An Alpha's Inheritance

Homecoming

    I feel like I’ve spent my whole life running. Mostly running away. In the last five years, mom has moved us fourteen times.  I used to get a warning, but this time, like the last four, it was a shake in the middle of the night, frantically grabbing what I could and jumping in the car before mom made good on her threat to leave without me. She’d been getting a look of panic in her eyes more and more often lately.

    It’s not that I ever thought she would actually leave without me, although I’m sure it would be easier on her if she did.

    This time though, it feels different. This time, I start to recognize things as we get farther into the drive. We’ve been driving for eight hours and my whole body feels numb. As we drive through sunset into a murky dusk, I recognize a specific junk yard, then a particularly gnarled tree, but it still takes me a while for my travel muddled brain to know where we’re going. I’m sure I know our destination before we turn on to the tree canopied street. I see grandpa’s house, a mansion overlooking the rest of the street. I start to smile in relief. Maybe this will just be coming home.

    Then mom takes a sharp turn off on a small side road.

    “Mom, what?”

    “Don’t.” She cuts me off. 

    Silently, I glance in the back seat. Thankfully, Gracie is still asleep. Mom keeps driving.

    I look behind us back at grandpa’s street, and I almost think I see him watching us drive away. But then I blink and when I refocus, it’s just a dog. I blush, thankful for the dark in the car.

    I look back at Gracie again, and see that she’s just starting to wake up. I twist awkwardly in my seat to tuck the blanket tighter around her shoulders and gently push back her hair. She settles back into sleep.

    Mom drives for another half hour, circling throughout her hometown. I want to ask where she’s going, but I’m afraid to, after her reaction last time. Mom looks anxious, her knuckles white gripping the steering wheel.

    We drive down Main Street a third time and spot a group of teenagers messing around near the fountain. Fountain is a generous word for the stone feature that stands before me. I’ve seen old photos; it used to be beautiful. But it’s dried up now and hasn’t run in my lifetime.

    The teenagers look like they’re about my age. I watch them while mom’s stopped at a red light. One of the boys runs up to hug a girl with pale blonde braids, then darts back to whatever game the other boys have made up. No matter how far away he gets, I can tell he’s still focused on the girl glancing back at the way she sits by the fountain sipping a drink through a metal straw. One of the boys climbs up the statue of an angel that stands in the center of what used to be the fountain. Her hollowed out weather-worn eyes overlook the city center. The boy scales her wings, hooking a heel on her wrist to pull himself up to stand on her stone shoulders. The other teenagers are all laughing and egging him on.

    “Imagine if I could really fly. None of you would stand a chance!” the boy calls down to them. I hear him laughing clearly through the open window.

    Just as the light changes, the boy spreads out his arms like wings and jumps off the top of the statue.

    I gasp, and immediately hope mom didn’t hear. I turn to look at her but she’s still intently focused on the empty road in front of her. I twist back to look at the boy and see him tuck into a practiced roll, springing back to his feet on the ground. One of the other boys punches his arm playfully, and the girl sitting by the edge of the fountain calls out something to him that I can’t hear. I swear, a few of the boys howl in excitement.

    Soon we turn another corner and their group is out of sight. Mom drives another five minutes before stopping the car. She takes a deep breath, lets it out and says, “we’re staying here.” She jumps out of the car and slams the door behind her before I can respond.

    I get out too, careful to close the door softly in case Gracie is somehow still asleep, and I walk around the hood of the car. We’re standing outside a trailer that looks abandoned.

    “Mom, why don’t we just go to grandpa’s?” I ask.

    She turns away from me, “You know I can’t live there anymore.” She walks up the steps and yanks on the screen door a few times before it dislodges from the frame and swings open with a creak.

    She pulls a key out of her pocket and uses her shoulder to force open the jammed door.

    “Wait, you knew we were coming here?” I call after her. “This was the plan all along?”

    Mom ignores me and walks inside.

    The truth is, I don’t know why mom can’t live at grandpa’s anymore. Only bits and snippets.  I know that she ran away when she got pregnant with me when she was 25.  I know it’s always been tense in the house when we’re there, but grandpa and grandma were always so sweet to me.  Some of my favorite childhood memories are running around the woods around their house, playing hide and seek in the echoy halls, or stealing a book from the library and hiding from the rain.

    It was at grandma’s funeral last year that I actually learned the most about it. Between the grief and the alcohol, people talked. Gossip started flowing.

    It seems that grandpa didn’t like my dad, but I still don’t know why. I don’t remember him either. He died sometime after Gracie was born, and that’s when mom started moving. No matter how much or in what way I asked, I couldn’t get any more details, and mom’s earlier statement was the most she would acknowledge the distance.

    I go back to the car and wake up Gracie to take her inside.

    She rubs her eyes. “Layla, will you carry me?” She reaches her arms out to wrap around my neck.

    I let her grab my shoulders and moved in to pick her up. “You’re almost getting too big for this, Little Grace.” I lift her out of the backseat and close the door with my foot.  In truth, she’s probably already too big for this.  At twelve years old, she is small for her age, but at seventeen, so am I. Still, her weight doesn’t bother me.

    I carry Gracie inside the dark housing unit. Mom has found candles somewhere and is setting them up in the center of a sparsely furnished living room.

    “We don’t even have electricity anymore? Can’t we just go to grandpa’s?”

    Mom ignores me again, exploring deeper down the small hallway. I follow her and find the first bedroom. Out of habit, I hit the light switch when I walk in, and to my surprise, it lights.

    Mom walks into the bedroom with us now. “I told your grandfather not to set up the house for us!” she grumbles, then storms out of the room.

    I tuck Gracie into the twin bed, relieved to learn that grandpa is the one who’s put the sheets here. I can trust him to make sure everything is clean. I turn off the light and leave the door cracked behind me as I return to the main room. I look around the kitchen, but find that for all grandpa might have done to get us settled, he didn’t stock up the kitchen. That’s okay, I need to move after nearly nine hours in the car anyways.

    “Mom?” I call. “I’m going to go walk to the store. Do you want me to get you anything?”

    She pokes her head out of the other bedroom. “Umm….did dad activate the stove too? Grab us a frozen pizza?”

    I turn to the stove and turn one of the knobs. One of the burners clicks a few times before bursting into flame. “I’ll be back with a pizza soon.”

    I grab my phone, take some money out of mom’s bag and head out into the night. I stand on the little porch for a second and take in the breeze, relieved that it’s finally cooled down some after sunset. I walk back towards Main Street, even though I know I’m taking the long way to the grocery store. I stretch my legs out as I walk then spread out my arms as far as they can go. I take in a deep breath through my nose. It smells like home. Not the trailer mom rented, I assume. Or at least, I hope she’s rented it and not bought it. But the town. Being back in South Carolina makes me feel completely at peace. It makes me feel stronger, even, like I can take on the world. I can’t understand why mom hates it here. To me, there’s nowhere better.

    Even though we’re still pretty far from the coast, the air is thick with humidity coming off the water. At this hour, it feels amazing and cool, but I know this will be sweltering in the morning.

    As I get closer to Main Street, I take down my hair and shake it out in the slight breeze. I’m not trying to impress everyone, it’s just nothing makes my hair feel softer than wind off the ocean. Relaxed now, I roll my shoulders, and impulsively start to jog. I don’t usually run, but right now I feel like it, and it actually feels easy. I wonder if I might finally get that runner’s high that the PE teacher two schools ago was talking about.

    Right before Main Street, I get another impulse and turn off the road onto a narrow running trail. The branches reach out and brush my arms, but I don’t care. I ignore the growing hunger in my stomach, picking up speed as I race down a small hill. As I race through the woods, I finally feel free.

    Suddenly, a large wolf leaps across the trail, barely missing me.

    I yelp, then slam my hand over my mouth as if I can take back the sound. I leap down to the side of the trail, opposite of where the wolf was heading, and try to hide in the brush. About ten more wolves bolt past me. I’m frozen in fear, but distantly, I remember that wolves are supposed to rely on their sense of smell, so how have they all ignored me?

    I stay frozen for several minutes after they pass me. When I can move again, I sprint as fast as I can back to the light of the main road.