A.C. McAnelly

I'd lived in the mountains my whole life, landlocked with only a nearby river barely broad enough to warrant a bridge as my main source of water.

But once my parents passed in a car accident, I was sent back to live with my mother's people, to live with my Aunt Lydia, who I had only met once when I was very small, and she had come to visit us.

She'd send us postcards every once in a while, but that was it.

I remembered her being kind and funny, but she was still a stranger.

Not much different than the kind of strangers in my hometown that took me in at first.

I dreaded being stuck in a car with her for hours, but she made it easier than I thought it would be.

That she gave me choices meant she was trying, but I was still wary of her.

Music is fine for now.

But even I couldn't stand not talking for hours.

The first hour of the trip, I tried to sleep, but the sun was in my face the whole time.

So I decided to get a few questions answered.

Why didn't you visit more?

I did ask.

I asked Mom that a lot.

She said it was too much money for all three of us to travel to see you and that there was no way she would send me here alone.

Said she couldn't bear the thought of being that far away from me.

Is there more than just you?

Do I have more aunts?

Is that why you never came to visit?

You had to be the Delmar that managed the ancestral home?