by Katie George
Chapter Forty
Sarah
HER MOTHER, BROTHER, and sister stood on the hearth, watching from the pretty mansion. In the afternoon glow, Sarah could almost taste the tears ready to seep from her eye sockets. Her mom was growing older, like everyone else, but there would be a day when Sarah would never see any of her family members again, and this terrified her. Young Zach, as carefree and youthful as he liked to be, would begin junior high in a few short weeks, while Alison’s growing belly protruded outward. The woman still had a grim smile, but it was happier than it ever had been before.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah looked over at the rosebushes lining the property, and she called out, “Are you serious?”
Only the hum of birdsong responded.
“Joey! Get out of those darn bushes!”
The kid stood up, binoculars wrapped around his neck, before smiling, waving, and running as fast as he could down the street to his house.
Sarah hopped into the Mercedes, its windows down, her hand dangling from the window. Would she ever see these people again? This life was precarious. Her life was basically like a fish on a string hanging from a precipice. She could fall anytime, and death would follow. Or she could move backward, to safety, toward knowledge.
As the Mercedes owned by her father sped down the coastal road, Sarah blinked back salty tears. She blinked back the sting of all she’d leave behind, and she realized bitterly that she wouldn’t be back for another year. Her sophomore year was dedicated to studying abroad at a university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This separation, this wad of emotional instability, pulsated underneath her skin.
“Sarah-bedera, are you okay?” Scott asked, turning down the radio.
“Dad, I’m fine. Turn the music up, please.”
He did as he was told.
Sarah stared out into the breakers, at the whitecaps, at the hint of what lurked in that deep, wide, dark, blue void. Oh, how she would miss it.
Oh, how she would miss it all.
After all, this was her home.
Epilogue
SHE WAS IN town for a few weeks. Zach had picked her up at the airport, in his new ritzy Mustang, a present from their parents for his graduation and full scholarship to the University of Alabama. It was bright red, the color of American blood, and it sped down the road like a dream. The top was down, and Sarah joked with her brother about how her parents had never considered getting her a convertible.
“You went to California,” he reminded her with a smile.
“Alabama is a ways away.”
“Yeah, and I would also consider the Pantanal a little far away too, Miss Anthropologist. You’re the only person I’ve ever met who has been so brave she left her entire Georgia family for California, and then her entire California family for Brazil. You’re crazy.”
“Not everyone can be a genius, Zach.”
He swatted her.
As they drove home, the place Sarah truly considered home, she thought of her last conversation with her friend Karli. Little Christina was now six-years-old. Time had passed in a blur, just like everyone had always said and always would. Sarah came back every summer to older faces, wiser minds, and new babies.
When Zach pulled into town proper, and the salty air returned in full force, Sarah laughed. “It’s still humid here, but nothing like where I live now.”
“Again, you’re crazy.”
They stopped at a light at Edmonton and Arizona. Sarah dangled a hand into the air. “Oh, Zachary. You’re so old now. Driving around your big sister.”
“I’m old? Look in the mirror.”
A car pulled closer to them. The driver lowered the window of his new, four-door Jeep. The woman beside him was fanning herself with a magazine. For a moment, Joel forgot about his wife, the woman he loved more than anything in the world, and he stared at the red sports car.
“Hey, isn’t that Zach Towson?” asked his wife.
“Yes. Yes, it is,” Joel breathed. He recognized the brown hair blowing in the breeze as the sports car moved forward.
A thousand little memories tingled up his spine. Joel smiled at the girl he knew, and the boy he used to be.
He turned to his wife and squeezed her hand.
“Does he have a new girlfriend? I thought Zach was dating Eliana.”
“He is. That’s his sister. She’s just someone I used to know. Went to high school together. Really nice person.”
“Oh, really?” His wife cocked an eyebrow.
“Yup.” Then the Jeep turned right, and the Mustang headed straight.