Nevertheless, I’m certain it’s the same truck I saw leaving earlier this morning. After all, only the rental office and the six cottages are down this lane. It’s then I recall Becky saying four of the cottages were available. Whoever is inside that truck must be the person renting the other cottage.
Natural curiosity grows as I watch the truck in my rearview mirror disappear beyond a slight bend in the lane. For only a second, I consider turning around. Before I do, my phone rings, diverting my attention.Momis on the screen. Earlier, I sent her a text message asking her to call.
“Hi, Mom,” I answer, keeping the car still.
“Jillian, what a nice surprise. I wasn’t planning to hear from you today. Is everything all right?”
Yes. No. Depends.
I bite the bullet. “Mom, I’m in Blue Gil.” When she doesn’t respond, I continue speaking faster with each phrase. “I got in last night. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’m wondering if I could come by for a visit.”
“You’re here?” she asks in disbelief.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Wait. Where are you staying? Why didn’t you come here, to your home?”
I inhale. “We can talk in person. I haven’t seen you since you and Dad visited California last summer.” My father had a conference and since it was summer, my mom could manage some time off. It was their second visit to California since I graduated college. In all fairness, that’s two more than I made back here.
Until now.
“Yes, of course,” she answers. “Have you eaten? I’ll put together some lunch. Your father is golfing. Oh, Jillian, if he knew he’d?—”
Why do I think even if he knew I was in town, he’d still golf?
I interrupt, “Mom, I’m not leaving right away. I’ll seeDad later. Lunch sounds great. What about Julie? Is she home?”
“Oh, she’s off with friends. Come home. I’ve missed you.”
The scene before the windshield blurs. I worried announcing my arrival would go another direction. I’m grateful it didn’t. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“You didn’t say where you are staying. You know you can stay here. We have plenty of room—your room and Ollie’s. We made Olivia’s an office.”
I feel like she’s rambling. “I’m staying at the old Iverson cottages on Stark Lake.”
“You are?”
I know my mom well enough to hear the change in her tone. “Yes, Becky set me up.”
“Oh, of course. That was sweet of her, but I think you should reconsider staying here.”
“How about we chat first? Becky said the cottages are empty until Memorial Day weekend.”
“Most of them.” She pauses. “Well, that makes sense.” Another pause. “Jillian, I can’t wait to see you.”
“Thanks, Mom. Me too.”
As I hang up the phone, I wonder at what age parents no longer make their offspring feel like children—juveniles. The question isn’t derogatory. I mean it in a comforting way, such as a little girl who could use her mother to comfort and reassure her. I’ve spent the last six years convincing myself I am an adult who can manage anything that comes my way. I purposely shielded many of my life issues from my family, telling myself it was for their benefit. Now I’m not sure.
Ishake my head as Becky’s sentiment comes back,water under the bridge.
There’s a reason water is the subject of that analogy. Once it flows it never returns.
Maybe I need to recognize that the issues that kept me away from Blue Gil no longer exist.
The next ten minutes fly by; I’m lost in my thoughts until I find myself on the street in front of my childhood home. In some ways it hasn’t changed. The bricks are the same, the trim the same color. In other ways it has. The landscape is different, more modern. Gone are the evergreen bushes, replaced by tall grasses and flowers in pots. I smile at the pansies, one of the only flowers to survive the varying spring temperatures in this region.
Eagledale was the newest addition to Blue Gil when I was a child. Developed northeast of town, it is still a quaint neighborhood with custom homes and manicured lawns. Now, twenty-five years since it was first designed, the trees are larger and maturer, giving the streets a canopy feel as the new leaves spring to life.
