Hunter's Moon

Moving

It was nothing but cornfields, cows, and old farmhouses for miles. It was also the most pasture I had ever seen. Mom remained silent for the last hour, focusing on finding the right streets before turning into a gravel driveway of a ranch house. There was a concrete slab in front of the garage big enough to park the car, which is where Mom stopped. The neighbors were a good distance away, but it seemed a little close considering we were in the country.

This was the fourth time we have moved in the last ten years. Dad gets new assignments every couple years with the Army, and my parents promised me this would be the last one until I graduated high school. Having a parent in the Army had its perks but it was also frustrating. Deployments were the worst, with the worry and the stress. Every day, Mom and I prayed he would return safe, and every day we didn't hear from him resulted in us praying we weren't about to get the phone call saying he would never come home.

Mom always acted like it was the best thing in the world when the government called and told him he was needed elsewhere, but I knew she was lying for my sake. She might be able to fool Dad, but I could see straight through her. No matter how strong she acted for Dad when he shipped out, she would cry herself to sleep every night until he returned.

Turning off the car, Mom grabbed the bags out of the trunk and opened the front door. I grabbed my own bags, shut the trunk, and walked through the living room and down the stairs to my room. Dumping my bags on the bed, I heaved a giant sigh. Caledonia was my new home now. Dad was assigned to Fort Custer but he insisted we move up here. He argued the schools up here were better, where the public schools had less city people. Mom had accepted without a fuss, adding it would make it easier if he deployed.

Every time Mom brought up deployment, Dad would shake his head and promise he would be fine. The more he got deployed, the better he got at being safe, he said. Mom and I both knew it wasn't like that. If anything, it increased his chances at getting killed. It didn't help that he had signed up for the infantry.

"Elizabeth! Dinner's ready!" Mom hollered from upstairs a few hours later, stomping her foot on the floor for emphasis.

If she kept doing that, I was going to change my room from the basement. Trudging up the stairs, I smelled the familiar aroma of lasagna. I turned into the kitchen to see her smiling as she scooped lasagna onto a plate and followed it with garlic bread. She handed the plate to me and picked up the other one from the counter.

"There you go, honey," she gushed.

"Thanks, Mom." I went to the drawer to grab a fork and then sat down at the table. Sticking the lasagna with my fork, I mumbled, "You know, you don't have to put on a face for me. I know what you're going through." I flicked my eyes up to look at her as she slowly sat down. "Stop acting like I don't know what's going on."

She cut her lasagna and refused to look at me. "What are you talking about?"

"You and Dad. I know how hard it is for you to be apart from him."

She slammed her fork on the table. "I think you're done with your dinner."

My jaw dropped.

"Don't look at me like that, Elizabeth. I am not talking about this with you. Maybe once you find a boyfriend, but that's only if I feel like it. It I wanted to talk to someone about it, I would call my mother."

Feeling slighted, I got up and put my lasagna in the fridge, not bothering to cover it with plastic wrap.

"Don't forget about the tour of Caledonia tomorrow," she said as I walked back downstairs.

As if I could forget. It was a month before summer break but Mom still thought I had to see the school before I went there in the fall—if Dad didn't get deployed before then. Whenever Dad got deployed, Mom would move us to Grandma's, in Maine. Just outside of Kennebunkport, where the only thing to do was walk the beach.

Back in my room, I took my clothes out of my bags and put them all in the dresser. Dad had arranged for the entire house to be moved and staged last week while we visited Grandma. The only things we needed to bring with us were our clothes.

Tucking into bed, the familiar smell of Oklahoma wrapped around me. I missed the desert heat already. Despite it being close to summer, Michigan felt so much colder. I shivered involuntarily and tugged my comforter tighter. It probably didn't help there was a weird draft in this basement.

Tomorrow was about to be a long day if I had to spend it all of it with Mom. I sighed and shifted to a more comfortable position, begging exhaustion to pull me into sleep.

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2nd draft