My soul rejoiced out loud when I made eye contact with Daddy. I’d just retrieved my luggage from the baggage claim, but already jet lag was settling in. My body was still on Alaska time, despite spending the last eight hours traveling to make it to Texas. A layover was inevitable, but since I was surviving independently on a United States Airman’s salary, I was forced to purchase a ticket that required two. I was hungry now, and a bit grumpy, but the discomfort was worth it to be reunited with my family. 

Daddy smiled my name the way he’d done ever since I was born—an endearing laugh mixed with an exuberant amount of love and an enormous amount of pride. I would forever be his baby girl. 

“Hi, Daddy,” I couldn’t help but sing. It was my promise to him that I always would be. 

He tugged on my parka. “A little overdressed, huh? You probably coulda left that thing in Alaska.”

That was crazy talk, but I just grinned and gave him a hug. It was eighteen degrees below Fahrenheit when I left Anchorage. Its cruel air made my nose hairs and eyebrows freeze the moment I stepped outside. There was no way a girl born and raised in Texas could ever survive there without a parka. But he’d only vacationed in tropical destinations. Like when I first left home, his idea of dressing for cold weather was throwing on a pair of tennis socks and a windbreaker. I doubted if I’d ever forgive The Last Frontier for taking the sufficiency of that away from me.  

Daddy grabbed my bag and led me out of the airport. The Houston heat accosted me as soon as I stepped outside. The parka that I loved so dearly was immediately removed, along with the sweater that I wore over my t-shirt. When we made it to Daddy’s pickup I removed the jeans that covered my leggings before getting inside. 

“You had all that on?” Daddy asked, staring at the bundle of clothes that I’d placed in the seat between us. 

“It’s hot,” was all I could say. 

I forgot all about it, though, when he started the engine. I pointed the air conditioning vents directly at myself and cranked it up to full blast. By the time we made it to the interstate the dribble of my sweat had dried and I was in a much better mood. 

Familiar construction signs and equipment greeted us. 

“They’re still working on this interstate?” I asked Daddy, and looked over at him with bewildered. 

He chuckled, and gave a “Yep.” 

“They’ve been working on this interstate since I was a kid!”

His head leaned to the side as he thought about it. “You know, you’re right,” he said and chuckled. “I guess they’re really trying to get it right.” 

“Shenanigans. Houston has too much money for this.”

I shook my head as I recalled the numerous trips back and forth to visit Granny in Galveston County throughout my childhood. The way was always littered with bulldozers, reroutes, and building materials. It looked the same way it did two years ago when I left for the military. 

It was a disappointment, but there were other things I could look at. Like the giant pine needle trees that lined our way to Riverside, and the giant statue of General Sam Houston that had been erected in Huntsville when I was in the seventh grade. 

I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed the rolling hills of my home state. The closer we got to home the more their greenery calmed me. The anxiety that came with constant training for war slowly subsided. My friends fighting in Iraq were still on my mind, as well as the airman I’d just gotten to know before the deployment he didn’t get to come back from. But I had to keep those thoughts to myself. I couldn’t talk about those things with Daddy. He’d worry, so I allowed the greenery to be my therapy. 

You’re safe now. You’re warm. You’re home. 

I embraced it with a deep inhale. “It feels so good to be back.”

Daddy took his eyes off the road long enough to examine me. There was something different there now. It was respect. I’d been grown for a few years now, but it seemed to just dawn on him that I was an adult. I’d ventured off and learned a few things on my own. Things he’d never know and never experience for himself. He didn’t verbalize it, but his expression commended me. 

“No place like it, huh?”

I shook my head. “None at all.” 

We were almost to Riverside now. I was so anxious for it I could almost taste it. The small town on the outside of Huntsville was the safest place in the world for me. There were only a few neighbors. Mrs. Cole, who taught elementary school with my mom and had boys my age who taught me about rocks and video games. Ms. Sally, a widow who lived alone with a million and one cats after her husband died when I was a child. Those damned fur creatures never respected boundaries or a car’s fresh wax. Their paw prints and hair were everywhere, but now those inconveniences were minuscule. I was also looking forward to the food. Alaska had the best fresh seafood in the world, but Riverside was the home of Talent’s, the best barbecue in the entire state of Texas. People from all over came to get it, and it was less than five minutes away from my house. I planned on getting really full from it. I also wanted the blackberries that grew in the backyard, and the dandelions Mama thought I was crazy for eating as a kid until I persuaded her to try one and she discovered they were harmless and delicious.  

We turned down the road the house was on. To my surprise, the dirt path I’d run up and down as a child was now paved with asphalt. 

“The road!” I shrieked. What in the world was going on? Where were the potholes that practically made you dance when you sped down the road and nearly made your bladder drop? They were an important part of my childhood and I wanted them back! “When’d this happen?”

“Oh? We didn’t tell you? It’s been like this for a while now. I guess it was right after you left. I love it.” 

I was sure he did. I’d never forget the time heavy rain caused the creek ahead to rise and washed the part of the road above it away. Daddy could have been killed the night it happened. There were no street lights to brighten the path, but his headlights were vibrant enough to show the road was no longer there. He had to leave his truck on the side of the road and wade through the water in order to get to our house on the other side. We were stuck there for four days. 

“Daddy… Y’all don’ got bourgeois on me.”

He laughed as we pulled in front of the house. Mama’s SUV was parked in its usual spot. Behind it was a gray Honda that I’d never seen before. 

“Who’s here?”

“Your sister.”

I gasped and nearly jumped out of my seat. I didn’t know she would be visiting. She lived in Beaumont now with her boyfriend and my nephew, who was only a few months old when I left home. She’d just had a baby girl who I couldn’t wait to meet. When I called to let her know that I was coming for a visit she told me she had to work. 

“Really? Did she bring the babies?”

I didn’t wait for an answer. I jumped out of the truck and ran to her car. Yes! Two car seats were in the back, a blue one for a toddler and a pink one for an infant. I immediately ran to the house and obnoxiously rang the doorbell repeatedly the way I used to as a teen whenever I forgot to bring my house key with me. 

“She’s here,” I heard Mama say. 

I could hear commotion on the other side of the door. A baby was crying loudly while another child was laughing. I could hear my sister fussing, too. 

A moment later Mama opened the door. Her hair was freshly curled, and even though the screams and squeals of the children were much louder now that the door was opened, she seemed very relaxed. 

“Mommy.”

I melted into the five-year-old girl I was when Daddy first told me that she was going to be my new mom. She faithfully raised me and my sister after our biological mother passed away shortly after I was born, and was the only woman I could ever fix my mouth to refer to as “Mom.”

She gave me a big hug while a big-eyed toddler with the biggest afro I’d ever seen stood behind her and watched. 

“Oh, my goodness!” I squealed as I looked at my nephew. “He’s gotten so big!”

I released Mama and scooped him up into my arms. I knew he didn’t remember me, but I’d prayed for him continuously throughout our time away from each other. I’d also sent him several gifts. Nothing compared, however, to holding him close. 

“I missed you so much!” I told him, and kissed his cheeks while he stared at me with curiosity. 

“That’s your aunty,” Mama told him. 

He shrugged as he looked at her, then said, “Okay.”

“Where’s your Mommy?” I asked him. 

He blushed and covered his face before pointing to my old bedroom, which was only a few feet away. I hurried into the room and found my sister sitting on my old bed. My niece lay in front of her on top of a blanket as she got her diaper changed. 

“Hey!” I squealed and rushed across the room to hug her. 

She didn’t hug me back but smiled up at me. I couldn’t help but notice how slowly she moved. She was only a year and a half older than me, but she seemed to have aged five or six years since we’d seen each other last. 

“You feeling okay?”

She shrugged. “Tired. I worked last night and these kids won’t let me sleep.”

I looked over at my nephew, who’d wiggled out of my arms and was now playing quietly on the floor with a truck. He was happily oblivious to his mother’s pain and the screams of his sister. She was now clean, but still cranky. 

“Awh, sis.”

I picked my niece up and kissed her tiny face. My sister quickly passed me a warm bottle to feed her with. As soon as I got it in her mouth she quieted down. I was desperate to see her eyes, which she still hadn’t opened. Now that she had her meal she appeared to be on her way to sleep. 

I cradled her in my arms and sat down beside my sister. I was surprised by her exhausted disposition. She’d always been bubbly. I remembered crying during my time in basic training because I missed her so much. We used to stay up and talk for hours, so much so that Daddy would come into the room and make us go to sleep. I could understand that she was tired, but this seemed to be more than a lack of sleep. We’d both worked since we were sixteen. 

“What’s the matter?” 

She stretched out across the bed and covered her face. “John left.” 

I couldn’t keep my eyes from widening. Now I understood. She was heartbroken. They hadn’t been together long before she got pregnant, but he promised both her and my dad that he would take care of her and the kids. We all made the mistake of believing him. 

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” she said as she fought back tears. “I got two kids that I have to take care of all on my own. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

I felt bad for her, but I wasn’t the least bit worried. My sister was strong. If anyone had what it took to raise two children on their own, she did. She was smart, protective, and resourceful. She also had me. I vowed at that moment to always do what I could for her and my niece and nephew, no matter how little money I had, or how far away the military took me. 

“I know what you’re gonna do,” I told her. “You’re gonna make it.”  

Her expression changed. The tears in her eyes immediately dried. It was as if she suddenly realized her life wasn’t over. She believed me. For the first time, I was giving her a pep talk instead of her giving me one. Things had definitely changed. 

I told her to get some sleep and took the children out of the room, closing the door behind us. Mama was on the couch, and my nephew rushed to sit on her lap. I sat down beside her as I continued to feed my niece, and it dawned on me that the escape home I thought I needed so badly no longer existed. Things weren’t the same, and they never would be. I was grown now. My sister was, too. Even the neighborhood had changed. Going back couldn’t solve anything. The past was only appealing because it was gone. Life was in the present, and though it was sometimes scary, to survive we had to push through its pain. Wars would end. Heartbreaks would mend. Children would grow up. Home would continue to change, too. The only thing I could do was continue to move on and take the memories with me, supporting my family from afar as I embraced what the future had in store for me.