10
Gavin
The backof the station wagon smells like oily fish and wet dog. I grip the edge of the backwards facing seat and try to ignore the large, slobbering dog, with his maw less than two inches from my face.
You always sit in the rear with the dog, on account that Granny gets carsick, my wife said. I shake my head, ignoring the pain, because…my wife.
Granny is an ancient, stick-thin woman, with garish orange lips and narrow beady eyes. She didn’t say anything when Jamie tugged me out of the hospital, gripping my arm, like she was afraid I was going to make a run for it.
I nearly did when I saw our car.
But Granny, she stepped out of the front seat, looked me up and down like she was taking my measure, and then spit on the dirt parking lot. I get the feeling my grandma-in-law and I don’t see eye to eye.
Then the kids tumbled out of the back and swarmed us, hugging my legs and jumping all over me with cries of Daddy! and We missed you!
Jamie pointed to them and said their names—Elijah, Tanner, Shay.
I figured I should’ve felt some sort of paternal love or some memory of holding them as babies. But all I felt was a massive headache and the urge to dunk them in a bathtub, give them haircuts, and find some flea powder. They’re filthy. They’re unkempt. They’re scabbed and dirty and missing teeth, and…the smallest boy, the one with orange hair and freckles like his mom, leans over the back seat and stares at me.
“Hi Trevor.” I try on a smile.
“His name’s Tanner.” The older boy, the more serious one with brown hair, rolls his eyes.
The little girl—she’d be cute, if she weren’t covered in oatmeal—meows and then licks her hand. I flinch. That hand is filthy. Then I sniff the air and gag.
Tanner waves his hand in front of his nose. “That’s Scooter. He got into the coop and ate chicken poo this morning. It gives him gas.”
I cough and then edge as far as possible from the overgrown, smelly mutt, but the darn dog just climbs closer. A long string of drool falls from his mouth and lands on my shoulder.
The station wagon hits a bump and my head jackhammers. My wife drives like she’s in a police chase, taking hairpin corners at speeds that leave my stomach behind. I feel like I might be sick, and I can’t decide if it’s the smell coming from the dog, the kids staring at me, or my wife’s driving.
The car rumbles and coughs and we bump onto a gravel drive, moving into the shade of big pine trees. The whole drive, Granny’s been fiddling with the radio, trying to find the best reception for her banjo station. Now that we’re here, it comes in loud and clear.
We passed the town limits a few miles back. The sign said Hollow Creek, but Jamie pronounced it Holler Crick.
I take a deep breath and wipe my hands over my face. It can’t be that bad. My life can’t possibly be that bad. I’ve lived it, according to Jamie, for thirty years. I’ve survived, healthily and maybe happily, for decades. It can’t be that bad.
We pull around the bend in the drive and I lay eyes on our home.
It’s that bad.
The station wagon jerks to a stop. The kids cheer and practically somersault out of the back. The dog leaps over the seat and bounds after them. I shove open the back door. It swings wide with a rusty screech.
I step out into the tall grass and take it all in. The moldering A-frame, the metal wire chicken coop, the piles of junk, the sound of a crowing rooster, the banjo still playing on the radio, and the musty scent of rotting cedar and wood smoke. My skin runs cold. This can’t possibly be my home.
I thought I was wealthy. I’m poor.
I thought I was single. I’m married.
I thought I was happy. I’m…
Jamie stomps through the grass and then stops next to me, looking out at the kids playing an impromptu game of chase around the chicken coop.
She beams at me.
I shake my head. This doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right, this isn’t where I’m meant to be.
“This…” I stop, my stomach knotting. “This is where I live?”