Homecoming

“Are you sure you went the right way?” I asked my wife for the fourth time since we entered the city limits of her childhood hometown. The fog was thick, the temperature was dropping rapidly, and it seemed as if we’d been driving for hours. It wasn’t that I wasn’t eager to finally meet her family; it was that I was cold, hungry, and needed to pee.

“Lisa,” Andi said in that snide, condescending I absolutely hated, “are you saying I don’t know the way to my father’s house? I did kind of live here, oh, all of my life until I left for college.” She signaled for a left turn, and gently turned into it, anticipating the pothole that we lurched over. “They still haven’t fixed this.” She sighed. “Nothing ever changes around here.”

I glanced out of the window, wary of the dense fog and desertedness of the street. “It looked like this when you lived here?”

She clicked her tongue in my direction but otherwise ignored me. I noticed her grip tighten on the steering wheel as she brought the car to a stop. “It should be right...here,” she said flatly, staring at an empty field. “Why is it not here?”

“Andi, what’s going on? Where’s the house?”

“I don’t know, Lisa!” Andi snapped. “I just talked to my dad yesterday! Everything was fine. What the hell..?”

I knew it wouldn’t help things, but I felt the need to clarify. “This is where your father’s house should be, right? And you’re sure you went the right way? It has been a few years since you’ve been here.”

“Nothing ever changes around here,” Andi repeated her earlier statement. She shifted, and dug her phone from her pocket. “I’m calling my dad.” She frantically tapped her screen. I twisted in my seat to face her, as she hit the green “call” button. From somewhere outside of our car, in the direction of the foggy field, a phone began to chirp insistently. I looked at Andi. She gaped at me, and threw the car into gear - but nothing happened. The air around us was strangely still.

“Nothing ever changes around here,” she muttered as reached over and clasped my hand. A street light flickered on, with ominous and suspicious timing, and the fog grew thicker.

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