MIDWAY HOME

by Danielle Tonnessen

She could hear the familiar insistent buzz—or possibly death rattle— of the living room air conditioner, making her all the more conscious of the extreme Kentucky heat and of how she’d much rather be inside with her face held in front of the air vent than here on the steamy porch, waiting. Not that it was much better inside. If the one air conditioner was meant to cool the entire farmhouse on this humid, ninety-degree day, it didn’t do a very good job. It did help a little with sleeping at night, though.

Sitting on the top step with her hands pressed into her cheeks and her elbows on her knees, she looked up at the sky, mostly for something—anything—to do. The sun was there, peeking in and out from behind the clouds, with the sky behind it, but the colors were off. It wasn’t its normal cheerful blue with fluffy white, with birds swooping and darting back and forth (at least they seemed to enjoy the scorching summer), but dreary, gray, expectant. The birds weren’t singing today, or really flying, for that matter, but were quiet and still. She had heard on the news once that birds can tell bad weather days in advance. She wished she could. She bet she’d make a killing by predicting the weather, like some sort of meteorological fortune teller. Oh, right. They have those already. Most of the time they weren’t right, though, anyway. Well, she thought grumpily, if she were rich, she wouldn’t be sitting here on the front steps of her grandmother’s remote southern farmhouse, waiting for the mail to come.

She sighed, shifting her weight restlessly as she waved away a hovering mosquito (brought out earlier in the day than normal by the moist weather) and gazed around. A dusty, brownish, dirt pathway ran from the foot of the porch steps straight on for about 100 feet until it met a flat, paved road, which was separated from her grandmother’s property by a simple, white-washed picket fence that ran in either direction towards their neighbors to their left and right, about a half mile in each direction. Her grandmother (“Nan”, as she was called—by her and by everyone) had a cheerful collection of garden gnome statues that peered over the fence across the street towards the adjacent horse farm. (Cheerful, yeah, but creepy, Hazel thought to herself, and smirked. Who still has garden gnomes, anyway? Nan did a great job of keeping them perfect, though. Those things will last forever.)

Although the house itself was a modest size with a simple kitchen, living room area, two upstairs bedrooms and a storm cellar (which doubled as a dry-storage space), the property extended for many acres in the back. The dirt pathway that ran to the road also forked off to the right, just a few inches from bottom of the porch steps, and wrapped around the house to the back. It ran past a chicken coup on the left and a pen of goats on the right and finally, after a long stretch, to a large duck pond that Hazel hadn’t yet bothered to visit since she arrived; though she plainly remembered it from her frequent childhood visits.

Just then, the sound of a rumbling engine disrupted her contemplation of garden gnome statues, and of a possible trek to the pond-- if she got bored enough--and drew her attention in its direction. The bright white, red, and blue of a postal truck rattled and chugged along the road towards the walkway. Finally, she huffed as she looked at her watch. In actuality though, he was earlier than normal--probably trying to stay ahead of the storm. She watched as the postal truck stopped and the driver stood up in the front and then shifted and rustled around in some cargo in the back.

A tall, middle-aged man with cropped dark blond waves hopped down from the cabin and strode towards her, a bundle of mail and a brown paper package in his arms.

“Hey, Hay!” he chortled. It was everyone’s favorite greeting for her since she could remember. Her name was Hazel, named after her parents’ favorite aunt she’d never known, but everyone called her Hay. Yes, like as in “is for horses,” as she was reminded throughout elementary and middle school back in Boston. She was starting her third year of high school in the fall, and just as everyone back home had decidedly become bored with teasing her about her name, her parents shipped her away to be with Nan, where a new crowd of kids would undoubtedly need to get it out of their systems, too. It was her own fault, of course, that she was sent away from her friends, most of her family, and her school.

She shook her head, willing that thought away. Unfortunately, she and Nan had been at odds since she before she arrived. She resented that Nan had made the offer to take her in, and Nan resented Hazel’s ‘constant attitude’. Nan had reasoned to her parents that the “fresh air and kindred souls of the south” (as Hazel distinctly overheard Nan say over speakerphone as she listened through a crack in their home-office door) might be just what she would need to set her back on the right path. She knew Nan was trying to help—her parents had been ‘at their wits’ end’—but she would have never admitted it. She knew her friends were trouble long before they started getting in trouble. But they were still her friends. Again, she shook her head, chasing away those thoughts. She realized Hank was eyeing her curiously, waiting for her to respond. She smiled—she liked Hank despite her current situation.

“Hey, Hank.” She stood up and walked down the steps to meet him. “How are you?”

“Good, darlin’! How ’bout yourself?” He was such a pleasant guy. Although Hazel had met him only once or twice during visits to Nan’s in the past, he was pointedly kind and welcoming since she’d moved there last month. He somehow remembered her nickname, which was nice, and even though she hadn’t remembered his name, he was unphased and more than happy to remind her. ‘Hank’…It was funny how even the names were different down here. Hank, Bo, Faith-Anne, Nan.… In Boston, her best friend was Brittney, her neighbor was Matt, and her crush was Jack. Pretty standard names as far as she was concerned. Down here it seemed like parents competed with one another for either the most outdated, vintage baby name they could dig up in their family history, or for the most original name they could muster. Maybelline, Baxter, Earl, Hevyn…

She had met most of the people in this town since she moved to Midway. In a town of 1,600, everyone seemed to have their own specific function. Hank, for example, seemed to have been born to be the happy-go-lucky mail carrier for their small town, and was perfectly content in that role. It was extraordinarily different from her city life in New England. “Oh, hey-a’ there, Nan!” Hank waved, looking past Hazel.

Hazel glanced behind her to see the tall figure of her grandmother in the doorway. She looked like she could have blessed the cover of the Southern Living digest. Her hair was a tidy crop of short, graying curls held back by a blue headband, and while age could be seen across her face, it was clear that she was once very beautiful. Her features, though weathered, were fine and symmetrical. Over a pair of cropped jeans and a denim blue t-shirt, she wore a knee-length, cream-colored apron dotted with stains of dark blue and purple--a hazard of cooking blueberry pie, which she had been doing for the past several days. Nan was in charge of the annual Midway Down-Home Fair bake sale and took it very seriously. It was another thing that had added to her and Hazel being at odds, as Hazel would exaggeratedly roll her eyes and decline anytime Nan asked her to bake with her. Nan wiped her brow with the back of her wrist and sunk her hands on her hips. “Hey there yerself, Hank. How are ya?” Her voice was thick and rough with age and a deep southern accent.

“Pretty good. Tryin’ to get home ’fore the storm hits. Almost done for the day.”

While Hank and Nan engaged in small talk, Hazel impatiently eyed the package in Hank’s arms. She had been waiting for three afternoons, from the earliest reasonable time she expected the mail to be delivered, until the mail for that day came. Each afternoon she then sank disappointedly into the porch and back into the house when Hank had arrived with bills, baking magazines, a newspaper and political propaganda-- but no package. The past weekend, exactly four days ago, she had finally convinced her mother to mail her down her laptop. Here at Nan’s there was no Netflix—there was barely even any cell signal. She was bored. And while she understood why they had shipped her away, as she had explained to her mother, she would be starting a new school year in the fall. She needed her laptop. She wasn’t sure whether it was her reasoning or plain pity that had convinced her mother, but she had at last agreed to ship it down to her at the beginning of the week. And finally, it had come. Maybe the summer days would go by a little more quickly now; she wouldn’t have to resort to walking down to the duck pond after all, which she was resolutely avoiding doing. She figured in vain that if she didn’t settle in, didn’t explore or get to know the property, maybe she could go home—to her real home. Avoiding walking the property was her last defiant act, the last thing she knew she had control over. Even her phone calls were monitored and her friends’ phone numbers long-since blocked. But she didn’t have to get comfortable here. And now maybe, she could even find some stray Wi-Fi signal or use her phone’s hotspot to connect to the Internet-- escape that way.

“Well, I won’t keep ya, Hank,” Nan said. “Good luck gettin’ home; see you and Loraine at the Fair Sunday.”

“You ‘betchya. I hope to see you there too, Hay. Oh, and here ya go. It’s addressed to you,” he remarked looking at the label on the brown package and then handing it to Hazel. Although, she distinctly noticed, only after first looking at Nan for approval. Did everyone know she was in trouble?... that she was serving out a prison sentence? He then nodded to Nan and handed her the rest of the bundle of mail before touching his hat in a parting gesture and striding back towards his mail truck.

Hazel was already hurrying back into the house, package in her arms—halfway to the stairs up to her bedroom, when Nan called out to stop her—damn.

“Wait a minute there, young lady.” Hazel looked back to see Nan stepping through the front doorway, hands back on her hips, brow furrowed. “We’ve got to lay down some ground rules if you’re gonna keep that thing.”

“What?” Hazel retorted incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. Now, set it down there and come sit with me in the kitchen. I wanna talk with ya.”

Hazel paused, not exactly knowing what to do. This really was like prison. Was Nan going to start conducting daily searches next?

“Come on now, girl.” Nan called, already halfway to the kitchen. Hazel sighed and set the package down on the living room coffee table. Fighting the urge to run out the door and never look back, she trudged into the kitchen and paused at the doorway a moment before sitting down in a chair at the table across from Nan.

“Now, you know I don’t like giving you a hard time, Hazel…” Nan seemed to prefer calling her by her full name than by her nickname, which only seemed to add to her sternness.

“Could have fooled me…” Hazel interrupted, receiving a disapproving look in return.

“We just want what’s best for ya,” Nan continued, citing her parents again. “Things weren’t exactly going well back in Boston.” Hazel rolled her eyes. “And until you can show us that you’re going to behave yourself, you’ll be living here with me, under my roof, and under my rules, as I’ve said before.

“Now, that includes that laptop computer. I understand why your momma sent it. You are starting a new year of school in the fall. You do have a reading list to complete. So, I’ll allow you to use it,” Hazel relaxed a little. Thank goodness. “But--,” Oh no., “only when I’m around, and only for school use. Otherwise, it stays with me.”

Hazel felt her face go hot. “What? Are you kidding me?” She stood up suddenly, sending the chair she had been sitting on skidding backwards into the wall behind it. She had been so excited--so happy--to finally be so close to a tiny bit of freedom. Now her heart sank like a brick in her chest, and her breath felt like it stuck in her throat.

Before she knew what was happening, she had burst through the back door of the house, running--hot tears streaming down her face. She barely noticed the rumble of thunder around her or the sound of her grandmother calling her name as she left her and the farmhouse behind.

She ran as hard as she could; past the chicken coup and the goat pen; past a large, lowly-fenced vegetable garden and a small pig pen. The sky was getting dark, and the thunder was getting louder and closer--but she didn’t care. She didn’t stop running until she felt water seeping into her sneakers. She had reached the duck pond. Surprised, she took a step backward onto the dry path, breathing heavily, and sunk down, sitting backwards onto the dirt.

For a few minutes she just sat there and cried, wrapping her arms around her legs. She took a shaky breath and looked up, her mouth pressing into her knees, and looked out across the pond. Then all at once, everything came back to her. Like watching a movie, she saw her and her friends breaking into the school. She saw her friends vandalizing the lockers and throwing eggs and toilet paper along the stretch of the gymnasium. She saw the mischievous smile the boy she’d had a crush on for so long gave her as he handed her a brick to throw through the principal’s office window. She felt the need she’d had to fit in with her friends. She remembered the horror they’d all felt as they realized they’d been watched the entire time by security cameras--something none of them had fathomed beforehand. She remembered the following day, and the way her mom had cried when they all sat in front of the principal. And the guilt. The same guilt she felt then and every day since then, especially now, when she spoke to her mother on the phone, unable to find the words to tell her how sorry she was: how she’d never meant it; how she was only trying to fit in with the ‘cool kids’. It sounded stupid and unbelievable even to her; how could her mother believe it? But it was the truth-- why did she do it? She wished she could change what had happened--wished she’d had different friends. And most of all, she wished she was still with her parents. Nan wasn’t the enemy-- she knew that-- but she missed home. She sniffled and buried her face back into her lap.

“Hazel, honey,” Nan said softly from behind her. Hazel raised her head but didn’t look back. Thunder cracked and the first drops of rain fell softly onto the pond as the resident ducks bobbed their heads under water and back. She felt Nan’s presence as she knelt beside her and then wrapped her arm around her shoulders. “How I wish our time wasn’t spent arguing like this. I remember when you came down here to visit as a little girl. You know, you used to love those chickens back there. You called them “chi-chins’,” she recalled, a small laugh breaking through her cracking voice. That’s when Hazel realized Nan had been crying too. “I’ve missed you, and I’m so glad to have you here. I was being truthful when I said we just want what’s best for you.”

Hazel sniffled again and snorted, “How? How could you after what I did? I don’t blame Mom and Dad for sending me away. I wouldn’t want to have me around either,” she felt shame burning in her cheeks.

“Honey, is that really what you think? The last thing your mama and daddy wanted was to send you away. They just didn’t know where else to turn. Sweetheart, you are one loved little girl. And you are a good girl. Everyone knows you just fell in with the wrong crowd. You weren’t sent away to be sent away. You were sent to live with me to find a new way. And maybe a new crowd. You can go home any time you want. But I—I think it’ll do you good—do us both good—to have ya here. And hey, maybe I’ll even let you help me bake.” Nan grinned at Hazel and then quickly looked away. Hazel looked back and noticed Nan was watching the ducks, her chin tilted upwards and her mouth pursed in a small smile. She smiled and leaned into Nan, feeling a sense of calm wash over her. Maybe everything would be alright after all. “Now let’s go inside before the storm breaks through. I’ll warm you up some pie.”