I was tall, but only about an inch more than my dad. Up close now, I noticed more gray strands in his dark brown hair. I was supposed to look like him, which was something I was proud of. He was a strong, good-looking guy even north of fifty. Both Tiff and I had gotten our mother's blue eyes instead of his hazel, though. He hugged me, which wasn't something he did a lot now that I wasn't a kid anymore. He held my shoulders looking at me.
"You're back," he said.
"Yup. Glad to be back," I said. The look on his face was a blend of relief and happiness. He had never really been a fan of me joining the army; Mom had actually been more supportive than he had. Guess now that I was back in one piece and he could tell people his son was a vet, he was proud.
"Are you alone?" Tiffany asked.
"Yup. Nobody else was flying into Aberdeen."
"How was it?" she asked in awe.
"How do you think?" I shot back, jokingly.
"Was it scary? What did you do?" she asked. I sighed.
"Trained a lot. Got sunburn. Saw a lot of camels. What about you?" I asked lightly.
"That's not all you went there to do," she said, her brows wrinkling.
"Let's get him home before the interrogation, how about that?" my dad interjected. I was glad he did.
That was first on the list of things I wanted to do. The second was take a shower, third was pass the fuck out. I didn't have anything but a duffel with me because we had had to turn in all our issued equipment and weapons at the base.
"Could you at least tell us how your flight went?" she tried.
I laughed. She was just a year younger than I was so we were pretty close. She hadn't really cared about what me being in the army meant, but it looked like that had changed for her since I had been gone. We finally started out of the building to get to the car.
"It was good," I said.
"I have a hard time believing that," she challenged.
"Any word on how long you get to stay?" Dad asked.
"They don't really give us a schedule," I replied.
"So they can just come get you whenever they want?" Tiffany asked. Well...yeah. It was a job. The Armed Forces was my employer. I had signed a contract and everything.
"Pretty much," I said, resigned. That was exactly how it was. Going back was the last thing on my mind since I had just gotten home, but being realistic, another deployment was probably in the cards for me. I had lucked out with this one; shortish and not too many actual months spent in the combat zone. Fuck if I was going to let that ruin this for me. It was the furthest I had been from home and for the longest time. I was going to enjoy being here, especially since I wasn't sure how long I was going to get.
We talked throughout the trip back home, but my eyes stayed trained outside. Aberdeen wasn’t that big a town, but it was a big difference from the desert villages surrounding the airfield that had been my view for the past year.
I knew it was all in my mind, but I was expecting the house to look different. I hadn't lived there really since I had started college, but it had just felt like such a long time. I was waiting to see something that I totally didn't recognize. I felt so different coming back, so it just made sense in my mind that this place would have changed, too.
It hadn't. Our family home was right where it had always been. Two stories, two car garage, back and front yard, yellow exterior that Dad repainted every spring, gutters that it used to be my job to clean out when I was a kid. It was all the same.
"Here we are," Dad said as Tiffany pulled the car into the driveway. Home sweet home. For now. When I thought about home, this wasn't really it. I hadn't lived here for a while but I hadn't held onto my last place since being deployed. I was stuck here till I got a new place of my own. I opened my door and grabbed my luggage, following my father and Tiffany into the house.
Just like it was outside, the inside of the house was the same as it had always been. It was trippy, like I had never even left in the first place. It was sort of reassuring, too. It felt good knowing that some shit did stay the same, even when you didn't.
"You go on upstairs, Tiff's gonna get dinner started," Dad told me.
"I can help her."
"You get guest of honor privileges for one night. This will never happen again," Tiffany said to me, grinning.
"Your room's just how you left it. Go up there and settle in. I'll come get you when the grub's up," he said. I thanked him and started up the stairs. "Your mother would have been so proud of you coming home today. I wish she could see the man you grew into," he added.
I stopped and looked down at him. Five years ago was when she had died. She had been a big part of the reason that I had even gone through with it in the end.