Exile

Three days of slow Kentucky rain, the sky a battleship gray, bluegrass hills turned into soggy bathroom towels.

We hold up in a hotel awaiting the hall pass that’ll allow us to cross state lines and head home toward Kiwi. We are in exile and pretend to be angry but the world knows better. We have trained a lifetime on the road.

I stagger the aisles of the superstore placing random food items in the shopping cart when the cell phone rings. I pull it from my bag, fumbling around to silence the incursion when I realize it is my sister, a continent away in California.

She calls for a status update and to banter a bit about Dad’s train obsession. He is building New York City in his North Carolina condominium. She’s happy, and proud, I hear it in her voice as I toss boxes of Jaipur vegetables into the cart, pre-packed foods I’d look down my nose at just days ago, that is, before the Gift arrived and changed our lives and the color of our eyes to a sleepy, speckled red.

So are you tired? she teases.

Yeah, for sure, I drawl, throwing a box of boil-in-a-bag rice into the cart. I’ve been faking a Southern accent for days, my theatre backlit by compact fluorescent bulbs.

You’ve got real responsibility now, she advises, echoing my Dad, his common refrain. I giggle too loudly. But I’ve wheeled the cart to the candy aisle where laughter is acceptable, encouraged perhaps by the bright glossy packages. A bleary-eyed family passes me, their two large boys waffled inside separate carts filled with soft drinks and softball -sized onions, their parents too tired to protest.

Back at the hotel, I slide my keycard into the lock, open the door wide, and glimpse them lying together on the striped red couch watching a cooking program. The smaller, crinkled one is asleep, drunk on milk. I set down the bags and unzip my boots.

In a calm, self-assured voice, the sandy-haired forklift driver told me I’d cry, as if doling out a prognosis for the recovery period to follow. Maybe, I replied, inwardly doubting there were any tears left for the drought that’d follow the seven-year storm. From across the sterile white room she locked onto my eyes and repeated again that we’d both cry. I’d been warned.

He wept, the larger one on the couch, the one who loves cooking programs where chefs flail about shiny kitchens making art and sating hunger. He holds no grudge against time or fate and has already shifted gears into the future, all furrowed brow and spiky hair and flexible benefit plans.

I pet them both, pry open the laptop, and check my overstuffed inbox, where a message from a dear friend back home awaits, the shepherd who watches the soulful black dog in our absence. She throws a digital lifeline and I reach for it, grasping for every detail in the image she’s attached. The dog sits on her haunches, soft ears drawn as far south as Mexico, cuddled by a sweet young girl who loves stickers and pink.

I’m overtaken, and the Kentucky rain begins to pour, just like the forklift driver portended. But a rapping at the door pauses the frame.

A woman in white appears.

Sure, we could use more towels.