Coming Home

I still open the drawer to the left of the stove, expecting the silverware to be nestled inside. It’s been close to ten years since it moved across the kitchen to the drawer above where we used to keep the cereal.

Now, the cereal cupboard holds the air-fryer and Mom’s homemade granola.

In the morning, Mom made us all pancakes that stuck to the silver electric frying pan. I’ve watched her make stir-fry and meatballs and a black bean and almost anything in the same pan for close to thirty years.

“This stupid pan,” she said as she transferred the pancakes onto a nonstick pan over the stove.

Of course they turned out and somehow fed everyone who trickled down to breakfast. And then continued to feed us again later in the day.

We swam in the pool and forgot to grab towels, so mom brought them out to us, just like when we were kids.

My nieces painted their nails and talked about sports and school.

The Hags left in their new electric car, and we all stood barefoot in the driveway waving goodbye.

My sister sat by the pool with a book, her eleventh of the summer. She only stopped to push the baby on the swing, throw diving sticks into the pool for the girls, or play Piles and Sleeping Queens and Spot It. She didn’t read much.

The girls brought up the Polly Pockets from the basement. The Polly Pocket wedding shop I got as a First Communion gift still had all its parts.

The sliding glass door in the sunroom had a child-proof lock stuck to the top of the glass, a protective measure replacing the wooden stick we used to wedge in the bottom of the door track.

Dad’s flowers are blooming in the pool area and in the garden at the end of the yard. He told us his vision for the wildflower patch and let the girls pick their own bouquets to bring inside.

We watched as Eastern Bluebirds nested in the white bird box. He mentioned the Goldfinches are gone and that he’s trying to figure out how to get them back.

The baby napped in the room at the top of the stairs that used to be a bedroom, then an office, and now holds a desk and Mom’s sewing machine. It still has the blue-and-gray striped statement wall I painted when I moved back home that one summer.

We sat on the deck and told stories about my little sister, the only one who wasn’t home, then called to tell her we were talking about her.

I showed the girls the stained-glass window my Grandad made when the extension was put on.

We pulled out of the blacktop driveway to head back to the airport. We passed the basketball pole that no longer has a hoop, ever since my sister’s friend broke it in the early 2000’s.

“Make sure to use the turnaround,” Dad said.

Just like he used to.