Welcome to Hell: Rediscovering First Love

“I love you Yancy Dawson,” I said a tear starting to trickle down my check. Furiously, I swiped my hand across my face. “I won’t cry,” I told her. “I won’t.”

I rose from the ground and walked back to the car. Inside the car once again Kerry patted my leg and asked me if I was all right.

“I will be. It has been nearly a year for you how are you?” I asked him shutting the car door. So much had happened to me I had been neglectful of Kerry’s pain.

“I’m handling it,” he replied putting the SUV into drive and pulling away from the curb. “It gets easier though as time goes by. It helps having you and Sam to fill my life.”

I nodded agreeing with him.

#

Kerry turned the vehicle into the familiar driveway of parent’s home. Nothing had changed about the old house where I had grown up. Wynne and Micki had hung lights from the windows and wrapped them around the porch just as my mother and father had done every year. Pop wasn’t into it this year so Micki and Wynne had hung the lights themselves. They were the old ceramic lights in a multitude of colors, red, green, blue and yellow.

Similar lights, which I assumed Micki’s boyfriend had hung, were twinkling from the eaves. The bushes were lit with lights, as was the tall pine by my old bedroom window. Outside of the car I stared at the house glad to be home and anxious to see my family.

Ke

rry retrieved the suitcases from the back of the SUV while I released our son from his car seat. He didn’t wake when I scooped him against me. We were nearly to the front porch when everyone poured out of the house to greet us. Wynne was first outside. She took Sam from me cooing at him when his eyes opened with surprise at being woken. He smiled at his cousin and yanked on her bright red hair.

“No sign of Keegan yet?” I asked.

“No,” Micki answered. “She called. She landed at two so she should be here shortly.”

My sister had lost nearly one hundred pounds in a year. Her bright red hair just like Yancy and Wynne’s hair was healthy again. She was wearing make-up and she looked happy and content. She looked younger. The man at her side had to be the new boyfriend. Micki had met him at work. She was a secretary for a lawyer in Hell and she was catering on the side. I smiled at him and he stepped forward introducing himself as Michael Hart. Micki and Mikey I thought to myself deciding not to share the bad joke with anyone else.

He was a handsome man, tall blond and slender built. Michael had a nice smile, which he frequently directed on my sister. She had told me on the telephone yesterday that they were discussing getting married as soon as her divorce was final and at nearly thirty-seven she was considering having more children, at least one for Michael who had no children. All that mattered to me was that she was happy for the first time in many years.

Adin hugged me next.

“How’s the baby making going?” I asked her softly so that no one else would hear. They had been trying since September I knew and Adin was impatient to be pregnant.

“No baby yet. I just got my period.” She sounded disgusted and discouraged.

“You’re trying too hard,” I told her.

“That’s what Brad says. Not all of us I guess are as fertile as some of us in the Dawson family.” Referring to me and Michaela I guessed.

I patted her back comfortingly then was surprised to see my nephew Jack standing behind Gem.

“Wow, you’re here,” I said to him.

I hadn’t seen Jack in a long while. He had changed. His light brown hair was cut shorter than I remembered him ever wearing. His clothing, which I had always thought was too tight to show off his muscular physique, seemed to fit him well. Gone was a hint of the arrogance in his eyes and in his manner that always seemed to emanate from him. He stepped down from the porch and wrapped his arms around me in a tight squeeze. I wasn’t small but Jack towered over me at six feet four.

“Hi Aunt Gabby,” he said softly. “I’m glad to see you.”

When he released me and stepped back I glanced quickly at Micki who was all smiles. There was a story behind this I would hear later, her eyes promised what she couldn’t say now in front of everyone. Glancing at Wynne I saw that she was still concentrating on Sam so I went to my sister Gem next. She didn’t look well.

“Are you okay?” I asked stepping back to look into her face.

Brad and Kerry walked around us and into the house with the luggage and the Christmas gifts to place under the tree. Jack and Troy followed them inside. Then Wynne took Sam inside leaving the four of us standing in the cold winter air. My sisters and I were together again. There was comfort in that thought even though our mother was not with us, our first holiday together without her. Kerry and I had stayed in Chicago for Thanksgiving to spend time with Sam, Littie and Virgil.

“I’m pregnant,” Gem told me when everyone was inside.

“Congratulations. I’m very happy for you,” I said hugging her again knowing that this must be difficult for Adin who had been trying so hard to get pregnant. “Was this an accident?” I asked.

Unhappily she nodded. “I have morning sickness which seems to last all day with me.”

With my arm wrapped around my much smaller, younger sister I smiled down at her. “It will get easier.”