When I start the truck on Friday morning, a deep, resonate voice fills the cab. My first instinct is to turn it off, but then I realize this is the station Grandad Will listens to when he is driving, and if I listen to this voice, maybe I will understand something about my grandfather. I turn the volume down a bit, not wanting to be distracted, and I back the truck down the drive, waving to my grandparents as they watch through the window.
My life in California is a dream, and now I am awake and it is fading; it feels not quite real. I started feeling it last night when we were going through my portfolio and the feeling has grown through the night. Who would I be right now if I had stayed in Illinois? I’ve dropped completely back into the life I left behind, without the drama that pushed me away.
I plan to see everybody, all the McGills and Jay, Mr. Billups and Rob. Jake, Vaude, and Dylan. I knew I would want to see these people, but I’m surprised at the people I didn’t know I would want to see. I want to see Kelci Bancroft, in a dark, mean way. I don’t want to see her because she was a friend—she wasn’t. Really, I want her to see me. She got to go to college in an easy way, but I am the ugly duckling turned to swan. I want her to see me the way my family sees me—as someone who shines. Everything glitters in California, at least from the distance of two thousand miles. Some of the shine from that golden coast has rubbed off on me. I am the golden one now. I am the one rising from the ashes to soar.
Other people roll through my mind as I drive. Toni Britton, who warned me so long ago about my mom’s boyfriend Cal. Was that only two years ago? It seems like a lifetime. Faye, my mom’s best friend, who thought I was a pain in the ass.
The voice on the radio says, “With half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair,” and I think of Mitch, the best of the men my mom ever brought home. He used to say, “I’m not half as conceited as I have a right to be” and it feels like the same sort of thing I had just heard on the radio. Was Mitch really that confident? Looking back, I know he couldn’t have been. Confident men don’t choose broken women. Except Trey. But I’m not broken anymore. I’m golden. I’m on a path. No, Mitch wasn’t confident like the voice on the radio talking about politics, the way Trey does sometimes until I glaze over.
Theresa hovers in my mind. I would like to see her, to see if Mitch has gone on to a less broken woman. I hope he has. He was always good to me.
The interstate is clear, mostly, with only patches of ice that have been covered over with salt and sand. Traffic moves fast, and I don’t even realize how fast I’m driving. Grandad’s truck is a vast improvement over my Volkswagen. My mind is wandering, numbed by the politics on the radio, lulled by the rhythm of the road. My mind rolls over the baby, Emily Ann, and I wonder where she lives. What was her first Thanksgiving like? Are Tom and Meredith good parents? Did all of their families come together to celebrate my baby? Would she be dressed in frills and lace? How big is she? What milestones has she crossed? When do babies start walking? Surely she would be crawling, maybe even pulling herself up around the coffee table. I hope she is strong. I hope I didn’t leave any defective coding in her DNA. The hum of the road under the knobby tires has lulled me into a trance until I see the first sign for Mattoon, and my stomach clenches because here it is, the exit to home.
I make a sudden decision to see Faye, and turn left off the ramp, toward Mattoon. I drive the roads by memory, noticing everything; my senses are on high alert. The restaurant that Warren took me to on our first date has a different name. Luke’s is undergoing a transformation into the Sirloin Stockade. The change gives me a pang of nostalgia. I never thought about anything changing here. I am the center of my universe, and when I left, this place should have stopped turning. It seems that I have been gone a long time, and like the restaurant, I have been renovated.
Faye’s house is in a subdivision called Green Meadows. Two left-hand turns after the entrance sign, I see the little yellow ranch sitting at the end of the cul-de-sac. I slow and park the truck alongside the mounds of snow shoveled by hand out of the circle. The nostalgia feels like a weight when I see Rob, up on a ladder, stretching lights along the eves—one of the good guys in my life. I open the door and close it with a click, waiting for him to turn and see me. He is intent on his work, focused. I remember that about him—the way I would go the barns at Billups where all the lumber was stored, and he wouldn’t even hear me coming up. I am about to call out when the front door opens, and Faye comes out onto the porch. She is holding a box full of lights, her hair teased like a halo around her head. When she sees me standing at the end of her sidewalk, she drops the box and begins screaming.
