by Sonja Lutz

Created on: April 15, 2008

Heading Home

There he was, standing rod-like in the small breakfast room. My eyes darted toward him as I slowly opened the screen door and pulled my two-year old to my chest. This wasn't going to be easy. I desperately hoped that he had already drunk his first beer to "calm his nerves," as he put it. The summer before when we lived in his house, breakfast was scarcely over before he would announce, "I think I'll have a beer. Those pancakes are sitting heavy on my stomach." But there was no beer can on the table yet. My stomach churned

No greeting; his tight eyes glared at me.

"Why are you here?"

My brain scrambled as I searched for the right words. Yet, I knew that no matter what I said, nothing would satisfy him.

I tried to look him straight in the eyes, but it was always hard with Sug. Sug? Sugar? They called him Sug, but he certainly wasn't sweet. Every taut muscle in his body screamed control. The refrigerator door had to be closed within seconds after opening. Cans had to be lined up with labels facing front on the shelves. I knew him well.

Drops of sweat slowly trickled between my breasts as I searched for the right words.

"I left. Phil said to come here. He thought you and Evelyn would want to see your grandson while we wait."

"You left? You left your husband, and you expect to come here and have us take you in? Don't you know you have to stand behind your husband in everything he does?"

Words fired in my mind. He would never understand. He had never worked for two dollars a week. He hadn't seen the vacant-eyed dropouts sitting at long wooden tables waiting for pancakes, where the smell of smoke from the wood stoves filled the common room. Nor had he seen the bedrooms-windows shrouded by sheets and lumpy mattresses covered with scraps of Madras print. He had never lived with rats, roaches, incense, pot, and free love. He would never know the caged anxiety of seeing cardboard signs scribbled with large, black letters, "Keep Out. Trespassers will be experimented upon."

"It wasn't a real school. There weren't classes. It wasn't organized."

"So you just took off cross country and left? You were only there six weeks?

He didn't want to understand. I had escaped while I still had a chance. The commune had taken all our money, except for my secret cache. Soon they would have confiscated our orange and beige VW bus. Phil wasn't ready to leave, but I had to go while I still had a van and money for gas.

"I left while I had a chance. I love your son. I want my child to have a father, but not there. Phil's coming in a few weeks. He said he would."

"What the hell kind of wife are you? You took your vows till death do you part, and you can't even stay with your husband's work for two months? I knew that it would come to this. Go on home to your own folks. Maybe he'll come and maybe he won't, but you can't stay here."

My throat tightened. My head throbbed. Phil was wrong again. I should have known better. As I pushed through the door and ran to the van, words tumbled in my mind. "Home is where they have to take you in." I was trying to remember who said them, and if I had enough gas to get there.

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