Bringing Home the Duncan Phyfe Chapter 6-A

[I meant to include this before shifting gears in chapter 6-B .]

The morning after that first shared night in a hotel, my mother opened her eyes to the soft sliver of light that seeps through drawn curtains. She studied the valance at the top and liked how the room belonged together. The wallpaper seemed to match the bedspread, which matched the cushion on the little chair (that Dad did not prop against the door). She liked that the bathroom had a switch and not a string and especially that it was not shared. A deep breath of contentment filled her, but to her surprise, it came out in a sad sigh.
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On the nightstand beside the bed was a phone she knew would never ring since no one knew where they were. This reminded her of a wish she'd been holding in since the waking hours of the day before. She did not know how to bring up the subject with her husband of less than two days, but lying there in that perfect moment gave her the courage to try.

Mom was homesick. For twenty years, her waking moments had been filled familiar sounds beyond her door. Even when she was grown and out of school, the elders of the house rose first to yawn in the mirror, fumbling through the blind patterns of life and the unwritten score of living. The dull rattle of cast iron pans; the squeak of the bathroom faucet; the tread of feet on the stair; and the tones of distant, disconnected conversation. All this was missing in that otherwise perfect moment. She'd never been homesick in her life because she had never been away from home. She took in another deep breath that stammered out like a child's silent sob.

"What's wrong, Bev." Dad whispered.

"Nothing...." she sighed again, shaking the bed ever so slightly with the trembling breath. Dad sat up and looked at her in the dim light.

"Well, something's wrong."

"No, it's not. I'm fine. Really." She looked up and tried to smile past her brimming eyes. "Don, If I promise to keep the phone call short, do you think I could call home when we get to Washington? Just for a minute. I want tell the folks we're fine and how nice everything is?"

"Is that all that's wrong? Are you sure? I don't know what the rates are from DC to Port Huron, but If you want to call home, I don't mind. You can do it right now if you want."

"No. I want to wait 'til we get there. That'll be even better."
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Homesickness is as hard to explain as the feeling of home itself. It's a longing, a sort of hunger. But rather than an empty growl in the stomach it puts an aching lump in the throat. It hits everyone differently I suppose. For Dad it was a sense of uncertainty that he could replace Mom’s longing for home with a new feeling equally strong. It had not occurred to him to call home because the courtesy of such a call might make him feel less on his own, a feeling just as important to a man as feeling at home is to a woman. Newlywed men in that age (and at that age) sometimes struggled as they walked the fine line between indifference and independence.
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Mom and Dad both called home that night. Mom's was the longer call.
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