Chapter Text
Pulling away from the house I’ve called home since birth is a weird feeling. We’re in my dad’s Subaru. Pilar and I are in the backseat with a cooler between us and our parents are in the front. We're about to start our twenty-two-and-a-half-hour drive to our new home in Pennsylvania. When our dad came home from work last month and told us we were moving across the country, it was sort of a shock. We were already prepping for the fall Marching Band season in Graham, and I had no idea what to even say, not just to my parents, but to my teachers, and even more so to my friends. Our parents didn’t really give us a full explanation of why we were moving even; all they said was my dad got a new, better paying job in Pennsylvania, and that we were leaving on the first to drive across the country.
When Dad makes the right off Canyon Rd onto 16 to head toward town, Pilar is already furiously typing into her phone. This whole thing is going to be a lot harder on her than it is me, I think. She’s never done well with change. I’m actually sort of looking forward to a fresh start and even though we’re moving to an almost equally small town, it’s in the north and I have some sort of hope that it might be a little more open-minded than Texas. There’s never been room to be different in Graham; especially not the kind of different I’m pretty sure I am. I have no way of knowing for sure, because even so much as saying it’s a possibility would end with a profound lack of friends and maybe even a lack of family.
My mom was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Graham before she started school. My dad was born in Graham, but Abuela Nati and Tito moved here from Colombia before he was born. They’re all Catholic, very Catholic, and very conservative. I’m talking mass on Sunday, small groups on Wednesday, no sex before marriage, get married at eighteen and have babies Catholic, but it worked for my parents. They got married right after high school while my dad was training to be an electrician and had me a year later and Pilar a year after that. I’m pretty sure they were just meant to be, or I was until a couple months ago when they suddenly started arguing every night. I guess, I’m also kind of hoping this move is going to help them figure out whatever the hell is going on between them, because I have no idea how much more Pilar and I can handle.
Dad drives up sixteen past Walmart and pretty much everything else interesting about Graham and into town. I try to take in my surroundings more than I usually would, because I have no idea when the next time we’ll be back here is. He turns to stay on sixteen after we get through town and the route is familiar for a while basically just vast open land on both sides, Texas Hill Country at its finest. We pass through the occasional tiny town and just over half an hour after leaving home, we merge onto to two-eighty-one to go toward Wichita Falls. Once we get through the city he merges onto a real highway, interstate forty-four, and things start moving quicker. We cross into Oklahoma fifteen minutes later and everything is just open land again for half an hour until Lawton. There’re a couple small towns, but we’re on the H.E. Bailey Turnpike heading across Oklahoma, so they pass in blurs. I’m listening to music on my phone with my air pods in, because I can’t stand the weird Spanish music my parents have on the radio.
The turnpike ends and turns back into a regular highway as we enter the Oklahoma City metro area just before noon. Dad merges onto interstate forty to head east in the middle of the city, and I try to appreciate the views of the Oklahoma River outside my window. He gets off the highway and pulls into a McDonald’s parking lot as we’re almost to the end of the city. We get lunch and everything’s a little weird, honestly. We don’t really do family vacations, so this is the longest we’ve all been crammed into the car together, I think ever. My mom’s trying to make it exciting for us, but it’s not happening. Pilar just rolls her eyes, and I smile and nod. Dad hasn’t said much at all, and it just feels strange.
When we’re back in the car, Pilar and I both put our air pods in, and Dad gets back on the highway. A few miles later we merge back onto interstate forty-four eastbound which is Turner Turnpike on this side of the city, and we’re in the suburbs. An hour and a half after Oklahoma City is Tulsa which is a huge sprawling city and then the turnpike changes names again to Will Rogers and we keep driving. An hour and a half after that, just after four-thirty, we enter Missouri. Just over an hour after that, we stop for dinner on the other side of Springfield. We eat at a Golden Corral which is fine. It’s nothing special, but it’s fine. We stay there for just over an hour and then my dad says we should get going, so we walk back to the car.
It’s open land mixed with small towns again until we reach the Saint Louis metro area three hours later. My mom says we should probably stop for the night soon and my dad agrees, so he gets off the next exit and we check into a run-down old Hampton Inn for the night. Pilar and I have to share a double bed, and she complains about it for half an hour. No one sleeps well, other than my dad. He snores too loud for any of the rest of us to get much sleep. I usually don’t mind, since I’ve grown up with it, but when he’s in the same room it’s too much and it seems Pilar agrees.
We eat Breakfast in the hotel lobby and then get back into the car. There’s a Starbucks visible from the parking lot and Pilar begs until my dad agrees to go through the drive thru for her. I get an iced coffee too, because honestly with how little sleep I got, I’m going to need something to get me through this day.
We’re back on the highway just before ten. It takes a little over twenty minutes to get through Saint Louis, and as we’re crossing into Illinois, you can actually see the Gateway Arch out the left-hand windows which is pretty cool, I guess. Interstate forty-four runs into interstate fifty-five which runs into interstate seventy and then we’re heading east again through rural Illinois. Two and a half hours later, we cross into Indiana and a few exits after that, we stop at a Popeye’s for lunch.
My mom points out that we changed time zones while we’re eating, and I look at my phone. It’s already one-forty-five. I ask if we’re going to make it today and my dad says he’d like to. My mom says we should get going, so we’re not too late. My parents had paid for someone to drive a huge truck with all of our furniture to the new place a couple days ago and they’d video chatted with them while they placed it where it belonged in the new apartment. We have a little U-Haul trailer behind the car with our clothing and small items, but almost everything else is just waiting for us in the new apartment.
After lunch, it’s about an hour until we’re passing through Indianapolis and an hour and a half after that until we’re crossing into Ohio. It’s almost six when we’re entering the city of Columbus. My mom says we should stop for dinner and no one’s really that hungry yet because of the time change, but my dad gets off the highway and pulls into the parking lot of an Arby’s anyway. I think Pilar is even more angry than she was when we were leaving Graham at this point, and I’m really hoping we can make it tonight, because I do not want to share a bed with her again.
We only stop for fifteen minutes before we’re back on the road. My mom's looking at the GPS. “Mando, it’s still more than six hours,” she says.
“I know, Isa.”
“Do you think maybe we should go a little further and then stop. We can do the last couple hours in the morning?”
“You have that appointment at the school tomorrow morning.”
“No. It’s on Tuesday,” she corrects.
“Oh,” he says. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go a few more hours tonight though. Then we can get there by lunchtime tomorrow and have the afternoon to unpack.”
My mom agrees and then we’re pulling out of Arby’s and merging back onto the highway as I start my music again. Two hours later at almost eight-thirty, we cross briefly into West Virginia, but only twenty minutes after that we’re finally in Pennsylvania. “Thank fuck,” Pilar grumbles when we pass the welcome sign.
“PILAR!” my mom shouts and my sister groans.
“Sorry. We’ve just been in this car forever.”
Twenty minutes later we’re in a town called Washington and my mom points when there’s a sign for yet another Hampton Inn. My dad agrees and pulls off the highway. Pilar doesn’t complain about the bed this time. I think we’re all just exhausted and ready to be there. The next morning, we eat breakfast in the lobby and then get back into the car. Pilar doesn’t even beg for coffee today, so we’re on the road just after eight-thirty.
Forty-five minutes after we pull out of the hotel parking lot, Dad takes a toll ticket as we enter the Pennsylvania Turnpike. An hour later, there’s a sign for a service plaza that has a Starbucks, and the coffee gene kicks in. “Can we stop for coffee, please?” Pilar asks, pulling an air pod out of her left ear.
“Huh?” my dad says, glancing in the rearview mirror.
“Coffee. There’s a Starbucks at the plaza.”
“Oh, yeah, sure,” he says, and he merges into the right lane.
It takes maybe fifteen minutes for us to all get coffee and use the bathroom and then we’re back on the road. “Only a little over two hours,” my mom announces as she restarts the GPS. There’s a whole lot of nothing out the windows until just over an hour later. It’s almost noon and we’re almost to an exit for Carlisle. We get through the town and then there’s fields for a few more miles before we’re in another town that I couldn’t tell you the name of because there’s not an exit. This one seems to bleed into the next one and then we’re crossing a river.
My mom glances at the GPS again. “Forty minutes!”
“Should we stop for lunch or just wait until we get there?” my dad asks. I look at the time. It’s twelve-thirty.
“Let’s wait until we’re off the toll road,” my mom says. “We can stop somewhere in our new town.”
My dad nods awkwardly and keeps driving. “We’re the next exit,” he says. There’s a little bit of town on the other side of the river, but then it’s open land again. A combination of fields and forest. Twenty more minutes and we’re getting off at an exit that appears to be in the middle of literal nowhere but says it’s for Lancaster/Lebanon. We turn left and we’re literally driving into a forest. A few miles later, we take an exit to the right for route three-twenty-two that says Ephrata. “That’s us!” my dad says. I’m not sure if he’s actually excited or just pretending to be, but honestly, I kind of am. I’m not only ready to be out of this car, but I’m ready to actually see this place in person rather than in pictures and on video chat.
Less than ten minutes later and we’re finally out of the woods. Granted, we still seem to be in the middle of nowhere. There’s not much of anything, but at least there are houses instead of trees along the road. Five minutes after that, there’s an ice cream shop on the left and it looks like it must be pretty good because the parking lot is almost completely full.
“Would it be terrible if we have ice cream for lunch?” my dad asks.
“Absolutely not!” I say. Everyone laughs, and he turns into the parking lot. The ice cream is actually amazing, and it turns out they have food, too, so we don’t have to actually eat ice cream for lunch. We’re there for maybe half an hour before my mom says we should go so we can unpack, and my dad agrees so we go back to the car.
It’s less than ten minutes later when my dad parks on a street across from some apartment buildings. “This is it Salazars!” he says, and we all get out of the car.
“Ooh, Armando!” my mom says, and I’m not sure if she’s serious or not. “It looks nice! What a great building! I think we’re gonna be really happy here.” My dad puts his arm around her shoulders.
Pilar is holding her phone to her ear when she walks up next to me from the other side of the car, and I guess she’s talking to Eric. “I miss you so much. I would crawl back to Texas on broken glass just to have five more minutes with you.”
“Pilar, say goodbye to your boyfriend,” my mom says. “I’m trying to have a nice family moment here.”
“My kidnappers are making me hang up,” she says into the phone. “Send help.” Then I watch as she ends the call.
“Hey, can you cheer up?” I tell her. “Maybe Pennsylvania won’t be so bad.”
“Mom and Dad made me move fifteen hundred miles away from the love of my life. If you had a girlfriend, you’d understand.”
“Yeah,” I say. This already. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
We start walking across the street. “We’ll come get everything in a minute. Let’s just go see the place first,” my mom says.
The inside of the building is old, but it’s not bad. My dad unlocks the door to our apartment which is to the right on the second floor. The entry way is a little narrow and the kitchen’s a little small, but we walk to the living room and my mom smiles. “Oh! Mi amor!” she says, putting her hand on my dad’s cheek.
“Huh? You like it?”
“I do. I do.”
“What’d I tell ya?” he says. The apartment is nice. It’s not massive by any means, but there’s enough space for everything. The couch, armchairs, and entertainment center are already in the living room, and the table and dining chairs are in the dining room. There’s this little balcony off the main room where I’m sure my mom’s going to plant way too many flowers in the spring.
Back the hallway there’s a coat closet on the right, across from my bedroom which has a window facing the street. Then Pilar’s room is after mine, across from our bathroom and the washer and dryer. At the end of the hall is my parents’ room, and they have their own smaller bathroom attached. It’s smaller than our house back in Texas, but it’s fine. It’s perfect, honestly. A fresh start in a new state is exactly what this family needs; exactly what I need.