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“Yep, a manual stick shift truck with no automatic steering. It was a beast. My daddy made me stop and start every half-mile straight up the mountain. I wore the clutch out on that old truck, but by the time I had to go take my driver’s test, I could drive it as well as he could,” I say with pride.
“Good job,” he says, sarcastically raising his thumbs in the air.
This sweet child of mine.
We finally make it to the top at fifty-two hundred feet and turn into the open gate. I park in front of the house.
It looks the same as it did the day I left. A two-story robin’s-egg-blue Colonial farmhouse with white trim. A wide-columned front porch with a large bay window from the dining room that overlooks the yard. Gone is the shingled roof from my childhood, and in its place is soft gray tin.
I take a deep breath as I turn off the ignition.
I haven’t been back here since my father’s funeral five years ago. I half-expected the place to be a dilapidated ruin, not the postcard picture–worthy scene before me.
“You ready, buddy?” I ask as I glance back at Caleb.
“I guess,” he mumbles as he gathers his things.
We exit the vehicle as my mother, Leona Tilson, appears on the front porch, her face alight.
She is a sight in her long green kaftan. Her silver hair is held back from her face with a headband. I can hear her booming voice before a word leaves her mouth as she stretches out her arms.
Here goes nothing.
