Page 58 of Creeping Beautiful

The gate is open when we pull up to it and each one of us sucks in a long breath and lets it out, afraid of what we’ll find at the end of this journey that started out long, but now seems way too short.

Donovan gives the truck some gas and we slowly ease our way down the long, winding driveway until we see the front porch of the white semi-Victorian mansion come into view.

Half of it is lit up with moonlight, the other side dark.

Perfect analogy, if you ask me. That’s been my experience in life since the beginning.

You can’t ever see everything at once.

It’s gotten to a point now that I don’t even expect it.

Old Home is in better shape than I thought it would be. There are hedges that line the driveway along the main portion of the house. And the gardens have been kept up. I can’t see much in the dark, and it’s winter, so there’s not much to see anyway. But the short hedges trimming the edges of the geometrically-shaped beds all appear sharp in the moonlight, like people are trimming them regularly.

There are two massive pecan trees that flank either side of the porch and their boughs grow together across the front walkway, making a canopy that only adds to the charm of this old home.

“Is Adam even here?” I ask, looking around for his truck. Not that I know what he drives these days. We’ve talked a few times, but I literally have not seen him since the day of Indie’s twentieth birthday.

Right over there. I track to the spot where I last saw him getting into his truck.

And then he was gone.

Donovan was inside taking care of Indie and I was… I glance over at the pavilion, which looks empty and unkept. I was… dealing with Nathan.

Donovan cuts the engine. “He said he would be.” Then he opens his door and that all-too-familiar open-door alarm ding silences the chorus of crickets for a moment. But they recover and then it hits me.

We’re here.

After four long years we’re actually here.

We all get out of my truck and walk up to the porch. Stand at the bottom and look up at the house.

I lived here. With Indie and Adam. For ten years, we lived here. And even though I’ve spent the better part of four years away from this place—trying to forget this place—the moment my eyes find the front door, the past slams into to me like a wall of sticky heat on an August afternoon.

I’m back there.

Back in that moment when Indie got out of another truck—Adam’s truck. Dressed up in jean shorts and t-shirt. Long, blonde hair tied up in a crooked ponytail.

I knew it.

From the moment I first saw her, I knew we’d end up here. Staring up at an empty house, thinking back on empty years, wondering where it all went wrong.

But we all know the answer to that question.

Here.

This is where it all went wrong.

PART TWO - TRIPPIN' ON SNAKES

Finding that truth is messy. That’s about the only way to define the in-between time when fantasy and reality are still fighting for control.

It’s a long, winding road of ‘this is’, and ‘that isn’t’, and ‘we are’, and ‘we aren’t’. And sometimes you get a little lost along the way. Or you stumble off the path, sidetracked.

You’re still inside the walls. Still safe for now. But the gate is unlocked or the there’s a crack in the stone where small, slithering things can get in and out.

But this is when you really need to take a good hard look at those snakes under your feet and ask yourself that question again.

Do you really need to know the truth?