I’ve been avoiding posting on purpose. This isn’t a lag. But I wanted to throw this up here, because I’m elated to spend a summer weekend roasting in the sun of the South Branch.
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I sighed far too loudly. Long, exaggerated, and unnecessarily audible, my exhale did nothing to improve the mood my parents already steamed in.
“FiiiihhhhNALLY.” In the gravel driveway, Dad clicked off the engine and I heard nothing for a minute, the blackness that hits your ears when you meet sudden silence after hours of persistent white noise. Then Dad’s short breaths as he unbuckled and opened the door in quick bursts of motion. Mom whipped around in her seat and stared at me for a minute, the “See what you did?!” look I must have liked, given the amount of times I incited it.
“NICE touch.”
Years later, I wouldn’t wonder where I got my sarcasm.
I was never a bad kid. I just always seemed to push all the wrong buttons, and only usually when no buttons were left to push. Mouthy and dramatic, I’d been in trouble at school a few times. Really, you try to find me a nine-year-old girl who isn’t mouthy and dramatic.
Inevitably, I blame any and all bad behavior in my younger years on my little sister. I was fine before she showed up. I mean, I don’t really remember; I was three when she hit the scene, but all of that obnoxious acting out? It all stemmed from some subconscious jealousy I harbored from the minute Mom left the hospital that day with that hairy, fat little thing. Really. Ask a shrink; I’m sure I’m right.
Even at that point – I was nine, she was six – she still just sat there, a fuzzy ball with a weird smile, quiet in her car seat having just awoken from the three-hour drive. I was still “acting out” as they called it because I didn’t have a companion yet. We looked at each other just before I turned to open the minivan’s sliding door.
Either go back where you came from or start being fun, I thought at her – really hard. She yawned and rubbed one eye, and I characteristically flung myself from the van, leaping into the night air and onto the gravel. Mom and Dad carried water jugs and coolers from the back of the van into the cabin. They didn’t speak much, just a “Where did you put the towels?” or “Did we bring batteries?” It felt okay to me, though, like they left all the short breaths and tight lips in the van, that blue box full of family tension.
“Come get your sleeping bag,” Mom said, and she tossed it. I caught it by the cord and felt it begin to unravel, so I balled it into my arms and hurried inside.
With my sleeping bag safely situated on my bed – which I first checked, double-checked, and triple-checked for spiders – I snuck to the back door before I could be roped into another armload. Outside, the lack of moonlight turned the air black. I grimaced as I stomped a rogue driveway stone, then realized my opportunity. I picked it up, the sandstone cold in my palm. I let my memory walk me to the deck railing. I knew the river flowed below only from the nextdoor cabin’s lanterns reflections on the water. Holding tight to the rock, I wound my arm like I’d been practicing in softball that summer, and I flung the tiny piece of driveway into the abyss. I heard a small plop.
“Yessss,” I whispered.
I ran – again, dramatically and unnecessarily – back to the van to help finish the night’s unpacking.
Long before I had any idea who John Denver was, I called West Virginia home.
