Just one minute earlier, Trudy had been filled with heat and rage, ready to burst through the front door and storm over to that truck and what? What, Trudy? What were you going to do? Hit somebody? Scream and yell and cry like a big baby? And then what? They would all still be there. Her family. Every single fucking one of them.
It didn’t matter what she did. She caught sight of him and her power was gone. It just drained away. Her father, standing there at the end of the driveway. She knows it is him. No question. He looks just like she remembers him, and he looks just like her sister. Her sister who has just jumped down from the truck, who is now swivelling around to take in this interloper. This scene-stealer whose identity is not yet known to her.
Trudy feels her shoulders pulling forward and down toward the ground. She leans back against the door and her knees buckle and bend until she is almost kneeling. As if she is being crushed by an actual physical burden. And just when she thinks it can’t get any worse, here she is. Miss America. Trudy can see her mother’s spun sugar hair and pink lipstick floating above the wheel of her rusty Chevette as she pulls into the driveway.
Behind Darren’s truck.
Which is behind Tammy’s truck.
Which is right on the very edge of Trudy’s last nerve.