are you serious?"

"I am serious. He's the only living relative we could find. So by law, he now legally responsible for you. He will have to fill out some custody paper work, but as soon as he faxes them over to us, you'll be moving to Wyoming." She states, implying that I don't have a choice.

"Wait a minute here. What if I don't want to live with him?" I argued.

"Gunner, you have no living relatives. It's either living with him or going to a foster home. You have to go." She reasons in a calm voice. By now my blood is boiling. This is the man who let me think he was dead. Who never tried to contact me, never came to visit.

"That's bullshit! He doesn't care about me! Can't I just stay in the city? I can stay with my friend Asher his parents are always telling me if I ever needed anything I could just—" but she cut me off right there.

"Gunner! I need you guys to listen to me. We already sent him the paper work, he's going to give us a call tomorrow and we are going to get. This. Worked. Out. Now I don't need you complaining." She scolds, finally getting angry. I guess she realizes that she was yelling at a kid who's mom just died because she cools down and says, "I'm just doing my job kid. Let me help you."

With that, I give in. "Fine. I'll go." I say reluctantly.

"Thank you."

•••

About three weeks later, when all the paperwork was done, they put me on the eight o'clock plane to Jackson, Wyoming. I had finally come to accept the fact that my mother was dead, and my father was not. The funeral had been two days ago, and he hadn't even bothered to show up.

During the trip, I think about everything I'm heading too, as well as everything I'm leaving behind. I make a sort of list in my head.

Wyoming: Potential hicks, horses, cows, cute country girls, annoying country girls, small towns, high school football.

Chicago: Pizza, noisy streets, skate parks, friends, home, school, decent food.
           
The plane ride takes about two and half hours, in which most of my time is spent sleeping.
           
I wake up when I feel the rumble of the aircraft landing, and get my stuff together. I get off the plane and look around the airport. It's nothing like the one in Chicago. It's about two times smaller, and looks like it's been here for twice as long.
          
I was told by Patricia that Mark, my "Dad", would be waiting in the food court. She had shown me a picture of him, so that I would know what he looked like. Evidently I look a lot like him. I had always thought that I bared a close resemblance to Mom, but I look exactly like him, but about twenty years younger.
        
I quickly spot him, shoulder my bag, and take a deep breath. He's just a person. I approach him slowly and he notices me. He gets up from the small table he had been sitting at and looks me up and down. For a minute we both just stand there, not sure what to do or say. 
        
Finally he speaks up. "I'm Mark Willis." He says in a gruff voice, extending his head.

I shake his hand. "Gunner Lynston." I say, a bit quieter than I intended.

"How was your flight?" He asks politely. At least he didn't tell me to call him Dad, I think to myself.

"Not bad. The scenery was pretty cool." I respond, trying to make small talk, an activity I absolutely suck at.

"Yeah, the mountains are beautiful." After that we're quiet for a minute. "You want me to get one of your bags?" He offers, gesturing to my luggage, which I had already picked up from the baggage claim.

"I've got it." I reply. He nods his head and sighs.

"Well, no point in standing here. You want to head out? It's a couple of hours to the ranch." He says, checking the time on his watch; which by the way, looks like it's a hundred and fifty years old.

"Yeah. Yeah let's go." I agreed. We walk out of the airport, and too his truck. It's a pickup truck, so I have to throw my stuff in the truck bed. I'm reluctant too at first, seeing as it's so dusty, but if I'm going to be living on a ranch, I figure I'd better get used to it.
           
The drive feels much quicker than two hours, I guess it must be because I'm not used to the lack of traffic. As the truck rolls on, I watch the scenery through the dirty window. It's absolutely breath taking. The mountains never seem to stop; and the trees are so tall and green, I honestly thought trees like that only existed in fairytales. Eventually I give myself a headache from trying to look at every single thing that we past, and I have to close my eyes. A trick Mom taught me when I was younger was to shut your eyes and focus on one thing, so I focused on the rumble of the truck. Every bump in the road, the purring of the engine, any shake that I could feel. Sure enough, it works and I go back to admiring the country.
         
After a while, with a few fetal attempts at small talk, Mark takes a turn and drives under an arch that reads "Willow Mae Ranch". It takes me a fraction of a second to realize that the ranch was named after Mom. Why would he name the Ranch after her?

I halfway expect Mark to try and explain why my mother's name was hanging above the entrance to his ranch, but instead he just looks relieved that I didn't ask. How did they meet? How long were they together? Were they ever married? One might assume that a mother would tell her son that his father was her ex husband or something like that and living in Wyoming on a ranch named after her, probably from around the time that I was in the making. All I know is that he must've cared about her a lot, too name a nine hundred acre ranch after her.

Suddenly I feel an unfamiliar bitterness towards Mom. She had lied to me, my whole life, making me think that I didn't have a dad. But Mark did no better. Even if he didn't know about me, he still could have tried to find her. I wonder what could've happened that caused my mom to travel 1,390 miles away from her home.

"Well, this is it." Mark announces, pulling into a gravel driveway in front of an old, classic southern ranch house. The baby blue paint is chipping off at places, and the windows look pretty grimy. It looks fairly worn down, in desperate need of some handy work.
        
"It's nice." I lie, trying not to sound sarcastic; which is pretty hard for me.
         
"Not really." He laughs. "I keep meaning to repaint it, but I never have the time. Come on, let's get you settled in." With that, he hops out of the truck and walks towards the truck bed. I get out after him, grab my bags, and let him lead the way inside.