Although I haven’t been here in a year, the road was still familiar. As I pulled into town, it was like stepping back into my childhood.
Welcome back to small town West Virginia.
The road to my parent’s house skirts the outside of town. From what I can tell, Moonshine Springs looks much the same as I remember with the addition of a new traffic light on Willow Lane and Main Street. Our town never did have much to offer. The cell reception sucked. There were only two bed and breakfasts.
The one redeeming factor, the springs.
Moonshine Springs.
Tourists had come in and discovered them throughout this little town over the years and came back seemingly every year since to enjoy them. Every summer business boomed with the hustle and bustle. As far as I could tell though, it still had that same backwoods charm it always had. A small town where people waved to you when you drove down the street and hugged you on the sidewalk. A town where everyone knew everyone which also meant that your business was always up for public debate.
Mama and Papa lived about five minutes outside town. This road is the same curvy death trap that I learned to drive on all those years ago. As I drove the rhythm of the swerves and curves came back to me like riding a bike.
I turned onto the old gravel road and the car bounced down the long drive kicking up dust until my childhood house came into view. It’s a small house, a little more worn than I remember, but just as quaint. The wood shingles are even more weathered and the wrap-around porch has seen better days. Paint was chipping off the sides and hanging in jagged edges. A grin formed across my face at the sight of my parents. Each in their own rocking chair on the front porch, just like they always were. Momma with her yarn and needles, Papa with his newspaper. To some it may seem simple, but to my parents it was a way of life. They were never caught up in the latest gossip or attached to their phones, not like what you saw when you walked through any city these days.
I pulled up to the house and slowly climbed out.
“Hey Mama, Papa.” I say, trying to hide the tremor in my bottom lip. It’d been far too long since I’d seen my parents and it wasn’t until that very minute that I realized just how much I missed them. Mama’s voice was like coming home after you’ve been to war and I felt like I had. Living with Andrew had been warfare. Mental warfare.
I still can’t believe I’d actually stood up for myself and asked for a divorce. It was one thing that just seemed right when every other single thing seemed wrong. I tried to hide the frown line that marred my face as I thought back to that night just a week ago.
“Well look what the cat dragged in.” Mama smiled at me. A small smile that I’d missed way too much. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Come on over here and give your mama a hug.” She looked the same except for a few new grey hairs and frown lines. She still wore a ragged pair of blue jeans and a tee shirt.
She got up out of her rocker and walked over to me as I climbed those front porch steps that creaked with each carefully placed step.
I was fragile right now, an emotional basket case. Witnessing what I had seen would give anyone the creeps. I’d put on makeup today to hide my puffy eyes from all the crying I’d done. If he was dead like I believed he was, he would no longer be my husband on paper. In my heart he hadn’t been that for over a year. I’d gotten the papers drawn up and given them to him, but he hadn’t signed as far as I knew. At the end of the day though, he was still a person that I cared about. Yes, he was a shitty husband. He took more than he gave, but I was human. I had a heart and seeing someone like that would forever be burned into my brain.
I paused before looking over at Papa. The one person I’d always looked up to. He was a proud man and he loved his family something fierce. He’d never admit it, but the look in his eyes told me that he knew something bad had happened. He looked older than the last time I saw him, and he still wore those goofy old overalls and a white tee shirt. My parents had the typical country bumpkin look down pat, a vast difference to the lifestyle I’d been living with Andrew, but they were still my parents and I loved them very much.
Andrew had allowed me to come the first two years we were married, but since the accident he’d said no, so I’d stayed away. A phone call to catch up every once in a while, but I’d had to wait until Andrew was at work or a function to do so. I isolated myself so much that I wasn’t even sure they’d let me stay. I felt ashamed that I’d come running back to them, but I had nowhere else to go.
“Hey Papa,” I said softly.
His voice was gruff as he spoke, “Did you stop anywhere on the way into town?”
“No, y’all were the first people I wanted to see.” I didn’t want to tell them that I didn’t want to see anyone else. That I didn’t even want to be here in the first place, because that would crush them.
“It’s been a year since we’ve seen your pretty face in these
