Years of Silence

CHAPTER EIGHT

The car door opened easily. I hadn't touched the restored chevy in years. My dad left it in the garage for purposes unknown to me. I opened the trunk, looking for the spare jumper cables to take with, in the Impala. In the trunk with the jumper cables, however, I found a box of papers and a suitcase.

I pulled out the suitcase and noticed it was very similar to my own, from a set my mother bought us when we were kids. I pulled the zipper, but it didn't budge, it was rusted shut. The suitcase and the box of papers both ended up in the back of the Impala, even though it took me more than ten minutes to get them there.

Xavier walked out in the middle of me hauling the heavy suitcase to the car. "Want some help?" I waved him back inside and he went, leaving me to continue the rest of the half to the car. He reappeared the moment I leaned against the car, with the suitcase in the backseat.

He held out a sandwich and an apple. I took them, quickly eating the sandwich and stuffing the apple in my pocket. I walked swiftly back to the older car, pulling the papers out of the trunk and motioning to the jumper cables for Xavier to grab. I set the papers in the back seat and came out through the door to see Xavier leaning against the car. "Ready to head out?"

I nodded, closing the door behind me only to open another and pull myself into the driver's seat. I hadn't driven the Impala in a while, but I was sure I'd be fine. I learned to drive this car, and I'd be fine. If not, Xavier could drive. My dad had taken me to the dealership early in the morning yesterday for my license.

Even learning how to drive made me think of my mother because of the car I learned in, the car she learned to drive in. She kept it in working condition, and I knew it was trusty enough to get us from here to Iowa.

The trip started easy enough, it was just driving, right? Not exactly. We had to use a global positioning system to get us anywhere, and it was so boring. So incredibly boring. I couldn't stop thinking about Iowa, the house and the coordinates, how far away they were. There were only about fifteen miles between, maybe twenty. We could easily drive there. We could easily get there, and then my mind went out on a tangent.

My grandparents. What if they didn't welcome us? What if they weren't calm and what if they weren't kind and what if they didn't know who we were? I pulled my mind out of this, just in time to stomp on the brakes. This jolted Xavier awake and drew his attention to the deer, not three feet in front of us, which I had nearly avoided hitting. "Maybe I should drive for a while." I nodded, and we both got out, switching sides. We were in Nebraska by then, close to North Platte already, only about five hours away from my grandparents, but I was still exhausted. I needed sleep. I fell asleep quickly in the passenger seat with Xavier driving.

I woke up in what felt like a few seconds, but when I looked out my window, I saw a sign on the interstate about the antique city. It was close, the next exit. "You need to take the next exit." I could hear the sleep in my voice, and I knew Xavier could too. "I know. I looked at the map." I smiled back at him, and I could feel the tiredness in that smile.

I sat up, looking around as he took the exit, and I saw that everything had changed since I was seven, the last time I had been there. I could still see the basics of town, the borders, where the churches sat, where the houses were, the old baseball field that would never disappear, but almost everything was updated, almost every store changed. This should have been a lot less surprising.

We left the town and suddenly I could see the cornfields in my mind's eye, I could see where we were going. As we went around the bend and started on the home stretch, I could feel my inner emotions. I couldn't help being excited. Excited to see my grandparents. Excited for adventure.

We pulled off the highway into the old gravel driveway and I could see each of the barns my mom told me about when I was a kid. The back one, her hideout, was falling apart. The shop, where my grandfather worked, was updated, a piece added, and the house looked the same as ever.

The wooden swing in front was broken, one end of the seat laying on the ground. Because it was, I could see the little, broken sidewalk, the wraparound porch, the tiny path between the garage and the house, the two separate doors, the kitchen chandelier through the window.

I could see the window of the room my mother slept in as a child, the room I loved so much, and the room I stayed in every time we showed up. The sloped roof I'd go onto to watch the sunsets, the little dips in the roofing I'd used for footholds.

I walked to the front door with caution. I had no idea what would happen in the next few seconds. I rang the old broken doorbell, expecting to hear nothing from the outside except the faint ringing from inside. Instead, I heard a faint barking, as if there was a dog in the house.

The inside door opened, revealing a short dark haired lady, with her hair in a sort of pixie cut. She was holding back a giant Siberian husky. After the dog calmed down from there being a person at the door, she looked up at me. Blue eyes with a curved chin and a kind smile that faltered when she saw me. She glanced at my hair and back to my face, she stepped off the ledge onto the porch. Her hand went up to the side of my face, and I felt myself smile. Tears filled her eyes. "You look just like your mother." She signed. I fell into her arms with a smile, relaxing in her hug. "I've missed you, grandmama," I wrote into her shoulder.