Chapter Two

This chapter isn't quite as impressive as I felt about the first. But it was there.

My flight from Chicago to Houston was cramped, but smooth. I arrived at about seven and Dad was already waiting at the gate for me. As soon as we’d left the airport, Dad turned into the first IHOP and bought me a plate of pancakes and sausage and bacon and eggs.

As I look around at all of the shiny red vinyl booths and the tired faces, I realize I haven’t been to an IHOP since I left Texas. The last time I can remember enjoying a plate of pancakes was with Mom and Dad an hour before my plane for Chicago was scheduled to take off. Mom had sniffled over her own blueberry waffles and Dad had poked fun at her, knowing they’d see me again. Even I didn’t know, then, that it would take me this long to come back.

“It’s good to see you, pumpkin,” Dad says, sipping his coffee. I’m happy to see that he still takes his coffee the same; black with a single packet of sugar. “I wish it were under better circumstances, though.”

I nod. The waitress, a middle-aged woman with chubby ankles and a run in her pantyhose, waddles up to our table with our food. “Anything else for ya’ll this evening?” She asks with a deep Southern drawl.

Dad squints at her nametag, “That’d be all, Marcia, thank you very much.”

I smile. “You forgot your glasses, as usual.”

“I’m much handsomer without ‘em.”

 I laugh and take a long sip from my sweet iced tea. The south is known for their sweet tea, and Chicago is poorly lacking. “How is Mom doing?”

Dad’s expression falls a little. “She’s much better now, but I still hate to see her up there in that hospital. She told me to go ahead and go home tonight, but I promised her I’d bring you up there tomorrow afternoon.”

“When can she go home?”

“Dr. Bennett said it’s necessary to keep your mom in the hospital for at least another week. Depending on how she’s doing Sunday will determine whether she can go home on Monday or not.”

After we’d discussed Mom’s situation there wasn’t much to talk about. I was jet-lagged from the flight and Dad looked exhausted. Neither of us had ever been one for small-talk, which I probably got from him, and so when we finished our breakfast-dinners, Dad drove us home.

By the time we pulled into town my eyes were drooping, but I’d kept myself awake for the entire ride just to see if the town was still the same, or if it’d changed. The main street was still cobblestone, and the gazebo was still there, but the splintered wood had been painted over in white. Some of the baby trees that had been planted while Beth and I were in Jr. High had grown up quite a bit. The town had built tiny wrought-iron fences around the trunks, to protect from dogs, maybe. Everything was closed, of course. It was almost ten-thirty and this town shut their doors at eight.

We pull into the driveway on Magnolia Drive at around 10:50. The house looks just like I left it, but with a flourishing garden in the front. Mom had taken to planting rose bushes and gardenias and tulips and hydrangeas, and there are emptied wash basins, ceramic pots that she’d painted, and desolate bird houses that she’d found to plant more flowers in. The porch swing has been repainted, too, it looks like, but everything else appears the same from the outside.

“Your room is still exactly how it was, ‘cept I washed up your sheets and put away some of the boxes to make room for this stuff,” he indicates to my bags.

I follow Dad up the porch steps and watch him shuffle through the keys on his single silver key-ring he fished out of his back pocket. Though I know that just inside the door is the small square vestibule that we always called the “mud room” where Mom would fuss at us if we didn’t take off our shoes, and beyond that is the hallway where they’ve hung up all of our family portraits and other odd pictures, I still feel anxious with anticipation. When Dad finally gets the door unlocked, we both trudge inside and slip our shoes off, out of habit, and deep down, out of respect for Mom in her absence.

“I’m gonna grab me a glass of tea before I head to bed. Do you want anything, sweet pea?”

I shake my head. Ever since I got off the plane my body has felt heavy with fatigue, and I can feel the grime all over me from the airport and the plane, and the sticky booth at IHOP. “I’m going to shower and probably get to bed, too.”

Dad smiles. The fissures that break ripples in the wake of his worn out smirk have deepened in just the past year since I left. His hair is graying and there’s something behind his hazel eyes that look like they’re trying to keep something locked up.

“You know where the towels are,” he says, turning towards the kitchen.

I head down the hall with my bags when Dad calls me back, “Ellie?”

“Yeah?” I yawn.

“I love you…I really missed you.”

My throat tightens. “I love you, too, Dad.”

 

The water pressure in my apartment in Chicago is best described as flat and disappointing. The hot water is used up faster than I can get my shampoo lathered, most of the time, and there’s a buildup of soap scum on the shelves where I keep my shampoo and conditioner bottles. In between work and school the bathroom usually gets neglected in my monthly “clean up”.

Here, at home, the water is hot, scorching and searing and turning my soft skin a tender pink. The pressure is hard enough to relax the muscles in my back, but gentle enough to hold my face under and let the water run down my face, down my neck, and across the plane of my stomach. This rectangle of white tile and plaster and glass is flawlessly cleaned and smells like bleach and soap. I’m incredibly clean and my skin is fragrant like honeydew melon, but I continue to scrub and lather and just feel the steam inside my lungs.

The whole bathroom is white with steam and my fingers and toes are pruned before I begin to fall asleep standing up.

I change into my pajamas and tiptoe down the hallway to Mom and Dad’s room. The lamp by the bed on Dad’s side is still on and his cup of tea is empty and sitting next to his alarm clock. He’s fallen asleep with the covers pulled down, but without them over him. He’s snoring softly and he’s still in the clothes he was in before, though his shoes are in the mud room, at least. I quietly pull the blankets over him so that they cover his shoulders and kiss his cheek that is rough with stubble. I take the emptied cup, switch off the lamp, and shut the door behind me.

Reviews

[E.H. Monroe]

You brute!
You better give something else, although I don't think It's the story I'm in love with. Its the gentle and piquant description that you lay out like a picnic set up. The shower, the plane feeling and filth, the covers, the mud room all places that engineered to fill only so much and let the reader's mind take the rest away.
Even the haklf description of the waitress, just ankles and style of walk. I instantly filled the rest in with that fat slob clown MiMi from the ol Drew Carrey show.

You are a real wordsmith. This isint just girl back to small town. This is girl in dark circumstances and gets to transform back to herself for a while in a bleached shower and a room that was left exactly the way she liked it.

F****n A sister,

[JC]

i think this is just as strong as the first chapter, you take us through a familia effortlesssly, again deep insight and observation, the pure reality and truth of what you say makes it so easy to relate to.