A Bus Trip To Rome
I could feel a slight breeze blow a chill on my bare legs, but the setting sun presented enough warmth to prevent goose bumps from forming. Most of the days in Baldwin, Georgia are warm. Which was why I usually wear a knee-high skirt of brown cotton and a thin flowery dress shirt. Growing up in a small southern town taught me to dress modestly.
With my coat in hand, I stood timidly awaiting John to finish reviewing father’s letter and the instructions to find his home. For six years I haven’t seen or heard from father after he left mother for another woman. Angry because he left her, mother allowed me no connect from father. Than last week, right before my seventeenth birthday, a letter arrived. I guess mother figured she had been bitter long enough and allowed me too read it. I had no clue that he had been writing to me over the six years. So when all this news about his new life reached me it was kind of a shock.
Apparently after Father had left Mother, he had married the other woman. A four-year-old and two-year-old was the product of his six years of absence. They traveled about the country and had finally moved back to Georgia. Now he wishes for me to visit him in his new home at Rome, Georgia, almost 200 miles away by road. I have mix feelings about him, though the strongest one was eagerness to see him. I still love my father after all this time. Except I didn’t know how my welcome would be received there, that is why I had asked John to come along with me. It seems like a tangle of black berry vines; I just hope no thorns prick me.
As I waited for John to finish reading, I noticed our similar height and build. Plus the fact our eyes and hair were the same color of light brown. Our builds were both slim and sleek with few defined muscles, except I possessed a few modest feminine curves. It was as if we were twins who had been separated at birth in the way our appearances matched. Though our personalities were as opposite as our genders.
John’s bold and out-going nature had caused me to loss some of my timid and meek ways. However, I was still shy in public, which was apparent in my stance and blank, oval face with wide eyes. John possessed a masculine face with a clef chin and square jaw. Yet still retained round cheeks from his childhood. His light brown eyes gazed down at the letter, reading it with a furrowed brow. The wind tousled his combed brown hair and rustled his tucked in white T-shirt.
Looking up at me with his broad and disarming smile he said, “I am glad you asked me to come along. With all these stops along the way you’d get lost.” He chuckled and shirked from my outward swinging hand.
“Ma wouldn’t let me go that far alone anyway,” I said in the southern way of speaking I had learned. Smiling back at him I said, “Besides it will give you a chance to meet Pa”. A silent second passed before I spoke again, “I don’t want to go there alone…It would be too tense”.
A loud speaker voice with a Southern accent broke over head causing John and I to look up at a speaker over the terminal. The male southern voice said, “Bus to Gainesville will be departing in two minutes. All passengers are advised to load all baggage at this moment.” A few passengers began to load their things in the storage compartment below the bus and go into the white and blue Gray Hound bus. It was amazing that others were actually using this small town, single shack bus station that had only a single bus. Most of the time it was only used for transportation to Toccoa, in the other direction, where some people worked.
“Got your ticket,” John asked me. I responded by showing my ticket and smiling casually at him. Raising my eyebrows in an inquiring look, I silently asked if he had his. He pulled out his own ticket that matched mine. John lifted his hard leather suitcase to load it on the soon departing bus. I tugged up my large duffel bag and placed the strap on my small shoulder. And so we left to meet my father’s new family in Rome, Georgia.