Georgie, All Along (9)

I’m not even back on the main road before I put all the windows down again, letting the warm evening air renew my hair’s hugeness, leaning into the knowledge that I don’t have to put on a show for anyone else tonight. Beside me, the notebook sits on the passenger seat, and I already know I’m going to spend the next couple of hours reading it. That sense I had back in Bel’s junk room hasn’t lessened. If anything, it’s intensified: This fic has some kind of answer for me.

The drive out to my parents’ place is strangely familiar, more familiar than most of the Darentville sights I’ve seen today, and it’s soothing to navigate my way through this side of town, where the changes don’t seem so pronounced. I get farther from the riverfront and closer to the heavily wooded lots of the northeast side of town; I see rusty mailboxes I recognize and a crooked roadside sign that tells me to STOP FOR FARM-GROWN FRUIT, which means the Talbotts are still using the same mode of advertising they’ve used since they took over the place when I was twelve. It’d be a lousy business strategy, except that if you were in the know, you could also STOP FOR WEED, and I’d say a fair number of people from this area—including my parents—regularly did. Last year my dad told me that the Talbotts were taking their crop legal, now that state laws had changed, but my guess is that the county itself wasn’t being as permissive about a sign advertising it.

It’s another mile before I reach the barely visible turnoff to my parents’ property, which at first sight looks less like a path to somewhere and more like a dirt-and-gravel dent in the woods. When I was growing up, it embarrassed me, this wild and hidden entry to our house, a contrast to the neatly trimmed, grass-lined asphalt driveways of other kids’ homes, the ones who lived closer to the center of town. As I got older, I minded it less, growing into the understanding that my parents simply didn’t abide by the same rules as everyone else—certainly not any rules that mandated lawn care—but I still rarely invited people other than Bel over. It’d be exhausting to explain how to look for that turnoff, and then there was the matter of what you’d see once you found it.

I see it all now, sprawling before me in all its strange, slightly hilarious glory, relics of my parents’ half-formed habits and hobbies. There’s a few more raised beds in the yard than the last time I was here, but the worn, crooked condition of the cedar is a reminder that I’ve mostly seen my parents in other places over the last five years—meetups we’ve made in other cities, an extended trip they’d taken to California for the holidays last November. Still, the beds are overflowing with plants—not the tomatoes or squash or herbs anyone might expect to find in planter boxes, but bee-and butterfly-attracting wildflowers only, tall and unruly, no real need for heavy watering or pest control. Beside the largest bed, there’s a six-foot-tall metal rooster, painted blue and green and bright yellow, a homemade wooden sign around its neck reading: I LOVE YOU, SHYLA—the rooster and the sign both a gift from my dad to my mom on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the commitment ceremony they held not long after I was born. The rooster—my mom named him Rodney—isn’t the only lawn ornament in the yard, just the biggest one, and as I bump down the rocky driveway, I see ones I remember and ones newly acquired: sculptures and bottle trees and wind chimes, brightly colored china mounted onto metal stakes to make a garden of porcelain flowers, hand-painted birdhouses, and hanging tree lights.

The small ranch house itself has always been unremarkable by comparison to the charming chaos of the outside, and it’s got a real “a handyman lives here” energy, in that it bears all the signs of neglect that suggest the person living here does not often bring his work home with him. The white siding needs a power wash, the gutters are crooked, and there’s a shutter missing from one of the front windows. It’s not wholly dilapidated or neglected, but it is very well used, and the contrast to the house I just left is so sharp that I almost want to laugh.

I put the Prius in park beneath the rusty carport and breathe out a sigh of relief at this specific homecoming. All throughout my cross-country drive, I didn’t think a whole lot about the prospect of being here, at this home—mostly I’d thought of the official job I didn’t have anymore and the unofficial job I thought I’d be doing for Bel. But now that I’m here, I’m glad for it—this messy and crooked hideaway house that matches how I feel inside.

I forgo the trash bags and suitcases for now, grabbing only the duffel and the notebook for tonight. I may be glad to be here, but I sure can’t say I know what I’ll find once I’m inside, since my parents are historically hugely uneven about prepping for their trips. If my mom was feeling good in the days before, she would’ve straightened up, made sure laundry and dishes were done, maybe cleared out the fridge of anything that would spoil. But if she was having a flare, the process would’ve been slower, less pressured, her joints protesting too much effort.

Around back I fumble with my keys, ignoring a pang when I pass over the three I used most regularly when I worked for Nadia—office in Burbank, main house, my small guest cottage. The door here still sticks, especially in this summer humidity, my parents’ many paint jobs over the years swelling up the wood past the point of comfort. But it’s a fresh, sunny yellow now, the same color it was back when I moved out, and that, too, is a greeting.

Inside it smells like it always has—incense and Dr. Bronner’s, which my parents use for cleaning everything from floors to linens. It is shockingly tidy—the kitchen I’ve walked into is clear of dishes, the dining room table I can see from here clear of crafts—so my mom must’ve been feeling better than good when they left. In the small living room, all of the plants—God, they have so many plants—look perky and well-tended. Still, I don’t venture down the hall to the two bedrooms yet, fearing that things might be off the rails down that way. Instead, I take advantage.