By the time I made it across the New York State line, I was in a very different state of mind. I was sick of driving, sick of peeing in truck stops, and already sick of being home—even though I wasn’t technically home yet. Two hours later, when I began the slow, gradual climb into the Catskill Mountains, I was so tired and cranky that no amount of chirping birds or late-season tulips bordering the two-lane country highway could lift my mood. And when I turned off the highway and onto the main drag of Bailey Falls, the quaint banner that hung from city hall, proclaiming that the annual Memorial Day parade would be held in just a few days, and the charming red, white, and blue bunting draped across porches and hung from telephone poles and lampposts, failed to charm me.
On autopilot, I drove past the grand homes on Main Street, the still-grand homes on Elm and Maple, past the smaller but neat-as-a-pin cottages on Locust and Chestnut, past the quiet ranch homes in the subdivision on the outskirts of town, over the railroad tracks, and back out into the country. The houses were farther apart now, some with adjoining farms, some stranded in a sea of rusted and busted-out cars forever on blocks.
Finally I turned onto the long winding driveway, gravelly and pitted, lined with flower boxes painted in Day-Glo yellow, orange, purple, and pink. Here and there, signs propped up in the flower boxes shouted motivational messages in neon green:
LESS TROOPS MORE HUGS
A WOMAN NEEDS A MAN LIKE A FISH NEEDS A BICYCLE
NO DAY BUT TODAY
Pretty sure that last one was a line from Rent. My eyes rolled, a conditioned response. As I bumped down the driveway, reading the new signs mixed with the old, I tried to see her as others might see her. Happy. Positive. Eternally optimistic.
I still saw the woman in overalls with a flower behind her ear who brought me my lunch bag when I deliberately left it at home, telling me in front of all of my friends to make sure I didn’t pick off my bean sprouts from my sandwich, that I needed the fiber for my constitution.
Mortifying.
I drove around the last bend in the driveway and found myself in front of my childhood home. Though it had been a few years, it looked exactly the same. Two-story clapboard with peeling white paint. Expansive front porch covered in half-finished art projects. Whirlybirds and pinwheels scattered across the front lawn, which could use a good mowing. At least three different paint colors had been tried out here and there on the side of the house, all abandoned when something else had caught my mother’s attention. Knotholes where woodpeckers tap-tap-tapped right on through, and occasionally brought their friends the squirrels. Always nice to wake up to a scurry in the walls.
But home was home. I parked the car, dragged my luggage onto the porch, and debated whether to knock. On the front door of the house I’d lived in since I was three days old.
Screw the knock, I thought, and turned the handle.
It was locked.
So I knocked. No answer.
Are you kidding me?
I marched through the backyard, past the signs encouraging me not to worry but to be happy, and dug for the key that still lived under the planter by the back door. I knocked once more, then let myself in.