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I hadn’t been back to Rockport, Indiana in nearly six years. Life got busy, work, the kids, the usual excuses that feel valid until they don’t. Mom would call and ask when we’d be coming up. I always said, “Soon.” But “soon” kept slipping away.
It wasn’t until I was cleaning out an old desk drawer and came across a birthday card from Dad that something tugged at me. The card was simple, but he’d written, “Don’t wait too long to come home, son.” He passed away last winter.
So I made the trip. Just me this time.
The town hadn’t changed much; the old IGA was still open, though half the shelves were empty. The gas station had turned into a vape shop. But when I pulled into the driveway, the porch light was on. Mom never turned it off, even in the daytime.
She opened the door like she’d been expecting me.
We sat at the kitchen table, the same one with the nick from when I tried to open a soda bottle with a butter knife back in high school. The air smelled like cinnamon and something else I couldn’t quite place, maybe age.
She started talking about the neighbor boy who mowed the lawn now. About how the church had switched pastors, and the new one didn’t sing as well as the last. About how she’d had a little fall in the garden but was fine. I didn’t know any of this. And it hit me hard—how much I’d missed, how much had changed without me even noticing.
She poured coffee into mismatched mugs. Mine had a chip on the rim. She said, “I didn’t want to tell you all this over the phone. I figured you’d come when you were ready.”
I stayed two nights. We didn’t do anything special, just talked, watched some game shows, ate leftover meatloaf. But I left with a quiet ache and a promise to myself not to wait so long again.
